I’ve been banging on forever about having a digital system and keeping it well organized. I talk about it so much because if you don’t have a sound filing system set up for yourself, nothing else in your digital life will matter. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but if you can’t find your records, then there is no point in keeping them at all. If you can’t maintain your documents, you can do nothing you can do when you need them. What you need to do as a user, therefore, is set up your filing system in such a way that you will be able to search, sort and find your records and manage your system effectively.
1) Treat Your Filing System like your home base – Your digital home base is your filing system. It’s where you keep all your documents, and as such, it’s essential to make it as easy for you to understand as possible. Hopefully, you know where everything is in your home because you’ve set yourself up in such a way that you can find things if you need them. The same is true with your filing system. How the folders and subfolders are set up should make sense to you because you are the one who is going to be actively using them. If you can’t find your files in a system with folders and subfolders, there is no difference between that and having all of your folders in one place. You’ll have to look through everything to find it or have your system set up so that you can do targeted searches when you need information(more on that further in the post).
2) You can model your e-mail filing system after it – Something I find it helpful to have my e-mail filing system match (more or less). I get documents e-mailed to me nearly every single day, and while I do file the records into my system, they are still in my e-mail as well. It’s important, therefore, to have a filing system in your e-mail that matches your actual filing system. The reason is twofold. Firstly, If, for whatever reason, you can’t find a document in your filing system, then there is undoubtedly the original in your e-mail, which you have safely tucked away somewhere. Personally, I like having a backup for my documents that is easily accessible.
3) Taxonomy is critical – One other key to having a good home base in your filing system is knowing what the individual files are called. I’ve spoken about this before. Having a Taxonomy or naming convention for your files is critical for making sure that you can find your files once you’ve put them into your filing system. If (as an example) you were to call your phone bill “Phone bill” one month and then the next call it “Cell Bill,” then you will have a hard time finding your files if you try searching for them. It’s important, therefore, to have a consistent way of naming your files so that you know what you’re looking for when you go looking for it.
There is so much digital data, and there is so much more that is becoming digital. You need to be able to have an effective system that works for you. On a bunch of different occasions, I have talked about the other systems that you can use, but the most critical one that you need is your filing system. In this case, you and you alone are the ones who can set this up. There are many templates and suggestions I can give you, but because of how personal this kind of thing is, it’s imperative that you set it up yourself in a way that makes sense to you. Once you have your system set up, that will be a big step in making your digital life easier.
What do you have in your filing system?
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