1Percenter

I chose the term “time management” for the title of this series because that’s the term that has been popularized recently by David Allen, 43 Folders and the like. But my system covers more than just managing to-dos, so I am going to introduce a new term, “Information Management,” to describe it. The goal of information management is simple:

To make sure that the information that you need is right in front of you when you need it.

This means having your next to-do in front of you when you are ready for it and pulling out that “Perfect Mouse-Trap” article, from four months ago, the second your cheese goes missing.

The Four Areas of Information Management

The first step in improving your information management is to understanding the different ways that you can manage information.

1. Discovery

   Discovery is seeking out and finding information, such as through RSS, Google, or Wikipedia.

2. Storage

   Storage is putting the information that you don’t need now, but will need in the future, somewhere where you can find it again. Most bookmarks, Ebooks, and your own not actionable notes are examples of storage.

3. Refinement

   Refinement is the process of actually doing stuff. This is the area that traditional time management focuses on. It includes to-do lists, and your own actionable notes.

4. Presentation

   Presentation is putting information into a form to share it with other people. Blog posts, Word Documents, Email, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations all fall under presentation.

The VPZtms includes tips for managing each of these areas, but much of the trick is just keeping these areas separate from each other. Nothing bogs down a refinement system like a bunch of storage.

More coming soon.