Building a Personal Information System: Principles and Philosophy

(LLMs were used to help organize and translate this post) Introduction Over the years, we accumulate an enormous amount of personal information. Identification documents, invoices, contracts, photographs, music, professional documents, certificates, notes, financial records, and countless other pieces of information become part of our personal history. Much of this information has lasting value. Some of it is essential for everyday life; some may only become relevant years later. Some records document important events, while others preserve memories, knowledge, or work that would be difficult or impossible to recreate. Yet this information is often scattered across devices, cloud services, applications, external drives, and physical documents. Its accessibility and preservation depend on a variety of systems and providers that we may not control. I wanted a different approach: a system that allows me to consolidate my personal information, organize it in a comprehensible way, protect…