43 Folders

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Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Getting organized with OSX labels

Shawn Medero suggested the subject of using OSX labels to get organized.

Here’s a quick tip: think of labels less as ornamentation or overly-specific vertical tags. Think of your labels as a system of functional markers that complement your existing organizational system—that provide information you might want during a search, backup, or time-based script events and reviews as an example.

So, for example, you already probably organize files by project or client, suffixes tell you what kind of thing something is, and dates tell you, well, when something was made and updated.

So try using your labels for stuff like this:

  • do/don’t include this in backups
  • post this to the web later
  • put this on my résumé when I update it
  • print this on the first of every month
  • update this every season (insurance records, etc.)

That way, stuff can be scattered all over your drive and still be instantly locatable by its functional, temporal, or contextual purpose.

With the release of Spotlight, I suspect this stuff will get a lot sexier and more useful, too.

I used to organize my... by John (not verified)

About Merlin

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Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who created the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today, Back to Work, and Kung Fu Grippe. Also? He’s writing this book, he lives with this face, he suffers from this hair, he answers these questions, and he’s had this life. So far.

Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written in the past few years is an essay entitled, “Cranking.”

 
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Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

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Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »