Best Practices For Organizing Computer Files
Best Practices For Organizing Computer Files
As I stressed at the top of this article, the most important thing about creating an organized file structure is that you stick to it. Here are some best practices for doing just that and also using your new, neat set up.
- Skip the Desktop. Never ever store files on your Desktop. It just looks messy and cluttered. It’s okay to drag a file from a USB key to your Desktop, but then it should be filed away immediately.
- Skip Downloads. Don’t let files sit in your Downloads folder. Either file them where they belong or delete them.
- File things immediately. If you wait to file things they’ll get out of hand. As soon as you create or receive a file, put it in its proper place.
- Sort everything once a week. With that said, either every Monday morning or Friday evening, look through the files you’ve worked on that week and make sure they’re in the right place. Tidy things up, delete any unnecessary files, and generally stop things getting messy before they get too bad. If you use a Mac, there are apps like Hazel that can automate it for you.
- Use descriptive names. When you’re naming your files, give them descriptive names. “Marketing plan” is bad. “Marketing Plan - Client X - January” is much better.
- Search is powerful. The Search feature within modern operating systems is really powerful. If you can’t find a file by looking, try searching for it. If you’ve named your files and folders correctly, it will be easy to find.
- Don’t use too many folders. Having too many nested folders gets annoying. Each folder should have a minimum of about 10 files in it. If you only have two or three files in each folder, you need to reconsider your structure.
- Stick with it. Don’t just give up after a few days. It always takes a little time to adapt to something new. Commit to using your file structure for a couple of weeks before scrapping it.
- Keep tweaking. Top down systems are stupid; they rarely work. Start with one of the structures I recommend and then tweak it as you go. Adapt it to your workflow rather than trying to force your workflow to adapt to a rigid file structure.