Goal eight: Your computer files

I’m inspired today to discuss organizing your computer files.  One of my pet peeves is full inboxes.  I believe in filing anything and everything.  My files have files.  My files’ files have files.  My files’ files’ files have files!  But by gosh by golly, I can find pretty much anything I’m looking for on my computer within seconds (if it cooperates and functions that quickly – arg!  Don’t get me started on computer speed.. that’s a whole ‘nother blog!)

I believe that success in your business lies in knowing where to find things.  Whether it’s being able to access a client file from two days ago, or two years ago, the key to accessing data is know where it’s stored.  Here’s how I do it – with an organized system of folders.

“My Documents” are organized into five folders – one for the house, one for Pampered Chef, one for the travel agency, one for old files that I’m keeping for some reason, and Program Files.  The only file not in a folder is this file into which I’m typing this rapidly growing collection of organizational thoughts.  Then inside those folders are more folders for organizing each thing into categories – for example inside my Pampered Chef folder there is a folder for specials.  Inside that folder are folders for each year I’ve been in business, with the pdf files for that year inside.  How easy is it then for me to go and look to see what the specials for a certain month have been in the past couple of years?  Great, right? 

Now, I’ve let my files just collect in “My Documents” for a while, waiting til the day that I would write about how to organize files so I could tell you how long it took.  I had around 50-60 files to sort into folders today.  It took me less than five minutes.  This IS something you can do!!

After you tackle your documents, check out your email box.  I need to create some more folders for my work inbox, but that’s work for another day.  When you sort your inbox, first go through and delete all the junk mail that doesn’t need to be piling up.  Then go through and figure out how you want to sort.  Do you need a “mom” file or a “hubby” file to keep emails from specific people?  Perhaps you want to sort by topic – work emails in one folder, emails about your kids in another, etc.  Doesn’t matter to me HOW you do it, but honestly, you will feel so much better when you do!!

Organizing music files can be much more difficult and challenging, and depends solely on what program you are using to listen to your music, so I won’t tackle that, but I will say that you should always remember – it’s easier to find things when they are organized.  Take the time it takes to do it right, and you won’t regret it!

We’ll talk about organizing pictures tomorrow.  Don’t you love spring cleaning and organizing?  Don’t you feel self-assured and awesome?  You should, because you rock!! ;)