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The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff
Why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how design of new PIM systems can help us manage our information more efficiently. Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff. In this book, personal information management (PIM) experts Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker explain why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how the design of new PIM systems can help us manage our collections more efficiently. Bergman and Whittaker report that many of us use hierarchical folders for our personal digital organizing. Critics of this method point out that information is hidden from sight in folders that are often within other folders so that we have to remember the exact location of information to access it. Because of this, information scientists suggest other search, more flexible than navigating folders; tags, which allow multiple categorizations; and group information management. Yet Bergman and Whittaker have found in their pioneering PIM research that these other methods that work best for public information management don't work as well for personal information management. Bergman and Whittaker describe personal information collection as we preserve and organize this data to ensure our future access to it. Unlike other information management fields, in PIM the same user organizes and retrieves the information. After explaining the cognitive and psychological reasons that so many prefer folders, Bergman and Whittaker propose the user-subjective approach to PIM, which does not replace folder hierarchies but exploits these unique characteristics of PIM.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published October 26, 2016
23 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 13, 2018
I wanted to like this. I've been using computers for 30 years & I'm terrible at filing, so my PIM (Personal Information Management) isn't very good - or so I thought. Apparently I'm far above the average because I found this incredibly repetitious, bone dry, & - worst of all - it didn't have a lick of new information.
It was narrated in a monotone in an outline format. The introduction was long, pretty well summed up the information in the first 3 chapters & all of them had repeated information between them. I tried skipping along through chapters, then from chapter to chapter, & finally gave up. This is worse than an Idiot's Guide.
I saw a lot of very positive reviews about this book & don't understand them at all. I thought all of this would have been obvious to anyone who'd used a computer for any length of time. That is plain scary.
Some quick tips:
- When available, use multiple tags. You never know which one will tweak your memory on a given day.
- Use a password manager & always edit each site immediately to put it into its proper folder along with notes on security questions. (Misspell your mother's maiden name!) That gets rid of half your bookmarks & the need to remember most of your passwords. Use a phrase for your main password.
- Use a major web account for all your personal email & keep your inbox clean. Every month or so, clean out any old emails. For those you really want to keep, print them to PDF (CutePDF is free.) & save them in a folder on your hard drive. You can keep them in your email box too. They'll be easier to find & are more portable, but anything over 6 months old doesn't require a warrant to read.
- Create a custom filing system on your hard drive(s), don't just dump everything in "My Documents". A big plus is the c:\1 drive. That's a temp folder that is at the top of the list, easy to find & use. Dump everything there & put it away - or delete everything occasionally. Keeps the dross down.
- Backup your hard drive. CrashPlan is an inexpensive online backup, but a USB drive is just as good. Allway Sync is good, cheap backup software. Check your backup occasionally! Better yet, use 2 drives & backup the backup every week or month.
- Always save in major, well known formats such as .rtf, txt, or pdf for docs. Pictures in jpg, tiff, or bmp (the last is huge, but not lossy.) HTML or pdf for web pages. Sure, Adobe or even Microsoft could go out of business, but those formats will still be supported for a really long time.
- Save pictures by date. Make a folder with the year & create subfolders with month, day, plus a short description (example: 20180312-Pets_FamilyVisit makes a great folder name.) Make a short text file with some further description. Try to name everyone that appears in the pictures. Your kids won't know who your friends are.
I learned a lot of this the hard way.
- Create folders for the major items in your life: People, Letters, pets, house, garden, etc. Create subfolders with the names & main files that you can update. ("(date) had dew claws removed") Create more subfolders as needed. Will you store letters from the vet under 'Letters', 'Pets', or some subfolder under that? Who knows? If one bill has 2 pets, the document will at least tell you what to look for & when. Try to figure it out & if you get it wrong, you still only have 2 or 3 places to look. From what this book says, I seem to be very squared away in this respect.
- Be very careful of password protecting files or hard drives. I've seen far more documents & spreadsheets lost to corrupted passwords than theft. Always unprotect & save them again in the old version before converting to a new version.
- Files can become corrupted on the original drive & that can overwrite the backup with garbage. Run drive utilities occasionally & if there is any hint of trouble, double check the files & their backups closely. Schedule an automated backup & drive utilities. Don't rely on yourself to think of it because you won't.
- NEVER save anything in proprietary programs or formats. My uncle spent years scanning, naming, & filing his old slides - many of people only he knew. He did so with proprietary HP software that wouldn't work when he upgraded. He continued to do so & the last time he upgraded, my cousin did it for him & lost almost all of them. The program had stashed the files in a place he didn't think to look. sigh.
