deep, static data organization is bad for usability

Exploratory Interfaces: warpedvisions.org
I long ago gave up sorting my notes inbox. A reasonably competent search feature and a habit of replying with history to most emails I receive means I can find what I need back a whole year. Longer than that and it won't be relevant.

Now going back to find messages in my decade history of folder-organized mail is downright painful. Organizing messages by project made sense at the time, but now it's difficult to find anything -- mostly because I'm looking for messages asking different questions. That, and I've long since forgotten the names of the people, products and projects that the mails were related to (my volatile memory).