What are folders best for?

Folders are the traditional method for organization and work just like their physical counterparts. They are hierarchical, meaning you can nest folders inside of other folders to create a clear, top-down structure.

Folders are ideal for your broad, stable categories—the main "buckets" of your life or work that rarely change, such as Work, Personal, University, or Finances. They are also perfect for project-based work. Creating a single folder for a specific project (e.g., Project Alpha) is an excellent way to keep all related documents, meeting notes, and briefs in one place. Finally, a folder named Archive is the perfect place to move completed projects or old notes, keeping your main workspace clean without deleting the files.

Expert Advice:

"Folders provide a sense of place. You always know where a file is," says productivity expert Tiago Forte, creator of the PARA method. "This structural predictability reduces cognitive load."

The main limitation of folders is that a file can only exist in one place at a time.

What are tags best for?

Tags, or keywords, are a more modern, flexible way to organize. A tag is a piece of metadata you attach to a file. A single file can have multiple tags, and tags are not hierarchical.

Tags are perfect for tracking actionable statuses, such as To-Do, In-Progress, Follow-Up, or Done.

Their most powerful use is for cross-cutting topics. For example, if you have a Work folder and a Personal folder, what do you do with a note about a work conference you're personally interested in? You can file it in Work and tag it with Personal-Interest. Other examples include Ideas, Inspiration, Meeting-Notes, or Q4-Report.

Tags also allow you to find content by theme, pulling up all notes related to a single concept, regardless of which folder they are in.

The main limitation of tags is that without a folder structure, a tag-only system can become chaotic, like a massive "junk drawer" of files.

How do you combine folders and tags for a perfect system?

The most effective method, used by productivity experts, is to use both systems together. This gives you both structure and flexibility.

1. Start with Folders (The Filing Cabinet):

Create a simple, high-level folder structure for your main categories. Do not create too many. A good start is having folders for Projects (all your active work), Areas (ongoing responsibilities, e.g., Health, Finances), Resources (your library of interesting articles and ideas), and Archive (everything that is completed).

2. Add Tags (The Labels):

As you save files into your folders, add specific tags to describe what the file is about or what you need to do with it.

Example of the Hybrid System:

Imagine you have a file of meeting notes for a new marketing plan.

First, you would file it in a folder, such as Projects -> Marketing-Launch. Second, you would add tags like Meeting-Notes, To-Do, and Q4-Report.

Now, you can find this file in two ways: by navigating to your Marketing-Launch project folder, or by filtering for the To-Do tag, which will show you all your to-do items across all your projects at once.