Once again Leo of ZenHabits has given us solid advice for being productive.  He shares a number of good pieces of advice in the post I am citing, but this one really struck home.  It is on the old rules vs. the new rules of productivity.  (Reminder to my Mennonite readers, Zen in this context is about peace of mind, not a religion.)

Old School: Be organized. The productive worker of the past had drawers full of files, all organized thoroughly so that nothing would ever be lost. He had a Filofax full of contacts and appointments. He organized his computer files into folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders and on and one. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it.

Productivity 2.0: Tag, archive and search. With technology, that’s not necessary. Tag a file with a certain label, archive it, and find it later through its label or through search. This approach saves a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of headaches. You can spend your time on more important tasks. (source)

This is why I have recommended, Delicious, the Google Notebook, gmail, and am starting to like Evernote while on the road with just my cell phone.  Check these tools and the ZenHabits piece out.