Keeping Organized

If you are starting with a brand new computer, you are all set! You can start organizing your folders and files right from the start.

For the rest of us, we have to decide what to do with the hundreds or possibly thousands of files and folders that are already on our hard drive in a mixed up mess.

One method is to spend a day/week/or month just moving and re-naming files – I don't recommend that for two reasons:

1. After spending many hours renaming files and folders, you may find a better way to organize your files and folders, then you will just have to move and rename them all again.
2. Many of the files you may not ever look at again – therefore you never really needing to rename them.

So, I'm Proposing you create a new file folder called “To Organize” and Move everything there then move and rename the files and folders as you use them. This spreads out the time spent renaming and reorganizing the files and folders you do use, and gives you a chance to use the new system, in action, to see if it is really works for you as you expected before getting into it too far. If it does not work that well for you, redesign it.

Keep a clean desktop, only keep a few links to your most used items.  Color code and/or change the icons of your folders so your most used tools stand out.

When you save a new file and don't have a lot of time, save it to the desk top, then properly name it and place it (or delete it) within a day or two (back to keeping your desktop clean!). 

Many companies type the path into the header or footer of the document – This is probably not necessary for most people at home, but can be ver useful in some situations and should be considered.

It doesn't make too much difference what your organizational plan is, a mediocre organizational system is better than no system.

Use the same names on all your devices.