Managing Electronic Files
Files can be a mess. Yeah.
When it comes to organizing files on my computer, I used to be really, really bad at it. My desktop, as well as my other folders with ambiguous names, were an organized mess; even though no one else would have known where to find certain things, I still somehow knew where most of my files were. Even though I managed to find the files that I needed, sometimes it was hard to track down something when I didn’t have any type of organization structure.
Organizing is the key to proper file management. Being unorganized, not labeling things, and putting everything wherever you want may be the easy-way of handling files for some people but it also comes at a cost — things get lost. Even if you’re able to locate a file without any type of organization system now, will you be able to do that in the future? The likelihood of you actually remembering where you put what months or years later are quite slim. I know from experience and I wish that I would have known better during my middle school and high school days…
Although housekeeping files on your computer may be a chore, it’s worth it. It’s worth it for you in the long run. The whole goal of file management is to ensure that you’ll be able to easily find files and projects years from when it was first created. If I would have known what I know now, I would be able to find that video I got of my friend ripping his pants as he tried to jump over the fence, back in middle school. See, when there’s not an organization structure, you lose those precious files and you also lose the opportunity to blackmail your friends with embarrassing videos of them from when they were younger. Ugh.
Well, couldn’t I just search the file that I need?
Yes, there’s an option to use the search function, but that doesn’t always work when you can’t remember the name of the document. As a result, you end up having to scramble through everything. Instead of always scrambling around for important files, try your hand at good electronic file management practices.
As I said before, I used to be terrible at organizing my files on-the-go. I’m no expert at this but I have improved a lot. As soon as I hit that point where I got tired of having to look through every folder to find the document that I needed, I decided to change. I wanted to break this bad habit. Here are a few things that helped me become a better file manager:
Folders
One of the first things that got me in the habit of managing my files more efficiently were folders. Within each folder, you can create subfolders that are more specific to what it contains. When I was younger, I had the tendency to create one folder for a class and just put all the files that were related to it in there, without creating subfolders for various assignments. As you could imagine, it was a mess. The best way to keep content organized is to group things that are alike together.
File Naming Conventions
Properly naming files is another way to stay on track with things. Without naming files correctly, it gets even harder to find things. I used to have a problem with naming screenshots right as I took them so when I was working on a project that required a lot of screenshots to explain something, it got pretty messy really fast. In all honesty, I still struggle with this at times but again, I have improved. Instead of naming things as I go, I have a tendency to do all the organizing after finishing a project.
Shown below is an example of how I name my files. When I name files, I like to use underscores to help separate words so that in the case that spaces aren’t processable in a certain OS, the underscore would be used instead of a space.
Specificity
The purpose of being specific when creating file names is to make it so that you’re able to tell what a file contains without having to open it. Avoid ambiguity and vagueness as much as possible, especially when the file has to be shared with someone else. I’ve also learned that it’s good to keep your file names short, yet concise.
Deleting as You Go
Another habit that I’ve been working on is deleting files as I go. If I have a duplicate file of something for whatever reason or just don’t have any use for a file anymore, I try my best to delete it ASAP.
Clearing Your Desktop
One major thing that I’ve been trying to avoid at all costs has been polluting my desktop with countless files. At one point, I used to have all sorts of documents on my desktop since that was where I used to save all of my incoming files and it was a mess. So what did I do? I cleared it and put things in their appropriate folders.
File Management in Play
Although file management is critical for any type of project, it’s especially helpful when you have a lot of assets to handle. For one of the projects that I worked on, I had to collect a lot of assets. I made a journal called “PRIMIS” for a club organization called “I Am First”, a club at Utah Valley University for first-generation students, to showcase the work and experiences that these students have had. Although I have helped out this club with their advertising efforts by creating posters for their events in the past, this journal project has challenged me to become better at organizing and designing (to learn more about the design of the PRIMIS journal, go here).
With the organizing habits that I developed, I immediately started separating assets appropriately. When I first received the assets for this project, everything was luckily in separate folders and not just in one folder. However, I still had to do a little bit more housekeeping, especially in the “Student Submissions” and the “Various Photos” folders.
With so many assets to work with, I had to come up with a plan to separate content. Since I knew that I had to create sections for autobiographical sketches, college experiences, poetry, visual art, and staff contributions in the journal, I decided to color-code everything by applying tags to various student folders.
- Green: Autobiographical sketches
- Orange: Narratives
- Purple: Poetry
- Blue: Visual art
- Red: No submission
By tagging folders with different colors, I was able to avoid having to look through each folder to see which students submitted what for each of the four categories in the journal. As a result, I was able to save a lot of time and to work more efficiently.
Conclusion
The hardest part of managing files is coming up with a system that actually works for you and sticking to it. Getting into any good habit takes time but by practicing appropriate file management habits now, it will benefit you tremendously in the long run. Without any organization structure or system, locating certain files on your computer when you need them would be a hassle.
A good rule of thumb? Less mess, less stress. Start now and keep your management style consistent. Everyone has their own way of doing things so do whatever is best for you. Your way of organizing things may work for you but may not work for someone else. That’s okay. As long as you’re able to locate the files that you need as your file collection continues to grow, you’re good!
Following these tips that I just shared has helped me organize my files on my computer but I would still like become better organized so if you have any suggestions, leave a comment below!
As always, thanks for reading! :)
If you would like to learn more about the design of the PRIMIS journal, go here.
