Apologies for the boring title, but it's an interesting solution to an interesting problem. You see, when you shoot photographs in RAW format, you need some kind of software that will be able to process those RAW images into something that you can work with. For example, if you use Photoshop extensively, but want to work with RAW photographs, you have to use Adobe's RAW convertor software to turn the image into something that Photoshop can work with. The issue with using Photoshop is that, while you can adjust things like white balance, saturation, etc... in Adobe Camera RAW, that's the extent that you can work on the RAW image. Once inside Photoshop, any and all adjustments are being done to a TIFF file or PSD file, a copy of your camera's original data. And I don't like that kind of workflow.
What I think is preferable is to use software that will manage my photo library in RAW form, and I can make adjustments on a preview image and once I am ready to export, that software will apply my changes as I export from RAW into a TIFF file. I like the idea that my software will arrange my massive library, which for me means using Aperture to hold all my images based on date, within the month, within the year. Here's a look at how my Aperture library holds my images:
As you can see, every shoot day is labeled with the date, nested inside folders for the month and year. Metadata is tagged on every image indicating not just the date, but also the project name, location, and other keywords. This system allows me to easily find any image quickly while also keeping everything organized.