What is the best way to structure your information?

Before we look in more detail at filing structures, it is worth considering the bigger picture in terms of how the work that you do may interrelate with the rest of your group and then with the rest of the institution. It is sometimes easy to begin to think of the work you do in isolation and divorced from other staff or functions. This can lead to the inadvertent temptation to organise and manage your information in ways which suit you perfectly, but which do not necessarily suit those around you, or those who might follow you.

In practical terms, most staff will have regular access to a number of distinct 'workspaces' (see diagram 1, below). It is also quite likely that the information you create may often pass through all three workspaces during its life (for example, being drafted locally, shared with colleagues during consultation and redrafting and then published).

Your first decision is therefore to decide which of these workspaces it is most appropriate for you to be considering when saving a particular piece of information.

Of course real life is usually far less clear-cut than the diagram would suggest and there may be several different systems or storage areas used in each workspace and some which straddle more than one. It is merely a conceptual model to help you to think about your information, how it might be used and how its management should be approached in different contexts.

Types of workspace and their management implications