PIM definitions

Here are four definitions by different authors ordered by year of publication. Definitions are similar to one another but are supplementing each other as well.

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     Mark Lansdale, The psychology of personal information management, 1988, Applied Ergonomics 19/1, pp 55-66

     PIM are the methods and procedures by which we handle, categorize, and retrieve personal information on a day-to-day basis. Personal information is information not in a sense that it is private, but that we have it for our own use. We own it and would feel deprived if it would be taken away. The primary reason (there may be others) for keeping this information is to be able to retrieve and use it in the future.
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     Richard Boardman, Improving tool support for personal information management, PhD thesis, 2004, Imperial college London, University of London

     The management of personal information (information owned by an individual, and under their direct control) as performed by the owning individual.
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     William Jones, Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management, 2008, Morgan Kaufman

     Formal definition (found also on Wikipedia):

     Personal information management (PIM) refers to both the practice and the study of the activities a person performs in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, use and distribute the information needed to meet life's many goals (everyday and long-term, work-related and not) and to fulfill life's many roles and responsibilities (as parent, spouse, friend, employee, member of community, etc.). PIM places special emphasis on the organization and maintenance of personal information collections in which information items, such as paper documents, electronic documents, email messages, web references, handwritten notes, etc., are stored for later use and repeated re-use.

     Informal definition:

     PIM is about finding answers to questions such as these:
         o What should I do with all my digital photographs and videos? Will I still be able to see these in thirty or forty years or will they disappear like all the data on my first PC disappeared?
         o Why do I seem to practically live in my email inbox? (�if you can call this living). I try to keep up with email but then I don�t seem to get anything else done.
         o How should I organize my hard drive? I know what to do with paper documents but my computer files are a mess! Sometimes I think I�d be better off reformatting my hard drive and starting all over again.

     But PIM is also about finding answers to this question:
         o How can I get smarter about the way I manage my information so that I have more time for my family, friends and the things I really care about in life?
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     Matjaž Kljun, A Study of a Crosstool Information Usage on Personal Computers: how users mentally link information relating to a task but residing in different applications and how importance and type of acquisition affect this, 2009

     PIM can be described as management (handling, storing, classifying, organizing, sharing, protecting, archiving) of personal information by a person for various purposes (later retrieving, reminding, collecting, decorating etc.) to support needs and tasks.