Ask HN: How do you organize your physical documents at home?

Re:Ask HN: How do you organize your physical documents at home? by RiderOfGiraffes on Tuesday June 29, 2010 @04:09PM (#1472616)

Here's my system.

Every piece of paper gets a number written on it in bold felt-tip pen.

This number is near unique - usually the date that I'm filing it, sometimes a "natural date" such as a date on the paper itself.

I file them all in a single box, in order.

In a file I have a line per item. It starts with the number, then has as many "tags" as I can think of. This takes about 20 seconds per piece of paper.

grep is your friend.

Finding any item is now easy, and there are no decisions to make when doing the filing. I copy the index file to my handheld and laptop. Occasionally I print it, although I haven't done that in ages.

A few items are filed in separate files, but those are obvious.

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Re:Ask HN: How do you organize your physical documents at home? by pfandtasse on Wednesday June 30, 2010 @04:17AM (#1474220)

You could use one of those stamps automatically counting one up when used.

I'll try this. What hinders me from scanning is that you flip through paper much faster than through a bunch of pdf-files.

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