Information scraps
"Information scraps - a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry"
- Information Scraps, University of Southampton / MIT
Based on a study of the information scrap practices of 27 knowledge workers at five organizations, the researchers from the University of Southampton found the following number of occurrences of different types of information scraps:
| Occurrences: | Types with the Given Number of Occurrences (total: 533 scraps) |
| 92 | To-Do |
| 44 | Meeting Notes |
| 38 | Name/Contact Information |
| 25 | How-Tos |
| 16 | Work-In-Progress |
| 14 | File Path/Directory Path/URL |
| 13 | Desired Items |
| 12 | Login/Password |
| 9 | Brainstorm, Calendar/Event Details, Event Notes |
| 8 | Progress Report, Receipts/Confirmations |
| 7 | Computer Repair Status, Conversation Artifact, Correspondence (Chat), Financial Data, Products Of Interest, Reminder |
| 6 | Calendar Or Event List, Correspondence, Debugging Notes |
| 5 | Archived E-Mail, Computer Address, Ideas, Pre-Emptive Calendar Scheduling |
| 4 | Account Number, Airplane Flight Information, Annotations, Design Layout, People Of Interest, Plans/Goals, Timeline, Airplane Flight Information, Archived Document |
| 3 | Agenda, Configuration Settings, Jobs/Classifieds, Math Scratchwork, Project Notes, Shipping Information, Template E-Mail Response, To Read, Whiteboard Capture |
| 2 | (Mixed type), Academic Record, Bug List, Change log, Company Organization Chart, Debugging Program Output, Favorite Quote, File Backup, Frequent Flier Information, Hotel Information, Performance Tracking, Room Setup Diagram, Tax Information, Template Text, Time Log, To Share |
| 1 | (No Memory of Meaning), Announcement, Application Instructions, Architecture, Archived Document, ASCII Art, Baseball Schedule, Blue Chip Stocks, Book Margin Comments, Book Outline, Calculation Chart, Car Supply Shops, Citation, Class Assignments, Client ID Number, Concert Tickets, Correspondence (E-Mail), Credit Card Information, Deadlines, Decorative Drawing, Definition, Demographic Breakdown, Documentation, E-Mail Lists Of Interest, Employee Desires/Goals, Event Planning, Expense Report, Fantasy Football Lineup, File Transfer, Flow Diagram, Funding Options, Gift Certificate, Guitar Chords, Gym To Join, Insurance Claim, Kayaking Resources, Library Number, Moving Plans, Network Diagram, Newsletter Outline, Notes From Old Job, Parking Location, Part Number, Patent Information, Phone Payment Statistics, Picture Of Car, Picture Of Poster, Pictures Of Team Members, Planned Trip (Map), Presentation, Price List, Project Overview, Public Notice, Puzzle Answers, README File, Rebate UPCs, Recipe, Resume, Room Location, Salary Calculation, Serial Number, Sign Out Sheet, Song Lyrics, Talks Given, Travel Agent, Word To Spell-check |
Their conclusion
"The data indicates that a significant percentage of our personal information is beyond the reach of our current generation of tools, and furthermore will likely remain so without a significant recalibration of our goals. We identified over 125 information types from our sample of participants, and surely there are others. The diversity suggests that it may not be tractable for each of these information types to be managed by its own tool. Instead, we suggest that the future of personal information management may lie in finding a flexible approach that encompasses both traditional information and the unique data types that are currently underserved"
PpcSoft iKnow is perfect for solving this problem - PpcSoft iKnow is a very easy-to-use tool that is very flexible and powerful.
PpcSoft iKnow cannot solve all problems - but if you write it down, you'll find it again with PpcSoft iKnow !
