Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero theory of email is an extremely effective way to turn down the noise and get control of your inbox. After all, the inbox on your (or your secretary’s) desk is a waypoint, not a filing cabinet. Shouldn’t your email inbox be the same? Makes sense, but many people just let their email inbox fill up with junk.

And many people over-organize their email. All those folders into which you carefully sort your email (one for each client, maybe?) are largely wasted effort. You can just use the handy search box to find them when you need them (plus, unless you are using Gmail, you have a host of sent emails that do not end up in those folders, anyway).

Do you have a load of spam and listserv emails sitting in your inbox? Why? Delete it if you do not need it.

Delete the junk, act on the important stuff, and then archive it. Sort only what you must (I have one big “clients and cases” folder where I toss everything case-related, although I am not even sure that much is necessary).

Enjoy a tranquil inbox.

On Peanut Shells and Email Archiving | 43 Folders (via Lifehacker)

This seems like an astoundingly good idea that would turn any operating system that implemented system-wide tagging into the ultimate lawyers’ platform:

One of the greatest features introduced by Gmail was the move from folders to tags as a way to organize e-mails. Then Thunderbird added and expanded on the same feature, and blogging software has jumped on the tagging bandwagon, as well.

As an organizational tool, tagging is incredibly useful. It does away with the need to store everything in a hierarchy or database and gives the user the ability to instantly find all relevant information.

So why not allow system-wide tagging? In other words, I would love to be able to tag everything related to a subject. Say I am working on a project–the Smith project, a blog post related to Exaile–and want to find everything related to it. What if I could search by the “Smith” or “Exaile” tag and pull up every e-mail, contact, task, appointment, and–this is the key–document, image, mp3 file, etc. on my computer or network?

In other words, take one of the best features of Web 2.0, the ability to organize with tags, and integrate it into the operating system.

[via Ubuntu Forums]

Edit: Looks like there are already a few tools like this out there. For Linux, MetaTracker will be incorporated into the next Ubuntu release, 7.10. For Windows, Tag2Find offers similar features. I haven’t tried either out, yet, so I’m not sure they are a full solution, but I’m eager to give them a shot.

The two main models of organizing information, cataloging/databases and searching, each have their advantages and disadvantages. Alone, neither seems to satisfy the needs of an efficient, streamlined law office. Together, they start to look like a solution, but where is the software to tie them together in a package perfect for the solo or small practice?

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No matter what you use to manage your practice, whether a case management product like Time Matters or simply Outlook (or Evolution, or whatever) and the file manager, the efficacy of the system depends on good procedures. No software eliminates the need for good procedures. However, modern technology, especially in a paperless office, means adhering to procedures may be far less onerous than it used to be.

The most important procedures revolve around making sure it is easy to find all contacts, appointments, tasks, e-mails, and documents associated with a case.

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Law.com’s Legal Technology page has a useful article on how to find what you are looking for more accurately with Google.

IBM is working on a semantics-based search engine, FactSpotter, aimed at helping researchers, including lawyers searching through mounds of paper, find what they are looking for faster. What does “semantics-based” mean?

“Many words can be different things at the same time. The context makes the difference,” she said. “The tricky things here are not the words together but how are they linked.”

For example, common searches using keywords “Lincoln” and “vice president” likely won’t reveal President Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president. A semantic search should yield the answer: Hannibal Hamlin.

[via Legal Technology]

Lifehacker links to blogger Matt Cutts, whose guide to using Greasemonkey persistent searches opens up a world of possibilities for Gmail organization. In particular, you could use persistent searches to keep a running tally of all e-mails related to a case by tailoring your search to the names, e-mail addresses, and likely subject lines involved.

Now if Google would only allow me to use Gmail on my own server so I didn’t have to worry about security and backups, this would be a fantastic platform-independent solution to e-mail.

Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is now available (link to download page). It’s free, and it’s for XP. WDS enables Mac-like instant searching of files and Office items, including contacts, appointments, tasks, etc.

I know I’m late to the game on this one. If WDS is in version 3.0 already, I’m sure most people already have it. But if you don’t, it’s a must-download. WDS adds a small search box to your taskbar. It indexes your files in the background (your Office files and My Documents, by default, but you can choose additional folders), and you can search just by typing in the box. Results appear as you type. Hit Enter, and a results page opens with additional options for sorting results.

For a law office, this is particularly helpful. While a program like Time Matters keeps all this information centralized, you can now do the same thing on an ad-hoc basis. WDS is also far more flexible, and searches by document properties. So if you type in the name of your co-counsel, it will bring up not only their contact information, meetings, etc., but also documents on file that they created.

Indexing is done in the background, and the indexer will slow down or stop to allow you to work. Except for the initial install and index, I haven’t experienced any WDS-related slowdown. Definitely get this.

The Official Google Blog says a bit about robots.txt, the file on your server that tells search engines how to access your site, what to index, and much more. From the OGB:

However, you may have a few pages on your site you don’t want in Google’s index. For example, you might have a directory that contains internal logs, or you may have news articles that require payment to access. You can exclude pages from Google’s crawler by creating a text file called robots.txt and placing it in the root directory. The robots.txt file contains a list of the pages that search engines shouldn’t access. Creating a robots.txt is straightforward and it allows you a sophisticated level of control over how search engines can access your web site.

The OGB article starts on a detailed instructional guide to robots.txt, with more to come. [via Lifehacker]