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Reference Material - Make Sure You Save the Right Things
September 2nd, 2008 by StephenPosted in GTD, How To -, Links, Organizer, Productivity |
Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog
I found this little piece of wisdom at Behance Magazine, and felt that it needed a bit more exploration: Tip: References Are Overrated from Behance Magazine
Behance did a very unscientific study of how we use our own reference items. Over the past three years, we have accumulated 4 faux-leather-bound plastic sleeve books full of magazine cut-outs, printouts, and book excerpts on creative people. The first thing we found was dust.
It seems that these invaluable references were not as valuable as they appeared. While we plan to someday flip through them, we seldom do. In the age of Google and some kick-ass blogs, we tend to turn to the mighty might web for information. What is the point of keeping 600 reference items if you seldom refer to them? If you are bored or need to be inspired, and the internet connection is down, then maybe…
When Reference Items are Used Well
However, there was one book that had no dust and was centrally located in our office. “Take-Out Menus” was a compilation of restaurants in the area. It seems that the title for this collection of reference items was specific enough to make the collection useful. If we had titled the collection “Random Mailings” and included the other coupons and marginally helpful items we receive in the mail, then we would probably refer to the collection less frequently. The lesson: tag or title each reference file with a SPECIFIC name, rather than something generic.
No, the lesson is that the staff at Behance Magazine are saving and filing the wrong things. Yes, tagging and titling are important, but like the author says collecting info on “creative people” from magazines and books is kind of silly when this info lives on the web. It is when that info can not be found on the web that it needs to be saved.
I would also recommend to the staff at Behance that they do an annual review each year, and purge or archive those types of files and materials that they do not use or need anymore. Letting things like clippings, books and magazines pile up just causes mental and physical clutter that reduces personal and team productivity.
What are your thoughts on saving things for reference? Do you have a big stack of magazines that you never look at?
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September 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Dear Stephen,
Your article is very timely. I have a 2 drawer file cabinet behind my desk. The bottom drawer is devoted to reference material, much of it on the GTD process, and much of it from you posts (LOL). I was thinking how little I use it, mainly because it’s all lumped together and mainly because I simply don’t use it. So with this article in mind, I will now purge and re-file. BTW - I too have a file of take-out menus and refer to it more often than my little used filed drawer. It seems as if food is a bigger priority! :-)
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I had a lot of magazines. I threw most away. The rest I ripped out what I found interesting and scanned using the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510. Virtual reference systems always seems much easier to manage than paper clutter.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:24 am
>>Claire, good for you - and thanks for saving my articles ;-) They would most likely be more useful to you if you were to keep one text file for reference on your computer with links to the articles you found most helpful.
>>Andy-Good tip for digitizing the magazines, I have done some of that myself - and store them in UltraRecall.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I agree that it’s a very timely post! Perhaps the moon is in a purging phase. Stuff I thought I needed to keep it turns out I never refer to, so I’m dumping most of it. Information comes in at such a rapid pace it’s challenging enough to absorb current materials, much less revisit old stuff. It used to be the rule of thumb that we only acccess 20% of what we file. With search engines at our fingertips I think we access even less of the paper stuff now.
What reference things I do file I keep where it will help me the most. Like in a “Blog Ideas” sleeve instead of an “articles” file.
I do keep issues of Runners World (though I probably shouldn’t), but other than that, magazines go within a few months.