- Use free services, but be aware they could go away instantly. I adore Pocket for keeping web pages & articles that I'm interested in. Really important pages I print to PDF or save as HTML & save to my hard drive.
Good luck.
It was narrated in a monotone in an outline format. The introduction was long, pretty well summed up the information in the first 3 chapters & all of them had repeated information between them. I tried skipping along through chapters, then from chapter to chapter, & finally gave up. This is worse than an Idiot's Guide.
I saw a lot of very positive reviews about this book & don't understand them at all. I thought all of this would have been obvious to anyone who'd used a computer for any length of time. That is plain scary.
Some quick tips:
- When available, use multiple tags. You never know which one will tweak your memory on a given day.
- Use a password manager & always edit each site immediately to put it into its proper folder along with notes on security questions. (Misspell your mother's maiden name!) That gets rid of half your bookmarks & the need to remember most of your passwords. Use a phrase for your main password.
- Use a major web account for all your personal email & keep your inbox clean. Every month or so, clean out any old emails. For those you really want to keep, print them to PDF (CutePDF is free.) & save them in a folder on your hard drive. You can keep them in your email box too. They'll be easier to find & are more portable, but anything over 6 months old doesn't require a warrant to read.
- Create a custom filing system on your hard drive(s), don't just dump everything in "My Documents". A big plus is the c:\1 drive. That's a temp folder that is at the top of the list, easy to find & use. Dump everything there & put it away - or delete everything occasionally. Keeps the dross down.
- Backup your hard drive. CrashPlan is an inexpensive online backup, but a USB drive is just as good. Allway Sync is good, cheap backup software. Check your backup occasionally! Better yet, use 2 drives & backup the backup every week or month.
- Always save in major, well known formats such as .rtf, txt, or pdf for docs. Pictures in jpg, tiff, or bmp (the last is huge, but not lossy.) HTML or pdf for web pages. Sure, Adobe or even Microsoft could go out of business, but those formats will still be supported for a really long time.
- Save pictures by date. Make a folder with the year & create subfolders with month, day, plus a short description (example: 20180312-Pets_FamilyVisit makes a great folder name.) Make a short text file with some further description. Try to name everyone that appears in the pictures. Your kids won't know who your friends are.
I learned a lot of this the hard way.
- Create folders for the major items in your life: People, Letters, pets, house, garden, etc. Create subfolders with the names & main files that you can update. ("(date) had dew claws removed") Create more subfolders as needed. Will you store letters from the vet under 'Letters', 'Pets', or some subfolder under that? Who knows? If one bill has 2 pets, the document will at least tell you what to look for & when. Try to figure it out & if you get it wrong, you still only have 2 or 3 places to look. From what this book says, I seem to be very squared away in this respect.
- Be very careful of password protecting files or hard drives. I've seen far more documents & spreadsheets lost to corrupted passwords than theft. Always unprotect & save them again in the old version before converting to a new version.
- Files can become corrupted on the original drive & that can overwrite the backup with garbage. Run drive utilities occasionally & if there is any hint of trouble, double check the files & their backups closely. Schedule an automated backup & drive utilities. Don't rely on yourself to think of it because you won't.
- NEVER save anything in proprietary programs or formats. My uncle spent years scanning, naming, & filing his old slides - many of people only he knew. He did so with proprietary HP software that wouldn't work when he upgraded. He continued to do so & the last time he upgraded, my cousin did it for him & lost almost all of them. The program had stashed the files in a place he didn't think to look. sigh.
- Use free services, but be aware they could go away instantly. I adore Pocket for keeping web pages & articles that I'm interested in. Really important pages I print to PDF or save as HTML & save to my hard drive.
Good luck.
July 31, 2018
Not quite what I was expecting from a Gildan Media audiobook. The last twenty or so years I have worked in “content management” software, where storing and finding electronic files is required in order to create value from the content. I’ve read about the research into these issues over the years. This book is a survey of research on how people store files and the mental and technological processes people use to find files in a computer. I’ve always likened the two main ways to find information, browsing through a folder tree structure or searching, to the dichotomy between the sod-busters and the ranchers in the old west. The sod-busters were big on separating their fields, with barbed wire, in order to demark their territory. That is like folders – people use folders to mark, or categorize, their fields. Ranchers were used to the world with no fences and would run their cattle through whatever land was in the way going to high ground or market. This seems like searchers, those who disregard categorizations that have been put in place, writing a narrow or broad search term to find their quarry. The authors recognized these main classifications, but added additional classifications, such as tagging or group tagging. These different ways to categorize and/or search for content are described with seemingly endless academic studies. Who knew there were so many studies done? The compilation showed that every strategy had its place, but people tended toward hierarchy in order to better find their files.
