Organizing Computer Files

With the easy accessibility consumers have to their accounts on the internet, our growing desire to lessen overwhelming paper clutter and our improving efforts to preserve the planet, organizing your computer files will boost every day efficiency at home and at work. Who doesn't want that?!

Check out the following tips on organizing computer files to get started.

Utilize the general organizing procedure of purge, sort and store, and apply it when organizing computer files.


Purge:

• Start by going through your computer files one at a time and delete all duplicates, unwanted and/or unnecessary documents.

• In order to complete this step, ask yourself appropriate questions. For example: Is this a duplicate? Can I get this elsewhere if I need it? Is it outdated/expired?

• Organizing computer files can be tough when it comes to making decisions on financial documents. Check out this article on Real Simple's website for guidelines on record keeping.

• Remember, this can take some time, especially if you have a lot of electronic documents. If that is the case, go through your files for a set amount of time (say half an hour) and then stop. Do this every day until the job is done. Small achievable tasks are more likely to get done rather than a large daunting pile of digital clutter!

• When you are done purging, don't forget to empty the recycle bin. This completes the first step in organizing computer files and saves disk space on your hard drive.


Sort & Store:

• Now that all unnecessary files are gone, you can see what you have. Start by creating general folders on your desktop (i.e. Photos, Music, Writing, Financial, Travel).

• Remember, you want to find these files in the future with ease. Ask yourself how you would look for something and label the folder accordingly. For example, would you look for airline tickets under "Travel" or "American Airlines"?

• Once you have some general folders created, start dragging your documents to their appropriate locations.

• If necessary, sort the documents in the general folders into further categories by creating subfolders. For example, you may need to break down the general "Travel" folder by vacation locations, airlines, and so on.


Maintain:

• Now that you have organized your computer files, get in the habit of putting documents in their appropriate folders as soon as you create or download them. This ten second task will save you so much time and stress.