Bring Order to Your Shared Drives Using the Three-Level Folder Rule

Pro(ductivity) Tip# 89

Shared Drives can be a great resource for you to organize information if you establish a folder structure. A relatively basic folder structure will help you maintain a degree of simplicity in managing documents.

A shared drive that follows no established set of structural rules can quickly become an organic mess if you are not careful. Drives that are allowed to “sprawl” are not good environments to retrieve information, as you will have a multitude of structural schemes and sub-folder after sub-folder to contend with.
When organized according to an established structure, folders can be an easy way to organize content as they can quickly created and used. Unfortunately the major drawback to using folders is also that they can be quickly created and used. Folder sprawl is the number one enemy of shared drive users as locating information becomes a time consuming endeavor.

Three-Level Folder Structure
A good rule of thumb to follow is to maintain a three-level folder structure. Each level is dedicated to a specific document attribute. Depending upon your unique organizational needs the levels can be established in different arrangements with one attribute taking precedence over the other. However once the hierarchical arrangement is…