The authors surprisingly disregarded some of the capabilities common in corporate content management software that could be used for personal information management. For one, tags can be displayed as folders, allowing for a broad hierarchy view of your content. Tags should be considered virtual folders. Also, I didn’t catch any mention of using what I’d call “virtual documents”, allowing a single document or file to appear in multiple places in a folder hierarchy. This feature of many content management systems (somewhat duplicated with Windows shortcuts) would solve many of the problems that were brought up, but I didn’t hear it mentioned. Being research-based, the book also underreported some of the newer capabilities in the market – think Google Photos autoclassification of pictures that creates folders of pictures by person in the photo (or even by pet).
I read this book hoping it would provide new perspective on retrieval that I could offer to the people and companies I work with, while also hoping I found a new “better way” to handle my own content management chores with personal photos, emails, documents, and the like. About 80% of the book was about studies that appeared to be very basic. The final 20% is where the authors got around to discussing some alternative strategies. While these were not groundbreaking, they weren’t commonplace in what I’ve seen in the market, and I found this last section of value.
The writing was very repetitive. This is not what you would call a business book. This is an academic book. I wasn’t expecting an academic audiobook from Gildan Media – Your Coach in a Box, who I thought only publishes business books. Had I realized that MIT Press published the hardcover, I’d have been more prepared for the possibility of it being academic. There is nothing practical about managing files in this book. This is not a how-to. If you are looking for methods to put into practice, look elsewhere. Best use of the book - if you are looking for ideas for creating new software to help people manage their personal information, you can find some ideas here, as well as explanations for why people use folders and search.
The authors surprisingly disregarded some of the capabilities common in corporate content management software that could be used for personal information management. For one, tags can be displayed as folders, allowing for a broad hierarchy view of your content. Tags should be considered virtual folders. Also, I didn’t catch any mention of using what I’d call “virtual documents”, allowing a single document or file to appear in multiple places in a folder hierarchy. This feature of many content management systems (somewhat duplicated with Windows shortcuts) would solve many of the problems that were brought up, but I didn’t hear it mentioned. Being research-based, the book also underreported some of the newer capabilities in the market – think Google Photos autoclassification of pictures that creates folders of pictures by person in the photo (or even by pet).
I read this book hoping it would provide new perspective on retrieval that I could offer to the people and companies I work with, while also hoping I found a new “better way” to handle my own content management chores with personal photos, emails, documents, and the like. About 80% of the book was about studies that appeared to be very basic. The final 20% is where the authors got around to discussing some alternative strategies. While these were not groundbreaking, they weren’t commonplace in what I’ve seen in the market, and I found this last section of value.
The writing was very repetitive. This is not what you would call a business book. This is an academic book. I wasn’t expecting an academic audiobook from Gildan Media – Your Coach in a Box, who I thought only publishes business books. Had I realized that MIT Press published the hardcover, I’d have been more prepared for the possibility of it being academic. There is nothing practical about managing files in this book. This is not a how-to. If you are looking for methods to put into practice, look elsewhere. Best use of the book - if you are looking for ideas for creating new software to help people manage their personal information, you can find some ideas here, as well as explanations for why people use folders and search.
June 18, 2019
Recommended with caution. This book is thoroughly researched and supported. It contains many interesting results and insights. However, the style makes it painful to read and simply reading the chapter summaries is sufficient.
The expository format lies in a stylistic no-man's-land: between a research paper and a popular business reference. Thus it ends up serving neither audience well.
For such a short monograph, the writing is unnecessarily repeated. The authors take the "tell them what you will tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them" structure past the point of comfort.
Casual readers will struggle to find actionable advice. Even a reader who is used to some level of scientific formality will consider some of the details pedantic and will find themselves skimming through to extract the key ideas from this book. If you are prepared to do this, it's worth reading.
The expository format lies in a stylistic no-man's-land: between a research paper and a popular business reference. Thus it ends up serving neither audience well.
For such a short monograph, the writing is unnecessarily repeated. The authors take the "tell them what you will tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them" structure past the point of comfort.
