How to Organise All of your Digital Files with Ease
When you run a business or when you work in an office, you will understand how important it is for you to keep all of your documents organised. If you don’t then this can cause you to lose important files and you may even find that you can’t meet your deadlines with certain projects as well. Luckily, there are ways for you to get around this and organising your files is now easier than ever before.
Use default destinations
When you install programs or even applications, you need to try and use the default file location.
A lot of people think that it is easier to install programs in their own custom folder, but this is not the case at all. In fact, it will be much harder to do updates, install add-ons and your PC will not be able to find the files as easily either. For this reason, it is so important that you use the default destination as much as possible. You can rename the destination if you want but always try and stick with the option you are given.
Use the operating system folders
It’s a common practice for people to clutter their desktop with files that are not needed. To avoid this you can use the My Documents folder to store some of your information. Make sure you have a backup of those files on another partition/drive as you will most certainly lose them if your Windows installation gets corrupted. Other places could be My Photos/Videos/etc.
Name files and folders
Another important aspect to consider when you’re organizing your files is to be as brief as possible, but also as detailed as possible. Even though most of the time you might be the only one using the folders or files, if you do decide to share some files, you want it to be clear to them, as well as to you.
Logical hierarchy
In a filing cabinet, you have sets of drawers. Within those drawers, you can then organise your folders into alphabetical or numerical order. From here, you can then organise the files even further, and so forth. The same concept applies to your computer. It’s so important that you have a logical hierarchy when you organise your files. Use plain language and split everything into sub-folders as much as possible. When you do this, you won’t have to scroll through an endless list of files and you can also find everything you need in just a few clicks. When naming your files, don’t use abbreviations. You may think that it is easier right now, but later on it won’t be and you may even wonder what you were even thinking when you named it. This is the last thing that you need, so really take your time, be logical and think about how explanatory the name is.
Use Software
If you can, you should always use software to try and keep your file structure as clear as possible. Templafy is great for this: https://www.templafy.com/. When you do use software to download file templates, you can have the same formatting across all of your documents and this will make it much easier for you to find the information you need. On top of this, it also gives you the chance to add your own company branding, colours and fonts to your documents as well.
Backing Up
If you have a cloud system then you will understand how convenient this can be. After all, you can have access to thousands of files at any one time and you can also do this across multiple computers as well. If you are backing up your files to the cloud, it’s important that you keep the same logical hierarchy. If you don’t then you will have two completely different systems for identical files.
