If you have come here, it is probably that you have got files scattered all over your PC and desktop & the downloads folder is full of app installers and all the installation packages from years ago.
To organize the files and documents on your PC, you need to set up a file organizing system that you can stick to. If you set up an organizing system that you can not stick then there is no point in adopting that point system. You need to adapt a file organizing system that will keep everything organized for you.
There are different ways by which you can keep your file organized including organizing on the basis of color coded folders, tags, etc. You need a system that will help you keep your find the way that you want and these tags or colors aren’t gonna.
Here are three ways in which you can Organize Your Computer Documents Properly:
Project-Based/Client-Based File Organization System:
In this files and documents organization system, the files and documents are set up on the basis of the projects or clients. This is perhaps the simplest yet most efficient way to keep the documents organized.
Every client or project that you have or had gets its own dedicated folders where all of the relevant files and documents are placed.
What makes this system of file organization better than most is that if a file belongs to one client/project then it goes into its folder and if another file belongs to other clients/projects then it goes into the other folder. It is as simple as that.
If you are handling multiple projects for a single client then the main folder is of the client while each project gets its own separate folder.
If there is any file that belongs to multiple projects then you can either create a General folder where you can place that file or duplicate the file and place it into all the projects that it belongs to. Similarly, if you have a lot of word documents scattered around you may use a Word to PDF converter and or a JPG to PDF converter and have a single portable document ready for all the files.
Creating a General folder will create more mess than cleaning it. Therefore, assigning each file to its project/client that it belongs is a better option.
Date-Based File Organization System:
Using the date-based organization system involves creating a main folder for each year with subfolders for each month and if you want more then you can create other folders for weeks of the month but it usually involves a lot of effort. For example, Main Folder: 2021, Sub-Folder: January, Sub-Folder: Week 1
The best thing about a date-based file organization system is that you can easily file from a certain period of time. For example, if you were to look for a financial report from a specific month of the year then it would be very easy to locate the file with date-based file organization.
This file organization system is best when you are working on files and documents for a short period of time and if you are working with similar files on a weekly or monthly basis such as marketing or financial reports then this file system becomes ideal because you are dealing with reports or documents on a weekly and monthly basis and it becomes easier to find the document that you were looking for from a specific month.
However, if you are working with multiple files then this file organization system might not be the best choice for you because it becomes hard to find out the exact file that you were looking for and also if you are working on a document for a long time then where do you place it, the month in which you started working on it or the month that you finished it in. These can be hurdles in date-based file organization.
File-Based File Organization System:
A file-based organization system is the one where files are grouped into folders depending on the type of file. This means that you arrange the files depending on their types. For example, if there is a marketing file then you move it into the marketing folder, if there is an accounting file then you have to put it into the accounting folder and so in.
In the file-based organization system, you put all the similar files into the same folder. It works best when you don’t have many files to manage because if there are many files then this means that there would be many files of the same category and instead of easing the burden, it would increase it.
It works best when you don’t have too many files and everything isn’t that messy.
You can enhance the file-based organization by creating subfolders on the basis of data/time or on the basis of clients/projects. This would prevent the folders from getting messy and it would be easier for you to sort out the files.
