Last week we talked about physical file organization in your office, and this week we will be focused on your digital files.
Digital files are overlooked most of the time, unfortunately, it usually takes a computer crash before people begin to realize the importance of digital files.
Don’t skip over this tutorial and say you will do it later! Schedule some time to implement each of these tips, then IF you have a computer problem you won’t have the stress of wondering where everything is or if you lost anything!
Why organize your files?
How many times have you gone looking for a file and you couldn’t find it? Perhaps you thought you saved it on your desktop or in your documents but you couldn’t remember so you downloaded a new copy, or you had to start over again, only to find out one day while you were looking for something else that you have 3 copies of it already?
Duplicate files are a huge problem, not only does it mean that you are not organized, but it is also wasting valuable hard-drive space on your computer.
You might want to tell me that you have a lot of file space and that doesn’t matter, but in fact, it does, after years of abuse and multiple files all over the place your system will eventually start to get full and without a system in place, you will have to start purging files. This will be stressful as you won’t be able to easily decide what is important, what should stay and what needs to go.
If you have ever used the file search feature on your computer only to see that there are multiple copies and you immediately got frustrated, thought about fixing it, but then realized that you didn’t have time to get it done at that moment because you didn’t have the time?
Organizing your files and maintaining the file system will save you a lot of time when you are looking for your documents, you won’t need to rely on the search feature anymore and you will be able to always know where to find a file that you are looking for.
Just imagine how wonderful it would be to go looking for a file, knowing exactly where it is and to be able to identify quickly which version you need to use.
Digital Filing Basics
The number one mistake that I see people do is to save everything to their desktop! This makes for a huge mess and a very cluttered workspace. When you save everything to your desktop you think it will make it easy to find. This is true for the first 20 things you save there, but as you begin to save more and more things there, you can’t even visually see all the things you have put there, and you will eventually need to use search to find them anyway.
Your digital files are just like your physical files. If you have one physical folder called work and you put all your invoices, cheques, customer files and receipts in one place it will be very difficult to find what you are looking for. This is like the “shoe box” file system, and it doesn’t work for your physical files and it certainly doesn’t work for your digital files either!
It is very important to have a system in place that makes sense and using a good physical system is a great model.
Once you have a system in place, the trick to keeping it this way is to use the system each and every time that you save something new.
Digital File Structure
The first thing to think about is how to make your system logical for you. This is one of the most important steps as you are going to have to use the system on a regular basis and it needs to be easy for you to figure out.
I suggest that you take out a piece of paper and some small sticky notes. Write down the types of files that you have and start to move the sticky notes around until you find a logical order.
You will want to keep your business files separate from your personal files, and inside each of those files, you need to have other files to separate out the different categories. This is just an example of some of the files that you might want to include.
Business
- Accounting
- 2018
- 2017
- Customers
- Name
- Contract
- Project
- Name
- Contract
- Project
- Name
- Procedures
- Online
- Onboarding
- Training for me
- Trainer name
- Topic
- Training for clients
- Course 1
- Course 2
- Strategic Planning
- 2018
- 2017
- Templates
- Contracts
- Letters
- Proposals
One of the other types of files that we get a lot of on our computers is downloads. There are many different kinds of downloads and it is important not to just put them in the same place either. Every time you download something you have the opportunity to choose where you want it to go. Check your browser settings and make sure that option is turned on.
Now when you download those items save them in the spot that makes the most sense. For example, there are times when we need to download software updates, and I have a folder inside me downloads folder that is called programs. This serves a few purposes, first I can quickly see which is the newest version and delete the old ones when I am cleaning up, but if something were to ever happen to my computer I can use that folder from my backup to restore the programs that I have installed on my computer after a hard-drive replacement.
We are receiving a record number of emails every day and it is just as important to keep them organized as well. How many times have you looked for an email that you knew you received but couldn’t find it?
Depending on your email system there are a few ways to manage the flow of data. The folder system is great and has been around for a long time and still works very well. My recommendation is that you put a system in place here as well that matches your physical and digital filing system so that it uses the same logic. That will make everything much easier to locate and deal with.
Gmail has the ability to use tags. This has been wonderful for me and allows me to group multiple emails in one tag regardless of where they are filed. If your email collection system has a tagging feature I suggest checking it out.
One of the other things that make sorting email easier is the use of automation. You can create rules in most email collection systems that will help you to file and tag emails before you even read them! This is a huge time saver and cuts down on the amount of missed emails that you may be currently experiencing.
I have used rules for all kinds of things, and it has saved my butt on many occasions.
Stay tuned next week as I will be going into depth on this topic.
Backup
I know I left this until the end, and I did that on purpose. It is very important to have a backup system that is easy to use and that you implement regularly, but it is also important to have an organized back up.
There are several different types of backup systems, and some you might not even think are ways to back up.
Think about Google Drive and Dropbox for an example. When you place a file in one of these systems you are backing up to the cloud. (It is just as important to mirror your file systems here as well)
Your images that you take with your phone or your digital camera are irreplaceable and I would like to share this great resource with you. I use Smugmug to store all my digital images and one of the perks is that when I take a picture with my phone it automatically ads the picture to a predesignated file on my Smugmug account. I have also hooked up my husband’s phone to do the same so that we will never lose those precious images.
There are two different kinds of backups, the archived files and the current files. When I complete a project with a client all their files become archivable. I move them into an archive file so that they aren’t shown with my current clients so that I keep my files neat and tidy.
There are so many ways to backup your system, and for me the only things that I back up are the files I create. I don’t care about backing up the software on the computer as I know it will be replaced with ease.
If you don’t have a backup plan in place right now here are a couple of options. You can buy an external hard drive with a built-in backup system like this or you can use an existing external hard drive that you may have and use a backup program like Allway Sync there is a free version, but I purchased the Pro version as I had so many files to process.
It is important to schedule your backups, if you don’t have your external device attached to your computer at all times, then you will want to put reminders in your calendar as to when you are going to connect your device and make the backup.
