Information Overload

Information overload - over the years i’ve collected terabytes of data in different forms, books, cd’s, pdf’s, word documents, emails and so on. Finding that one bit of critical info is a pain, my work laptop has over 45g of standards, specifications and so on all stuff that should be referenced yet because it is often buried in subdirs or perhaps i’ve given the document i created a title which made sense at the time but months/years later means nothing i cannot find that which i need.

How to manage data?

I’ve tried almost (probably) everything… segregated folder structures, The Brain, Freemind, FreePlane, wiki’s, UltraRecall, myBase, onenote - the list goes on.

I have yet to find something which works for me, to be fair The Brain comes the closest but i need something portable which doesnt rely on the cloud or java can be run from a USB stick or a folder on a locked down laptop. Pretty tall requirements i also want that information to be easily moved from system to system, have the same access on Windows as i do on Linux or Android

So as i’ve been migrating other things to the ancient and venerable emacs and the excellent orgmode i wonder if i can twist the combination to manage not only text notes such as a daily log or timing tasks but also files (PDF’s, 3D machine drawings etc)

The system has to be;

• searchable
• tag based to allow for improper titles
• capable of handling or at least pointing to a range of files
• portable
• quick
• expandable
• allow for inter-relationships ie glue open time is linked to notes on machine purge time etc

Is it possible? I dont know. What i do know is that i have too much information and either i ditch all or organise it.