Store and shelves

Practical filing as it happens in the real world
Putting the user in control
Logical, flexible and as disciplined as suits the individual

Fundamentals of filing

Filing, as if you didn't know is all about putting things down and picking them up again. The big questions are:

Where should you leave them?
How do you find them?

The answer to the second 2 is you look in the right place which means use the same system as you used to to file them.

So let's get to the bottom of the answer to question 1.

One huge heap doesn't work as it becomes unmanageable
A rigid cataloguing system requires a lot of maintenance and time and often is overkill for items that will only have a short life, or you're working on at the moment and will tidy away later.

The solution is to have two sorts of filing:

A relatively well organised store that can be adapted to suit changing requirements
A quick-access, let's not bother too much about these relatively few items area.

This is just like your filing system at home. Important documents are properly looked after, possibly under lock and key and only in one or two possible places. Things you're using get left on the kitchen table, or on your desk.

Hence everyone needs these two distinctsorts of filing system. In BFM these are called STORE for the organised filing and SHELVES for the heap of things.

Getting started

Create a directory called \Store
Create some subdirectories of \Store based on function not file type
Create a directory called \Temp (Sub-directories here may come and go willy-nilly on demand.)

That's it really.

The single most useful thing you can do to improve the efficiency of a filing system is to use a \Temp directory (and sub-directories as required). This will keep a lot of clutter out of your main filing system. For example you'll probably have a directory called \Temp\Download to put all downloads and attachments so you can review them, rename and file permanently or discard them.

BFM is designed to support this method with plenty of easy methods to aid quick structured filing and hassle-free retrieval.