My Filing System

My apartment is littered with bookmarks that have little sticky-note flags (that I cut myself) on them.



As I read (particularly novels, where I don't want to stop to take notes every three pages), I flag important parts, and then go through the book again afterwards and note the relevant passages. As you can see, this can lead to some strange-looking volumes:



I don't intend to take the flags out of the books that are mine, and can't bear the thought of having to remove them from the ones I took out of the library. I'll probably have to consult these books at some point during my dissertation writing process, and while I have the notes in a Word document, I'd also like to have the flags. They're reassuring, a reification of the mental work that I've done and also proof that I've read the book.

I do not use this system for theory books for two reasons. First of all, stopping to flag while reading these involved, difficult books would interrupt the flow of ideas. Trying to pick up the train of thought in theory is more difficult than picking up the plot in a novel. Secondly, I don't always finish a book of theory if I find that it's not useful to me after all, or I will only read selective parts of it. This would result in partial flagging, which would irritate the strongly completist side of me that wants to read everything. I do make marginal notes with my pencil to remind myself of the important parts when I review and take notes, so it's not like I don't have a system at all.

No system at all? That would just be inviting anarchy.