Quote Originally Posted by Phidelt View Post
Say i have a GTD folder that goes in the G part of the filing system yeah?
Yes exactly.

Some people like to use tags. I find them very difficult. Unless you are very careful about how you define tags it's easy to have things tagged with different tags that are really the same.

For example do I tag stuff related to my livestock protection dogs, dog or dogs? If I use one tag one time and another at a later time I won't find all the correct items when I search. If I have a single folder with the label Dog I can always find it easily even if I am looking for Dogs because it is close to where I am looking.

The whole singular vs plural is a bear in tagging systems when you get lots of documents. If your filing is fairly small, with not too many items then tagging can work if you think that way.

Another issue with tags and other metadata types is that they are not very portable across systems. Tags that you spend a long time setting up in one system may not transfer if you upgrade the operating system, change computers or change storage software. I've been caught that way many times so now I try to avoid using things that are less likely to move when I change my system.

With no recognized standard for basic metadata this is a potential issue especially if you keep archives of data for a long time. Since I just recovered a document that was completed in 1993 I have experience that I can need very old computer documents at any time so I am particularly careful about import, export and file types as well as metadata for anything I keep.

Before deciding on an approach evaluate your needs carefully and look at what you already have stored and how often you go back and how far.