43 Folders is a reference to the tickler file that us used in some organizational systems. The 43 folders are actual folders. 31 represent the days of the month, while the remaining 12 represent the Months of the year. The main problem is who wants to carry around 43 physical folders with their attendant papers? There has to be a better system.
I think I found the better system. 43 folders requires that we put any paper in them, whether articles to read, letters, even emails to answer. We need our electronic system to be able to handle these various types of information. We also need our 43 folders to be also represented electronically
I think that DevonThink is the perfect system to set up your 43 folders. In fact I made a database that you can download here. You are licensed to copy this database.
The basic usage for 43 folders is that you put the documents into the month that they need to be acted upon. Then when you get close to that month you open the month folder and distribute the documents among the day number folders. As you go through the month you open the day folder on that day and act upon the documents contained there.
What do I mean by actions? I mean pay bills, read and respond to emails, read web articles, magazine articles, anything. You could even leave a note in a folder giving yourself permissions to do something fun. This gives this system some fun, and portability.
Why DevonThink? It has an outstanding scanning system. Put your papers that need to be filed in this system, in your scanner, and have DevonThink pull them in to the database. You then distribute them to the various months or day numbers. When an Item has been completed, then you need to move it to the completed folder. You could rename it to “Done.” You also should determine if the completed document even needs to be retained. If you think it should be deleted put it in the to be trashed folder. Once a month go through that folder and weed out the files that you no longer need. This trash system allows you some time before you have to get rid of it to determine if you need to keep the document or no.
So download the DevonThink 2 database from the link above. Open it in Devonthink. You will see 4 folders; Month, day, Completed, and to be trashed. As you go through your day move files into the appropriate day, or Month folder. The first thing you do everyday is look inside that day’s folder for any action items. Complete those, moving the files to the completed or to be trashed folders as appropriate. When you get emails, move those to Devonthink, by importing your mailbox. Move individual emails to a day folder or Month folder as appropriates. When you get hard copy, scan those into Devonthink assigning them to a day or month folder. Scan Articles, or get web archives or pdfs and put those into the appropriate folders as well.
If you do the above procedure, you should never forget something important ever again.
*Edit*
DevonThink 2.0 now has the ability to make the folder structure of the 43 folders without having to do too much. It’s in the Data menu Data>>new>>Register>>1-31 days or months. Run those scripts and the 43 folder will be created. Still make the Completed and to be trashed folders in your database.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great! You may be amused that DEVONthink Pro Office 2.0pb7 comes with “Register” smart scripts that automatically add day and month register to any database — because I like the 43 folders idea, too
Is this something new in 2.0. I don’t remember this in previous version
Yes, smart templates have been introduced in 2.0 public beta 7.