The original 43 folders.

norbauer — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:52:19 -0400

I was recently skimming through my beloved old 1934 edition of Progressive Indexing and Filing, which I inherited at a young age from my grandmother—probably my ﬁrst piece of productivity porn (the book, not my grandmother.) On page 85, I stumbled across a delightful little gem. Apparently, not only did the David not invent the tickler ﬁle (news to me), but it’s been around since at least 1934.

The tickler ﬁle has been central to the GTD workﬂow since David Allen’s ﬁrst book was published, and I’ve used one (admittedly on and off, and with varying levels of success) for the last four years. The name of this venerable blog itself is an allusion to the 43 folders that comprise the tickler ﬁle (12 months + 31 days).

Here are a couple of tidbits from text:

As matters are continually coming up which require action on a certain future date, a follow-up system is necessary in any well-organized ofﬁce. […] The card tickler consists of a set of month guides and a set of 1-31 day guides placed in a card tray and provides a brief reminder of any matter which is to come up at some future time. It is not necessarily conﬁned entirely to the matter in the ﬁle, since it may refer to a telephone call or some appointment.

For a good bid of historical life-hackery, check out this classic tome. If Amazon is sold out, you can also give Abebooks a try.

”The original 43 folders.” was written by Ryan Norbauer for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Nostalgia

The original 43 folders.