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Sometimes it’s the date the file was created that’s important, other times it’s the file format, and other times it’s the purpose of the file. Clever naming of the files will only get you so far. all your “work” files, all the photos of your Europe holiday in 2008, all your music videos, all the MP3s from Dark Side of the Moon, all your letters you wrote to your wife, all your tax returns). Sometimes its just plain faster to go straight to the file you want, if you know it’s in a particular sub-folder, rather than trawling through hundreds of search results. It doesn’t work 100% of the time, or you may not even have it installed. Often it’s not convenient, speedy or even possible to utilize your desktop search software to find what you want.
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But consider these common tasks that are not achievable with desktop search software:
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On the face of it, why would anyone bother to take the time to organize their hard disk when such excellent search software is available? Well, if all you ever want to do with the files you own is to locate and open them individually (for listening, editing, etc), then there’s no reason to ever bother doing one scrap of organization. For him, filing is a waste of valuable time that could be spent enjoying life! He relies on the search functionality built into his Windows operating system to help him find whatever he’s looking for. I have a friend who puts every file he ever creates, receives or downloads into his My Documents folder and doesn’t bother filing them into subfolders at all. And yet, in this era of powerful desktop search software (the search capabilities built into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Start Menus, and third-party programs like Google Desktop Search), the question does need to be asked, and answered. Why Bother Organizing At All?įor some, the answer to this question is self-evident. Hopefully some of these tips will work for you too, but please don’t read this as any sort of “right” way to do it.Īt the end of the article we’ll be asking you, the reader, for your own organization tips. But the tips I have described here are only one way of doing it. I consider myself to be unusually well organized (to the point of obsession, truth be told), and I’ve had 25 years experience in collecting and organizing files on computers. When I wrote this article, I tried to keep a generalist and objective viewpoint. The reality is that there is no perfect way of getting things organized.