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Everyone has reference items. It's the non-actionable information you'd like to hang on to. Perhaps it's a business contract that you need to refer to as you complete a current work project. Or maybe it's the manual that came with your car - that might come in handy someday!

So how do you organize and store your reference items?

Well for most people, the answer is they default to a system of semi-organized chaos. Papers get randomly stacked on desks or get shoved into drawers. Emails are left sitting in the inbox. Chaos is the norm.

Despite what some people claim, this is not an effective system.

Two reasons people leave their reference information in a chaotic state:

1. They've never implemented a more effective system (for whatever reason)
2. Their system is too hard to maintain

The good news is, there are simple things you can do to improve your handling of digital information.

With that in mind, here's two tips for improving your process of organizing digital reference materials.

1. Organize the Information that is Current to You

If reference information is current to you - meaning you'll probably need it sometime soon - it should be organized into categories for fast access. I find up to 1 year to be a good guideline for "current".

(You'll need a digital tool that supports your categorization needs. Here are some tips on choosing a digital filing system.)

By 'organize information into categories', I mean you take the time on the front end to think through how you might use this reference information, and then assign it to an appropriate category (or multiple categories, as needed). Although this has an initial time cost, it pays itself back quickly because:

• You can find it faster
• You can easily see what kinds of information you have for a certain topic

For instance, I keep a category of blog post ideas - any ideas that cross my path get filed there. Then, when I sit down to write a post, I look at my list of ideas to rapidly get inspired (hopefully!).

If I don't take the time to categorize my current reference information, I tend to dump it in the "General Reference" category and it becomes pretty meaningless.

But for those items that truly fall into "well, someday I might need this"...

2. Create a 'Catch-All' Location(s)

You probably frequently run across information that is interesting, but you have no idea how you might use it in the future. Put this information into some kind of a 'Catch-All' or General Reference location and don't feel like you need to organize the information further.

This is where digital information really shines. If you have full-text search, you can find just about anything you need in the General Reference category with minimal effort. And because hard drive space is so cheap, you can store lots of files and easily purchase more space as needed.

For me, an email archive can function as a Catch-All category - I just pour email into there without attempting to categorize it. It's somewhat filtered - I only archive email that I think might have future value, however small - but beyond that, it's just a mass of unsorted email. To find something, I can use the powerful search features built into Lotus Notes, Gmail, and other email systems.

Just remember, if you need to access specific info in the Catch-All location(s) on a regular basis, it's probably in the wrong place. Put it in a distinct category.

So what are tips you have for organizing your digital reference items?

Reference items are non-actionable pieces of information that you want to hang on to. Everyone has plenty of reference items!

In my experience, digital reference items tend to come in three different forms: emails, webpage URLs, and documents (e.g. PDFs, Word documents).

For storing emails, email folders are a logical choice. For webpage URLs, many people favor web-based tools like Delicious. For documents, the My Documents folder or a network drive are common destinations, with Dropbox being a popular web-based alternative.

But I find that consolidating my reference items into a single tool works best for most of my items. (The exceptions are things like my music and picture files, which are fine in their current My Music and My Pictures folders). Too many storage locations leads to items becoming "out of sight, out of mind" and the reference items lose their value.

Instead, I prefer a single "digital filing cabinet" that I can put everything in and see it all in one place. Here's some of my criteria for picking a digital filing cabinet:

• Stores any kind of file or media
• New entries are easily created
• Entries can be assigned to multiple categories
• Allows an unlimited number of categories
• Provides full-text search for finding items quickly
• Accessible across different computers and mobile devices
• Integrates with email

For these reasons, I'm not bashful in saying I favor the eProductivity Reference Database (available as a free download). It fits my criteria well and most importantly, it integrates well with my Lotus Notes email system. This is critical because I find most of my reference information comes via email, and I can simply drag-and-drop the email into my Reference Database to create a new entry - very slick!

The bottom-line is, I have a place that I store everything in, so stuff isn't scattered across my computer.

Another popular reference system I hear mentioned is Evernote, although I've never personally used it.

Do you have other reference tools that you use? Any tips on choosing a reference tool? Please share them in the comments!

I was recently asked by a customer:

I normally use email folders for storing emails that I need to reference later. Should I be using the eProductivity Reference Database instead? What's the advantage?

The Reference Database is a separate - and free! - eProductivity application designed to store non-actionable reference materials.

While you can also use email folders for storing non-actionable materials, the Reference Database offers a number of advantages.

First, getting items out of your Lotus Notes mail file will speed it up and also help you to avoid mail file size quotas. For performance reasons, you don't want to store large file attachments (pictures, etc) in your mail file unless you have to. The Reference Database gives a great storage ground for these files.

Secondly, the Reference Database offers far more capabilities than email folders. You can categorize and tag your entries more effectively. You can create checklists and daily log files with datestamps. And, you can utilize the Quick Capture/Quick Paste functionality which helps if you find yourself typing the same things over and over again.

I personally use email folders to just store copies of emails that I might need someday in the future, but don't actively intend to come back to. I use the Reference Database to store all the items that I need to access regularly e.g. ideas for future blog posts, travel packing lists, monthly calls lists, etc.

Download the Reference Database

Depending on which license version you purchased, eProductivity will allow you to define up to three external reference databases and 10 external mail databases. Almost always, at least one of the external mail databases is the user's mail archive.

The ability to file an email into an external database can be used in many ways. In my configuration of eProductivity, I have defined my ten external databases so that I can quickly file something from my inbox into the destination database with a simple drag and drop gesture or by clicking on the File action button as shown here.

So how do I use this?

Continue Reading "How I set up my external filing databases" »