Kids today don’t know what a file is. Kids today don’t know what directories are. Kids today don’t know where to find their files. What a stupid generation. Kids today, right?
File systems are a mystery
The first time I encountered this apparent knowledge gap was when I was working at on a tagging solution to supplement folder structure. The UX researchers came back with this mind-blowing article about kids today not knowing where their files were.
This turn of events has millennials confused: How is it possible that gen-z and beyond, who were born with more computing power in their pockets than we had in all our teenage years combined, don’t know what a file system is and how it works? How can they keep losing their files and come to us to rescue them as if they were boomers? What happened to their tech-literacy?
If you grew up with an iPhone, you have no idea where your files are. And if you use a cloud provider (as everyone does) – all your files are somewhere in a great big bucket in the sky in no particular order. If you need to find something? It’s either in your recent files (or downloads folder!) or you use the search function.
This means that if you require files to be organized in some way for work purposes (like, for writing code), you must teach your students what file systems are and how they’re organized. Yes, knowing about file system structure has become professional knowledge that must be explicitly taught, and is mostly relevant in very strict professional settings (as in the context of various types of engineering). It shouldn’t take very long, probably 30 minutes of an intro course, it’s not that complicated. But you can no longer assume this is common knowledge. This is not good or bad, it just is.
Remember how we used to make fun of our elders for keeping all their files on the desktop in no particular order? Maybe that’s just the natural order of things. In fact, it seems that file system structure was part of computer literacy only for a very short time for a very specific generation, and now we assume anyone who doesn’t know where their files are stored is somehow lesser. But is that true?
To organize or not to organize
One of the outcomes of the research I mentioned before was some interesting insights about “searchers” and “organizers”. It’s not just a generational thing, it’s also a personality thing. Some people like to meticulously organize their files (and emails…) into folders, others would rather just search for documents when they need them and don’t bother organizing them upfront. What I found at that time was that there is no universally good organizing method, especially in the context of collaboration.
Folders are too hierarchical and restrictive (and kids today don’t understand them anyway).
- Folder structures are somewhat idiosyncratic and only make sense to the person who structured them in the first place. When other people need to use them they don’t know where to find anything, and even worse – where to put new files. Is the structure team/category? Or category/team? Is it year/budget, year/planning or budget/year, planning/year? The deeper the hierarchy, the worse it gets.
- Often, files belongs in more than one location: Imagine a design document – does it belong with other design documents, or in the context of the team that’s working on it, or with the other documents related to the same project like test plans?
- Sometimes a file doesn’t really belong anywhere in the existing structure. Who decides where it belongs? Let’s open a new folder! Where should the new folder go?
So even if the structure made sense to begin with – it loses coherence very quickly.
Tags sound like they are a solution to this problem, but they are also messy and error-prone. If you misspelled a tag? Good luck finding that one. Is it #compoundphrase, #compound_phrase or #compound-phrase? Who knows, and I certainly hope that the tag system is not case sensitive because last time I think I typed #CompoundPhrase.
But most problematic is enforcement: If I create a document, by default, it will contain the information it needs to contain and any related documents I want you to know about as part of the context of the document. It will not automatically be put in a specific location nor will it automatically be tagged correctly. Forcing people to put documents in the right place and/or tagging them correctly is a never-ending up-hill battle.
While these concerns don’t quite apply to a personal organization system, humans are fallible and our memory is notoriously bad. I posit that:
- We are not good and anticipating in what context we will need to access these files. We try organizing them in some way we think will be useful, only to discover it would have been much more convenient in a different structure.
- The amount of context you need to remember which keywords to search is the same amount of context you need to find the file in a directory structure you defined at some ancient time.
That’s why I firmly believe that most of the time – search works better and is more efficient (and doesn’t require any upfront effort or ongoing maintenance). So maybe kids today aren’t that far off base?
I believe that tags are the “right” solution, but only if they are completely auto generated and 100% consistent (and if their UX is excellent). Perhaps AI will save the day on this one, time will tell… But I think it would be fair to say that auto generated 100% consistent tags are just a better form of advanced search, not really an organization method.
Disclaimer
I’m not aware of any research into which method is actually better and I would guess it would be very difficult to conduct such research due to the long-term requirements from such a project. So, the rest of this post is entirely based on my experience and personal understanding of productivity.
Personal Files
Personal files are files that only you need to access. Their storage structure is determined by you and only affects you personally.
I’m not going to tell you how to how to organize your personal files unless you want me to. If you’re happy with the way you’re doing it keep on doing what works for you.
Still here? Now I will proceed to tell you how to (not) organize your personal files.
You ain’t gonna need it
Most of the files we own are one-off documents. Letters from the bank about monthly charges. Letters from school. Return labels. Memes you already posted. I can go on and on scrolling down my downloads folder to find more examples, but I will stop here.
Leave them in the downloads folder or in your email. There is absolutely no point in spending any time categorizing any of these. You will probably never need them again. And if you ever do:
Seek and ye shall find
Most of what you’re looking for can be easily retrieved by searching or going to the source.
Need a letter from the bank? Go to the bank’s web site. Need a proof of purchase? Search your email for the receipt or go to your order history. Since this is a rare occurrence, the one time effort balances out with all the upfront organization work you would have put it.
Keep it simple
For files that (1) you’re pretty sure you’ll need again and (2) you’d like to keep in a specific context like old CVs you expect to want to edit for the next job search, yearly tax reports etc. – you might want to group into a folder.
However, since as I mentioned before, it will be hard to anticipate the context when you will actually need these files and remember where you put them in the first place – give your files meaningful names and keep the folder structure super simple.
You don’t need “CVs/2001”, “CVs/2005”, “CVs/2010”. One “CVs” folder is enough. You don’t need “2025/taxes”, “2025/social security”. Keep the directory structure flat with “2025 taxes” and “2025 social security” – it will be easier to add new files/folders and find them later.
Keeping the folder structure simple means you will not have many issues with files belonging in several folders at once. And if something doesn’t belong in a folder yet? Keep it in the root folder until it has enough friends to become a category in itself (if ever).
Curation
While organization (in this context) is an upfront effort attempting to group together related files in anticipation of future needs – (in this context) curation is the process of selecting and bringing together information for a specific purpose (paraphrasing Merriam-Webster’s definition). The purpose is already known in the here and now, and it encompasses a wider array of information, not necessarily just files. It brings the right information in the right context in a structured and accessible way.
The project log and one document system are examples of curation. But generally speaking, on a per-team, per-project, per-need basis, you create a single entry point that has all the information you need for that particular need.
You start with a great big junk pile, but as you go – you add links to relevant files, articles, meeting notes, tracking… everything in one place. Collaborators don’t need to figure out any folder structure and finding information is as simple as skimming the content or ctrl+f. They can edit or add information to the document and if they get it wrong – it’s very easy to edit and fix.
This process does require a owner and some ongoing maintenance, but the end result is actually effective, and it is my personal recommendation for any team working on a project together.
Quick Recap
- Kids today don’t know about file systems and they should be taught on a need-to-know basis (most of the time they don’t need to know).
- You don’t need most of your files and organizing them is probably a waste of your time.
- For files you’re sure you need to organize, keep it simple (for your own sake).
- In the context of teams and collaborative projects – don’t organize, curate.