Life Categories

Some time ago, while reading Getting Things Done and The Power Of Less, I decided I needed a list of categories for things in my life. I would use these categories to organize everything in a consistent manner.

I wrote out a list of things I'm interested in, and grouped them into more general subjects. Then I thought about their priority in my life and how important each thing was to me. Twelve seemed like a manageable number of categories. In this way I came up with an initial list. After using my initial list for a week or so, I rearranged and combined some of the categories. I've made small changes since then, too, but the list has been quite stable.

Here is my current list:

• Activity
  • Book Club
  • Travel
• Computer
• Entertainment
  • Book
  • Movie
  • Music
  • TV Show
• Finance
• Game
  • Dominion
  • Illyriad
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • Pandemic
  • Race for the Galaxy
  • Second Life
• Hobby
  • Coin
  • Genealogy
  • Hot Wheels
  • LEGO
• Home
• Internet
• Life
  • Health
  • People
• Science Fiction
  • Doctor Who
  • Star Trek
  • Star Wars
• Software Development
• Work

A category list will be different for everyone, of course, emphasizing your own interests and their priority and importance to you. For instance, you might have Sports instead of Science Fiction.

I use these categories to organize everything: browser bookmarks, email, files on my hard drive and Dropbox, photos, to do tasks, and so on. This consistency across applications and services has made me feel more organized, and streamlined filing and searching tasks. I'm more efficient now.