ases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a mi

Getting organized in the Internet Marketing world is a constant challenge. Managing downloads, filing resell rights products, organizing hard drives, storing bonuses and keeping track of eBooks, scripts and tools we’ve purchased can become a nightmare.

It’s in the nature of our lives as internet marketers that we accumulate dozens, hundreds – even thousands of downloads over time. Our store of downloads just grows and grows and grows.

Each of us makes a brave attempt to find ways to structure this information – but very quickly we find that whatever organizational scheme we come up with, the stuff we want to file away never quite fits. And so our gigabytes of downloads end up in chaos. The result?

* We can’t find things that we KNOW we’ve got.
* We spend hours and hours searching for that eBook, script or tool that we definitely remember downloading months ago. We need it urgently, right now, but can we find it? Can we just!
* We forget 80-95% of what we have got. So we end up buying products that we don’t need. We already have something that fits our need, but we clean don’t remember, and have no way of checking (unless we take a few days off!). So we waste money buying another product. Even worse – we end up buying the same product twice! That happens more often than you’d think, believe me.

On the surface, it seems like a very simple problem to fix: just decide on a few categories for filing the information, create some folders and be disciplined in how you file you downloads away. In practice, however, it’s not so simple – as anyone who has tried will confirm.

The reality is that this is a complex problem in the field of Knowledge Management. In particular, it requires the creation of a suitable "taxonomy" (organizational scheme), and that is a very skilled task. A full description of the steps needed to create an Internet Marketing taxonomy and organizational system are beyond the scope of this article, but here is one interesting idea to consider.

One of the design considerations is to decide on the storage and indexing mechanisms to use. Most people simply use Windows folders for both of these. Whereas using anything but Windows folders for storage is probably out of the question, there are alternatives possible for an index. Two examples are databases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a min

eme we come up with, the stuff we want to file away never quite fits. And so our gigabytes of downloads end up in chaos. The result?

* We can’t find things that we KNOW we’ve got.
* We spend hours and hours searching for that eBook, script or tool that we definitely remember downloading months ago. We need it urgently, right now, but can we find it? Can we just!
* We forget 80-95% of what we have got. So we end up buying products that we don’t need. We already have something that fits our need, but we clean don’t remember, and have no way of checking (unless we take a few days off!). So we waste money buying another product. Even worse – we end up buying the same product twice! That happens more often than you’d think, believe me.

On the surface, it seems like a very simple problem to fix: just decide on a few categories for filing the information, create some folders and be disciplined in how you file you downloads away. In practice, however, it’s not so simple – as anyone who has tried will confirm.

The reality is that this is a complex problem in the field of Knowledge Management. In particular, it requires the creation of a suitable "taxonomy" (organizational scheme), and that is a very skilled task. A full description of the steps needed to create an Internet Marketing taxonomy and organizational system are beyond the scope of this article, but here is one interesting idea to consider.

One of the design considerations is to decide on the storage and indexing mechanisms to use. Most people simply use Windows folders for both of these. Whereas using anything but Windows folders for storage is probably out of the question, there are alternatives possible for an index. Two examples are databases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a mi

e take a few days off!). So we waste money buying another product. Even worse – we end up buying the same product twice! That happens more often than you’d think, believe me.

On the surface, it seems like a very simple problem to fix: just decide on a few categories for filing the information, create some folders and be disciplined in how you file you downloads away. In practice, however, it’s not so simple – as anyone who has tried will confirm.

The reality is that this is a complex problem in the field of Knowledge Management. In particular, it requires the creation of a suitable "taxonomy" (organizational scheme), and that is a very skilled task. A full description of the steps needed to create an Internet Marketing taxonomy and organizational system are beyond the scope of this article, but here is one interesting idea to consider.

One of the design considerations is to decide on the storage and indexing mechanisms to use. Most people simply use Windows folders for both of these. Whereas using anything but Windows folders for storage is probably out of the question, there are alternatives possible for an index. Two examples are databases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a mi

eation of a suitable "taxonomy" (organizational scheme), and that is a very skilled task. A full description of the steps needed to create an Internet Marketing taxonomy and organizational system are beyond the scope of this article, but here is one interesting idea to consider.

One of the design considerations is to decide on the storage and indexing mechanisms to use. Most people simply use Windows folders for both of these. Whereas using anything but Windows folders for storage is probably out of the question, there are alternatives possible for an index. Two examples are databases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a mi

ases and mind maps.

My preference is firmly with mind maps.

Although a database can provide a more flexible "tagging" system, most people don’t want (or need) complex tagging. On the other hand, with clever use of a mind map, you can get a very attractive graphical interface, and can introduce structures and relationships between topics without the need to add extra complexity to the folder structures.

The only example I know where this has been done is in my IM Index Mind Map. The videos on that site show exactly how you can use the structuring features of a mind map as an index to a complex folder structure.

No-one wants to spend hours simply "getting organized" - but in the end, you need to bite the bullet and get it done, or spend more and more time in unproductive and frustrating searching.