Only One
An information management manifesto
1st rule
There is one, and only one, True Home.
- ⊕ -
If it can't be browsed to or found from the home location, it doesn't exist. There are no back doors, service entrances, or just-this-one-time portholes.
If you remember something in that squirrels' nest you call "my stuff" that might be useful for life or business, publish it to Home. If it's not published, it's a figment of imagination, an imaginary friend. It can't be shared, bought, sold, or otherwise bring or manifest value. It's worth less.
2nd Rule
Figments of imagination don't exist.
“…but what about that time we needed that tutorial of how to create Story Maps and I searched through my email and found that intro note, which lead me to a path on disk, which led to the project folder, which let me find the tutorial and email it to the person and solve the problem?”
We didn't say figments weren't useful. We said they don't exist and have no lasting value, have no substance. A rock or a tree have substance. Step around them, or you trip and get a pine needle in the eye. A figment? You walk through more easily than air.
A figment is potential. When potential is manifested, brought into existence, then it has value, then it has substance. By all means use imagination to pull something into manifestation, cast an incantation, make flesh from spirit. Search that email trove, but, until that once-forgotten item is documented in the one true home, unless it can perturb another's ambulatory path, it doesn't exist.
3rd Rule
All roads lead to Home.
Thou shalt have no other gods but Home.
There can be only one.
There is one ring. One ring to rule them all and [in light of clear seeing] bind them.
4th Rule
Stop it. Go Home. There aren't any more rules. There is Only One.
First draft: 2015-07-23. Minor word flow revision 2024-10-09.