Tip for Getting More Organized: Don’t – Michael Schrage – Harvard Business Review.
Interesting research but I don’t buy it.
It misses several points:
- People have different personalities. Some like sorting, some like searching. There is no one size fits all
- This only focuses on short term. What if you are looking for something after 3 months? 6 months?
- This ignores the aspect of running multiple projects in parallel. I know I always have a folder in Outlook with all my current top projects (most of the time 5 to 7 of them) and being able to go to this folder and, if needed fo a seach in it, helps a lot.
Bottom line: you can’t simplify something like organization habits with one little study like this. Context and personality are too importants parameters to be able to reach a conclusion with such a narrowly focused study.
