That's How It Happened

LESTER: Tell me, Dr. Schwartz, what do you feel you can bring to LesterCorp?

CRAIG: Well, sir, I'm an excellent filer.

You may or may not have read of the Noguchi filing system. As far as I can tell it was either invented or at least de-japanified by translator William Lise. He seems to be trying to take it back from the public domain, even going so far as to remove it from archive.org. I will briefly re-explain the principles of the system, and then describe my rather modest improvements to it.
In the original system, every document you own, goes into an individual A4 brown envelope. The envelope is marked along its right side with the name of the document. Other data, including dating the document, and any categorisation is frowned upon. All envelopes are placed at random on one long shelf. Documents are initally retrieved by random searching. When documents are used, they get replaced in their envelopes on the far left of the shelf. Gradually the most frequently used documents accumulate at the left, and rarely used documents accumulate at the right. Envelopes from the far right are periodically removed and either disposed of or sent to "deep storage". Essential items, such as your passport, get tagged as "sacred" files, which are immune from this cull.
The idea of abandoning categorisation, in favour of sorting by frequency, sounds like a terrifying leap into the void. However my current filing system could best be described as the "Massively distributEd Stacking System", a series of random piles of paper on the floor, and in carrier bags. On the basis that I had little to lose in terms of organisational disarray, I took the plunge and converted to Noguchi.
I purchased a gross of Manila envelopes, and a set of coloured stickers. I decided to tag the spines of each envelope, with coloured stickers according to this code:
RED = Sacred
BLUE = Work
YELLOW = Home
GREEN = Financial
ORANGE = Recreational
These tags were not mutually exclusive, so that some documents had up to three stickers applied. It quickly became apparent that the Noguchi system was not appropriate for all items. All loose journal articles are excluded from my system, and continue to be filed in a normal filing cabinet according to topic. All journals and periodicals are also excluded, and continue to be filed on a shelf according to date. It took me 2 hours to file all my other documents into envelopes, with appropriate descriptions and coloured stickers down the spine. William Lise recommends cutting off the sticky foldover flap from the envelopes. I did not do this, partly to save time, and partly because the envelopes can then still be used for transporting documents elsewhere, without the documents falling out. My last modification was the most radical. I have allowed some thematically very similar documents to be grouped into single envelopes. This includes all my payslips, and all loose recipes by a single writer. When I was finished I had only about three feet of documents, all neatly arranged in matching envelopes. It felt good.
So at this moment in time, 24 hours post Noguchification, I stand on the edge of what is either a total disaster, or a bold departure into organisational bliss. I won't know the answer until I start retrieving documents, and autosorting by frequency of use. It thus just behoves me to sincerely wish that my new filing technique is unstoppable.

Tags: noguchi, filing