Let’s get organised with ontology and taxonomies
Have you ever heard of ontology or taxonomies? These were relatively new words for me and I was thrilled to learn more about them. I won’t endeavour to go into an full academic discussion on these terms, but briefly;
Ontology and organising
Ontology is actually a philosophical term used to describe a line of thinking which states that things belong in categories, everything can be grouped and categorised. Now the debate is of course whether this is true or not and if it is, are the categories pre-determined out there or do we as individuals determine the categories?
This all has major implications for organising. I would strongly suggest that categories have to exist in a physical space for no other reason than us wanting to find things. As to whether we decide on these categories or whether they are already predetermined is another question. It might be a bit of both because you can for example decide to organise your make-up and toiletries any way you want. You would however most likely not place these items on the balcony as it is so far removed from their intended use and purpose that the combination of toiletries and balcony just doesn’t make sense.
Taxonomies and organising
Taxonomies are large-scale endeavours to group information together in a logical format, it is often research-based, highly applicable and used in a lot of medium to large organisations to control their documents. I am currently working on the creation of a taxonomy for an organisation which is very interesting. You need to use terms that make sense to the organisation and its staff members, give enough options to distinguish different bits of information, and also make it relatively easy to use. We are utilising a folder setup, clear document naming and the wonderful search function which allows us to search for internal data in a way we would search on Google.
What do you think about all this, do the ideas make sense to you? Could you group your paper-based and electronic information together in a structure that was clear to you and others, saving you time and effort in the future?
I’ll be honest this is pretty nerdy
But learning about these things will change your life for the better.
If you are really keen I suggest you also look at the Paperwork Course. Clearly in both the book and the course I talk about easier topics but,
I promise you you’ll be a rockstar at work for knowing these things!
