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A Brief Guide to File Versioning
Have you ever gone looking for a file only to spend thirty minutes trying to figure out which one was the most recent version? Skip the headache — try file versioning!
You’ve probably come across a meme before that looks something like this:
And if you, like many others, need to laugh so you don’t cry (or shout at your computer), I’d like to introduce you to intentional file versioning.
When you find yourself in this situation, the truth is that you’ve already been versioning your files — adding “Final” to the end of a file name technically counts. But your file names are spiraling with more and more attempts to single them out (as the final, final, DONE version of something) because you need to account for more steps between drafting and completion. So the problem isn’t organization in general, but the system you use to guide it.
Your versioning system should:
- Be easy to follow and communicate
- Indicate the stage a document is at in development