This article from the blog of Denise Landers, founder and CEO of Key Organization Systems Inc. and a Paper Tiger Expert, is helpful as it relays a few tips to us on storing electronic files. With an effective filing system in place, finding electronic files are an easy task. Denise also suggests Paper Tiger Filing System Software and Document Management for your paper files and proficient organizing.
Just because paper is becoming less of an issue for filing does not mean that a good filing system is unnecessary. You may now store electronic files instead of paper files, and these also need to be organized for quick searches. A few simple tips can be really useful in managing your electronic or digital files efficiently. We’ve also provided additional helpful hints within Denise’s article as it relates to how Paper Tiger and/or Google Drive might assist you in managing your electronic digital files.
Save and place your digital documents in one place, preferably in the My Documents/Documents folder. All of your text files, spreadsheets and presentations should go in one main folder. Note: if you use Gmail, you can now download Google Drive as a folder to your harddrive that will synchronize everything between this folder on your harddrive and your Google Drive location in the cloud from your Gmail account.
My Documents is like a closet where you need to have various drawers and sections to categorize or arrange things. Creating subfolders will act like drawers of that closet. Choose meaningful names for these. As a simple example, if you have a main folder with a name “Reports”, make subfolders with “2010”, “2011”, and “2012” for quicker searching. These subfolders can also contain more subfolders. Note: You can do the same thing with your Google Drive folder from your Gmail account.
If you start some with dates, then continue that practice. If they all relate to a specific project, you might put the project names or initials at the beginning of the name.
Your file names must be specific and so relevant that you can tell what is in the file without opening it. For instance, if it is an invoice to a company named ABC sent on Oct 2, the file name could be “invoice1012abc”. Giving generic names like “invoice” will make it extremely difficult for you to track and use it for the next time. As above, relating to consistency, you might start all invoice files with that word before adding more description. Note: When creating or uploading a scanned or other digital file to Google Drive, you can choose to have it converted to Google Docs format which will OCR up to 10 pages, which will allow you to search for words throughout your digital files.
It is wiser to make a habit of saving your file in the right place at the time of its creation instead of storing it on your desktop for quick access now. The desktop ends up becoming cluttered and another task to clear off later. When you have faith in your filing system, you won’t worry about keeping on the desktop to be sure of finding it.
If there are some files which you use often, force them to arrange on the top. You can add an asterisk or other symbol that will keep them above the other files. When you know longer need this file on a regular basis, take off the symbol so that it drops down to alphabetical order.
Plan for a time annually where you clean up your files. Get rid of the ones that are no longer pertinent.
Periodically it is smart to create backups of all your files. You might consider both local storage devices and an automatic online process.
Keeping your business documents organized is another step to a success. Windows has strong search features to find your files in the system, but if your file name is too generic, even the search feature will not be helpful.
The ideas for this guest post were contributed by Lewis Edward, one of the owners of The Office Providers.
Denise Landers
Key Organization Systems Inc.
Author of Destination Organization
productivity@keyorganization.com
Have you ever tried to “get organized” only to be frustrated after a day, or a week, or a month? Destination: Organization recognizes that reaching your organizing goals is a journey, not a one-time event, as you develop processes to cope with daily demands that constantly change. For help, call Denise at (281) 397-0015
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Tags: Digital Files, digital filing system, get organized, paperless, Productivity, professional organizer
