Order in the Home Court

During the holidays, I had time to think about David Allen's How to Get Things Done. It's nice to take the time to do things right, but ... do as I say, not as I do. It's an art, yes. I'll keep practicing.

One of the many projects I have listed for home is "catalog personal library." That's quite an undertaking, and I've been meaning to get it started for a long time. LibraryThing is one cool solution, but I'd rather have a tool that I can use without a live network connection. I need a handy asset reference.

XML.com posted a few articles in 2004 about Hacking the Library. That seems much more attractive to me right now. In short, reducing labor by using existing online databases, but still just keeping track of my own stuff at home.

That article series promotes using the Library of Congress Catalog System (LoC or LC) instead of Dewey Decimal (DDC) or another major system. The advantage is that LC has a good online presence - good reference materials. I was pretty familiar with LC after leaving my graduate study, and I'm happy to use what my alma mater uses.

So I start a long trip down getting organized at home - catalog all my music, my books, maybe my CDs and recordings, too. I'd like to know where things are, and it seems like I am loaning out a few more things than I used to. Things get complicated as they grow. Once the number of items busted past 1000, I guess it was time to reconsider my methods.

Gotta keep it simple - keep a list. Keep a long, thorough list.