How to segment ones life/data?

Question

I find myself thinking about organizing my digital stuff again. The whole thing started with the thought "What would the optimal folder structure look like?". Thinking about this, I came to the conclusion, that

• I simply need to create folders for each segment of my life
• I can use links (virtual folders) if stuff is related to multiple segments.

But now the question is: What are the segments? Are there standard segments?

Do you know segmentation systems in use (i.e. in museums, sciences, libraries, universites, etc.) that could be used?

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One first idea was to use roles that I have in live:

The Employee The Business Owner The Son The Father The Husband The Car Owner The House Owener The Investor The ...

Some of them can be pulled together (The Son, Father, Husband --> The Family Guy)

But where to put health, medical, sport, fitness related stuff. Where to put philosphy etc.

Is there maybe a more general level above?

• I (my beliefes, goals, health)
• Other People (Family, Friends, etc)
• My Things (what I own/control)
• My Roles (what I do)
• ?

Do you have ideas for that?

Answer 1

The issue is that you can organize your life in different ways, depending on the paradigm you use: "employee, son, father, etc." is one, "I, other people, my things" is another.

All these paradigms have value depending on how you're thinking of your life at the moment. Folders won't work for this because each digital thing would need to exist in only a single folder (or subfolder).

So one solution would be to tag things (somehow), and allow multiple tags for each thing. For example, if you're thinking of a job you had, you can find it with the tag "employee" (from the first paradigm), or the tag "I" (from the second paradigm).

So in regards to you actual question, which is "what segments (paradigms) to use", you can choose all of the paradigms that are useful to you, and for each of your digital things apply the tag that identifies it in each of the paradigms ("employee" as well as "I", for example).

Answer 2

In my world, it has to be handy or it will not be used.

I use a Wiki which is the simplest database that is: fully searchable, relational, extremely flexible, fast, and cross-platform. It will sit in a cloud if you wish. It can evolve with you. It is the epitome of elegance. What else can you say about twelve lines of code?

Can you say,"Wikipedia"?

My whole file structure involves "of"ness and "about"ness.

Of refers to the subject content category directly. Family might be such a folder.
About refers to all the things that could involve that subject. Tags are another name for aboutness.

A Folder OF Family might be ABOUT documentation, wills, apology letter to mom, diploma, etc. would be some tags for family, say.

That may be too convoluted for you. Let's move on to the tool I want you to try.

While I'm thinking of it, you can decide to use your wiki in the cloud or on your own drives.

Your Security has been baked-in. For the following demo, the user-name and password is provided at the site. admin, 12345 (naturally you would use real ones.)

Try a password protected one at tiki wiki See how easy it is to use. Have a look at the features. Now, the bad news—it's only about 12 lines of open-source code. I keep a copy of this on my hard drive (to keep my MacOS 10.13 "documents") handy.

If you don't like that one, look at PBWorks.com which is where I keep my "public" personal files, my class work (handouts, assignments, projects, etc.) my reference articles, a working-copy of a dictionary of pre-press terms (published on Prepressure.com in final form collaboratively with others. etc.) etc.

Anything you're unfamiliar with is "strange." Do yourself a favour and move beyond your comfort zone.

All you have to do to "TAG" your page/file etc. is to add a line of information anywhere in the file such as: TAGS: Resume, CV, Curriculum Vitae, My Story, Me, I, Myself, First Draft, etc.

Then, to find that page (and anything else that shares the tags) enter the tag is the search field, press return. Boom!

Is that too tough?

EDIT: Call me hard-headed; but, I must get you to at least visit a site to allow them to tell you about their features directly. I'm convinced that you will be impressed to the point of trying out their solution for you.

TiddlyWiki.com

Answer 3

An effective technique for creating your structure is to use a Biography template to help you with the categories.

They are designed to be flexible and apply directly to the task you want to accomplish which is to organize and present your life.

We're all pretty much the same so the parts are similar while the dirty details are what defines our individuality. The categories are all pretty much the same throughout.

Here is a fill-in-the-blanks template to get you started. Here are a few more. Add your categories to these as you stumble upon them and as need arises. Autobiography templates are a bit different because they include a few more categories.

Good luck.