Three Steps to Organize Your Electronic Files

by Megan Spears

Organizing your electronic files is sometimes harder to do than paper files. We don’t see the actual document so we often forget what’s there.  The nice thing is that when your electronic files are organized you can find what you are looking for it will ultimately save you time and money! Creating an organized system for your electronic files can be an easy as 1-2-3.

1. Start with your Folders.

When you are creating your “folders” in your My Documents (for example), you  a similar system to how you would organize your paper files. Think of each folder as a file drawer or maybe a drop file.  When you have a similar folder system to your paper system, you will simplify the process and decrease the amount of time spent searching for files or documents on your computer.

2.  Naming your Documents.

Creating a system (or as my husband likes to say a “method to my madness”) that will help you efficiently track your documents, it becomes a lot easier to see what documents you have and where they belong. If it’s by TYPE, DATE or CLIENT/VENDOR, find a system that will help you better code your documents.

Personally, I track most of my documents by date. I often update and recreate forms or paperwork into newer versions so for me, dated items allows me to know which is most recent version.  For Example: 09_2009_Terms_Conditions would be one example of the most recent version of my Terms and Conditions.

3. Maintenance and Clean Up

***HINT*** The process of cleaning out your computer files is just as important as cleaning out your paper files. Even computer’s get overstuffed and unorganized so scheduling annual maintenance for file clean up will help you control the amount of memory you are using, and ultimately help in de-cluttering your files and folders to again, help the searching process and/or order of your computer filing.

Annual maintenance on my PC is just as much fun as my annual paper file purge. I enjoy getting down and dirty with my the process of PURGING!!! Getting rid of unnecessary documents, organize my information and streamline my information so that I can better serve my clients!