Better Folder/File Structure

Aug 15

On one’s computer, everyone has a structure. Some are more organized and some are not. Some have files in a very hierarchical form while others will save files willy-nilly.

I think that I used to be more of the latter but have more recently moved towards the former. And that’s a good thing. It probably has to also do with how I want to be neater with my physical possessions as well.

Here are some of the ideas that I’ve keyed off:

1. Use the date - I will create filenames that are similar to each other for a particular folder and then just append YYMMDD to the end (and possibly HHMMSS if need be). If you don’t know, that means that I append the last 2 digits of the year, the 2 digit month, and the 2 digit day. I suppose that I should learn from the whole Y2K fiasco that I should use YYYY to truly be safe, but I don’t really think a lot of my stuff is going to matter when I’m gone. Because I’m pretty sure that I will be gone by the time the dial rolls around to 2100. In any case, this method gives you a reliable way to sequentially order your files. The time stamp that operating systems have on files is a little bit unreliable since it can change simply by modifying and saving the file. I especially use this for things such as copies of payment for monthly bills, program backups, etc.

2. Have multiple levels of folders - In other more technical terms, have multiple layers of abstraction. It sounds complicated perhaps, but it’s a good thing. A really good folder structure will infinitely help your access to particular files. For example, storing music is much easier when I have used the folder structure: Artist->Album->(music files). Previously I have done many methods including all in one folder, by type, and willy-nilly. None of those worked particularly well when I wanted to find something.

3. Have a temporary folder - Use this folder to save anything that you might want for now, but won’t be a huge loss to you if it gets deleted. A short-term place of storage if you will.

4. Be as specific as possible - For my pictures, I store everything in folders according to the event or time that they were taken. I think that optimally I would be able to name all of my pictures exactly as I see fit with the pictures’ content in the filename. However, I don’t care enough to spend that much time. Still it’s very useful to store things by as specific a means as possible (in this case the event is as specific as possible).

Okay for now that’s all I’ve got. But I’m sure that over the years I’ll incorporate other ideas into how I set up my computer’s file structure. Any new ideas are definitely welcome!