As you can see from the pre-exercise, information can be organized in many ways.

Organizing information is important because it allows you to:

• manage and retain the information more efficiently

• communicate the information more effectively

• recognize the need for further information and discard unneeded information

• recognize trends, clusters, and other patterns in the information gathered

• synthesize disparate pieces of information into new knowledge

The usefulness of organizing things can be illustrated in tasks such as arranging tools in a workshop, organizing your desktop, or writing down recipes for others to follow.