Filing is a tax, and search is not
Any system that requires a *decision* per document — which folder, which tag, which project — charges you a small cost every single time you add anything. That cost is trivial in week one and unpayable in week nine, which is precisely when you're adding the most.
Search removes the decision entirely. If you can find anything by asking for it, you don't need to have filed it correctly — and you were never going to.
The whole system
- One space per module. That's the only hierarchy. It maps to how you're taught and how you're examined.
- Everything goes in it. Slides, readings, recordings, problem sheets, photographs of the whiteboard, the scanned handout. No triage at the point of capture — triage is a decision, and decisions are what kill systems.
- Never rename anything. If it's searchable, the filename is irrelevant.
- Ask the module questions, rather than hunting for the file. Grounded chat across the space answers from whichever source is relevant and cites the page — which is what you actually wanted when you started hunting.
The one thing worth doing by hand
Not organising — converting. Within a day of a lecture, turn the notes into questions you can be tested on. That's ten minutes, it's the entire value of the Cornell method, and it's the step that every organisational system quietly substitutes itself for. A beautifully filed note you never retrieve from is a beautifully filed note that taught you nothing.