Setting Up A Digital File System
When it comes to digital clutter, it’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind.’ For example, it’s tempting to download a document or image and put it into a random file, or worse yet, leave it where it lands. Have you ever tried to find a downloaded file that was auto-named KJKA564598762168?
I fall victim to this too. Shutting off the computer and walking away is an easy way to avoid the mess of my files. That is, until I need to find something. It’s also extremely easy to save everything ‘just in case’ because the files or images don’t take up physical space.
First, I’ll state what might be obvious: You don’t need to keep everything! Only keep things you’ll likely need to reference in the future. If you’re not sure, create a ‘maybe’ file as a holding tank that you go through and cull out on a semi-regular basis.
Second, you’ll need to make sure that you can find digital files when you need to reference them. That is the first rule of filing: Organize your files in a way that makes retrieval possible.
To get you started, the components of your filing system that you will need to think through are:
What you will store
Folders and sub-folders
Filing names
What you will store
I can’t stress this enough: Just because you have the digital space doesn’t mean you need to keep the digital files. If you always default to keeping digital files, this habit will likely extend into the physical realm as well. Make sure you can identify a reason for keeping your files before hitting save.
Folders and sub-folders
Try to think broadly when you set up folders. It makes sense to create folders for main categories such as ‘bills’ and ‘photos’, but you’ll get too granular if you start labeling folders by the year or the month. You’ll see in the next section why it’s not necessary. A really helpful way to decide how to organize your folders is to sketch out a folder tree (just like those family trees you did in school) on a piece of paper before making them on the computer. If you can’t fit them all on the paper then you have way too many.
Filing names
This is the most crucial part. Pick a naming convention (set of rules for naming) and use it ALL THE TIME. Write it down. Tape it to your wall. Create a computer desktop graphic. Use cheat-sheets until it’s deeply engrained in your mind.
Include keywords that you might search for if you use the global search function. For example, if you keep files related to your kids’ sports and think you would search by team name, make sure to include that information in each file name so it’ll come right up when you search.
Always include the date of the file.
If it’s something that will have versions, label the files using v1, v2 or draft, edited, and final.
If you want to be able to sort files in date order, start the file name with yyyy.mm.dd. When you sort by file name they will be in chronological order.
If you want to be able to sort by type, put the name of the document first and then the date. For example, under the ‘bills’ folder, you might have files labeled “Electric 2020.10.31” and “Water 2020.10.20”. When you sort by file name they will group by type first and then by date so you can easily find what you are looking for.
Now that I’ve given you the basics of getting up and running with an effective file system, I need to give you a word of warning. Organizing electronic files often takes a lot more hours than people expect. It’s not like organizing a bunch of tools in the garage. Most people can accomplish this task in a few hours of dedicated time. However, a person may have thousands of files on their computer. They’ll need to look at each file individually and make a decision.
If you decide to tackle your digital files, plan to work during several blocks of dedicated time and don’t expect it all to be done in a day. Depending on how many digital files you have and how much time you have to devote, this process could take several days or weeks.
One final tip: Create a ‘processing’ folder on your desktop to move everything into as you work through them and set up the new system. This will keep ‘in process’ files off to the side and out of the way. You don’t want to mix up the old and new systems as new things inevitably come in before you’re done.
Of course, if the thought of going through your old files is overwhelming, you could just cut your losses, create an ‘archive’ folder for all the old stuff, and start fresh on anything new!
