Best way to use tags on macOS for Files

Hey Folks,

I am just starting out with the JD System for my Files and I am curious if there is a unique approach for using apple tags across JD System for giving every File & E-Mail a unique (context or mode) with a specific tag so that “unique” conclusions can be drawn afterwards.

What type of labeling Heuristic could be useful for this Approach?

I am curious about your thoughts.

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Hey there Jonas! I haven’t seen anyone here mention tags yet. It’s an idea that I go and play with sometimes but then it never ‘sticks’ for me.

I think the issue I’ve always had with tags is the same one I have with musical genres: how many are there? Who defines them? When do you know when to stop?

I love the idea of properly categorising my music so that I can listen to some electronic music or whatever, but then when I go to classify New Order I don’t know if they’re electronic or indie or something else.

I guess with tags you can assign multiple tags to a thing. But yeah, nothing I’ve ever done myself.

Hey @johnnydecimal Thank you so much for your answer.

Yeah, I already expected that categorizing with tags doesn’t make sense in the already very smart JD File Structure System.

I thought about the “unique” use of using tags on macOS in terms of HEURISTICS, so that those Files can be evaluated afterwards.

For Example when you have multiple DCF Valuations for a stock, you could give each Valuation Excel File etc. a specific tag to under which (Makro Environment, Market Phase, Assumptions, Political Environment) the Valuation was created, so that after a view years you could filter inside the JD Folders for these not so obvious insights.

Moreover, @johnnydecimal I am curios for what reason you use the JD Folder Structure inside E-Mail Account, when you could just assign the JD Number and Archive it in one Folder, and search for it afterwards.

Finally, I don’t understand why you should use a JD Number Tracking System, since you could just search for the Folders. Can this Process be automated?

Thanks so much :slight_smile:

I don’t do this any more (because I’ve given up trying to organise my email at all — I quit!), but when I did it it was great. Just go to a folder and there’s all the stuff related to that part of the project, real neat. No worries about Outlook’s search being weird or whatever.

But it is a significant overhead, I appreciate that. Probably why I no longer bother!

I’ve written about this elsewhere but, basically, you can’t assume that everything you track is either a) in the same filesystem or b) a file at all.

Maybe your file systems are split? Mine are, at work. Maybe you’re tracking something that isn’t actually a file, it’s a database or an email or something else? The index ties everything together.

This might be more relevant in a work situation. Just sorting your files at home you might not need an index.