Casual readers will struggle to find actionable advice. Even a reader who is used to some level of scientific formality will consider some of the details pedantic and will find themselves skimming through to extract the key ideas from this book. If you are prepared to do this, it's worth reading.
December 2, 2024
Fantastic book! It never occurred to me that how to managing my files could be the object of scientific research. This book opened my eyes to this field and I will pay more attention to it from now on. I came across this book thanks to a brief reference to it in one text about using tags published by Tiago Forte. I enjoyed this book much more than Tiago Forte’s. It shows something I never quite grasped: that the issues I face with my disorganization are very common, most people have exactly the same issues. Now I understand why I hate doing search so much, and also why I hate navigating through endless nested folders.
The authors suggest some improvements to operative systems, namely the use of “demoted” files. Strangely these seem not to have been implemented yet, even though the book is from 2016. I have implemented them in my system and they seem promising so far.
The authors suggest some improvements to operative systems, namely the use of “demoted” files. Strangely these seem not to have been implemented yet, even though the book is from 2016. I have implemented them in my system and they seem promising so far.
October 25, 2018
Challenging but insightful
I got a lot of value from this book as my work is focused on PIM. But it is essentially a curated collection of academic studies and is itself written like an academic paper. That’s not a bad thing, and of course makes it highly scientifically supported, but I would have liked to see recommendations and ideas for best practices. The authors note at the end that they purposefully refrain from making recommendations, but I think that’s a shame when they clearly have such a wealth of knowledge.
I got a lot of value from this book as my work is focused on PIM. But it is essentially a curated collection of academic studies and is itself written like an academic paper. That’s not a bad thing, and of course makes it highly scientifically supported, but I would have liked to see recommendations and ideas for best practices. The authors note at the end that they purposefully refrain from making recommendations, but I think that’s a shame when they clearly have such a wealth of knowledge.
January 2, 2020
It is academic book, it is mostly research about what we can know about PIM and a part of how to improve it, but it will not tell you how to do it better yourself. Do they authors repeat a lot? Yes, but I think that it helps a lot to get what the research did and it is definitly a book for someone who has more or less no idea what PIM is about and is interested in the research, like myself!
Read
September 4, 2019My main takeaway from this book is how difficult it is for academic researchers to get even the most basic insights into how we use computers/phones (large-scale data is hard to acquire; studies are hard to design; academic publishing schedules don't keep up with the pace of tech change).
September 21, 2019
Finally some actual data behind all these theories
The book made me realize that there are still a lot of opportunities for improvement in this area.
Recommended Along with “Keeping Found Things Found” literature.
The book made me realize that there are still a lot of opportunities for improvement in this area.
Recommended Along with “Keeping Found Things Found” literature.
January 24, 2018
The book is a little dry, but of utmost importance to our modern world.
January 3, 2023
The book is just a collection of studies. I miss the author's recommendations and good practices.
It is not pleasant to read.
It is not pleasant to read.
March 20, 2021
This book made me fall in love again with information sciences. And with this I was able to finish my master’s thesis!
January 20, 2019
"For actionable items, deferral is inevitable" (p. 66) LOL true.
Useful overview of several decades of studies on personal information management, an area of research that seems pretty hard to define. Bergman & Whittaker use a very broad sense of personal information in which active curation by an individual is the defining factor. It's not the most inclusive definition in the field; Jones & Teevan (Personal Information Management) I believe don't specify that such information should be actively managed to count. The authors scope this book by limiting it to their own findings and immediate antecedents, which tend to come from knowledge / distributed work and HCI and correspondingly focus on outcomes like the design of better technology for managing personal information.
Useful overview of several decades of studies on personal information management, an area of research that seems pretty hard to define. Bergman & Whittaker use a very broad sense of personal information in which active curation by an individual is the defining factor. It's not the most inclusive definition in the field; Jones & Teevan (Personal Information Management) I believe don't specify that such information should be actively managed to count. The authors scope this book by limiting it to their own findings and immediate antecedents, which tend to come from knowledge / distributed work and HCI and correspondingly focus on outcomes like the design of better technology for managing personal information.
February 1, 2017
Everyone I know struggles with the challenges outlined in this book. Marie Kondo offers us little insight in how to organize our personal digital mess. While I approached the book with tenacity, seeking advice and fearing too much theory, Bergman and Whitaker take the reader on an exciting journey through the status of their research in personal information management, and hint at improvements for the toolsets we currently have at hand to tame it.
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