I have struggled with being organized since the day I started. In the rest of my life I am fairly organized. In the rest of my life, papers don't mulitiply quite so fast. After trying every system I came across I finally realized the only one that will work is the one I design for me. One aspect that is universal in keeping track of research is the storage area. If you are going to buy a file cabinet. Buy a strudy, industrial one. The $20.00 specials often break and WILL drive you nuts. You can find good used ones at stores that sell previously rented furniture (to businesses) or even at an business auction. Sometimes you can find them when a store goes out of business. I brought my heavy duty four drawer model for 10.00 at a fund raising garage sale. Second you have to work into a research trip time to review and process the notes you did take. Three months later the little jottings on the log won't make much sense. Third is if you chose to use abbreviations make a chart of the ones you will consistenly use so that you remember them. I stopped writing the word county a long time ago and just put the name in () like this: "reviewed the 1870 census schedules for (preble) and (darke) on Aug. 9, 1998" and then I list the findings, if any. If I shared this anyone, they won't know the (preble) is Preble County without my reference table. I keep it the front of all my notebooks. I try to keep research logs seperate for each family name. It is a lot more work but It helps when you come across new names and know which records you have review for which names. Last suggestion (because I have gone on long enough) is that I keep a file marked unrelated for each surname. When I meet anyone working the same name, I may not have a connection. The unrelated stuff may help them. Besides I review the unrelated stuff once in a while, sometimes things fall into place and I find an ancestor right in the file cabinet! I am enjoy all your ideas and comments, Robin