Science and Sorting, sorta

Sorting is one of the most important science tasks. Everybody knows how to sort - the laundry all ends up in different drawers - so the concept is universal. Good sorting technique is essential to good science, yet people never really train to sort.

Your brain acts like a file to keep your life sorted. Computers are also set up like filing cabinets. Set up your system to be able to find documents later, by using footers on documents, placing date codes in file names and identifying keywords. The better you understand where you would put things, the easier it is to retrieve them. They go to the logical slot. Your system, Your logic.

As a packrat, I rarely throw anything away. My hard copy files are cross-referenced, but I do not routinely generate hard copies of interim documents. A new tool from Google, a desktop search program, is in beta testing to solve this info retrieval problem. Another tool that I use is Save This - a tool button in my favorites that catalogs document URLs for quick retrieval. It also has share capabilities, so I do not have to e-mail columns.

So - to sum up, if you organize your system to find the knowledge that you have dumped from your brain, then you can be more effective in sorting through your stored information. Effective sorting makes for good science.