How often do you see someone (or see yourself!) spending time hunting for the file you want? Scrolling through hundreds of files in the Documents or Pictures folder? Or opening one ‘no, that isn’t it…maybe this one…’?
You can save time and stress by utilising the folders in Windows and on your Cloud Storage. Folders are meant to be stored one inside the other, categorising and sub-categorising things, and you can continue to add folders/categories.
For example, you may have a folder for bills, and within that you may have folders/categories for each year, then within them a folder/category for each month.
This means that if you need to see a bill you received in October 2018 you know exactly where to find it, no scrolling through hundreds of files to find the right one.
The next important step is to USE these folders, save the bills you receive to the folder each time – don’t leave them in your emails so you have to search through there to find them!
When you have your folders and you are adding your files to the correct folder, then you need to name your files so you can find them. The most important thing to remember about naming files is that the name needs to be something so you know what is in the file! Doc1 or Rpt34839r7ssr are not useful.
One easy way to name things, especially those that are related to date, is to put the date first but put it backwards, so YYMMDD or YYMM, this means 8 April (180408) will come after 12 March (180312), the follow this with a description of what is in the file eg. 180327 Inv 123 from ABC Ltd
For things that aren’t related to date, make sure you have a clear label as to what is in them, for example you logo, say the size or use in the document name so you know what you are looking for – your designer will have used their own naming convention so you need to change the file names to your naming convention.
By taking some time to put these things into place you will be able to save time whenever you are looking for any files and be more organised in your business.