Transcription
Organizing air files will not just give us peace of mind, but it will also help us be more productive, be more systematic, and be more hi guys. Welcome back to the channel.
In this video, I will be showing you how I organize my files in my computer and how this system can also help you organize your files too. If you're watching this video because you also have tons of files waiting to be organized, then please watch until the end. So without further ado, let's get started.
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Organizing your files will not just give us peace of mind, but it will also help us be more productive, be more systematic, and most of all, it will help us save time. It may seem tedious at first, and it involves a lot of work and patience, but in the end, you will realize that you will benefit from it, and it's all worth it. Okay, so let's dive into the topic.
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The first step in organizing your files is to create a system, and right now, I will be showing you my personal system when it comes to organizing my files. Creating a system is like creating a folder tree from which your files and folder structures will be built upon. Before we proceed in creating the folder structure, I will show you first the two main folders I haven't described. So they are personal files and work files.
Okay, so let's create a folder structure now. Okay, to create our folder structure, all we have to do is to create our main folder first. So for me, it's personal files folder, and then inside this folder, I will create another subfolder which I will name 2021. So all of the files that I will be gathering for this year will be put into this folder. And then inside this folder, 2021, I will also create another subfolder from which I will name it images, another one for videos, another one for docs, another one for music, and installers.
Okay, so again, we have our main folder, personal files, the year, and the different categories. So inside videos, I will be putting another subfolder which I will name movies, and another one for TV series. Okay, and inside the documents folder, I will put another subfolder for word documents, another one for excel documents or spreadsheets, and another one for PPT, PowerPoint, and another one for PDF. So all the files that will be categorized as movies will be going into this folder. All the TV series, my collections will be put into this folder, and all the word documents from our moving bin will be put into this uh word folder, and all the excel files will be put in the spreadsheets folder, PowerPoint files in here, and then the PDFs in this folder. So that's how easy it is to create a folder today structure. You may choose to follow this format, or you can opt to create your own one. Anyway, it all boils down into how consistent you are into organizing your files and folders.
Same concept applies to the work files. So I have created a main folder for work files, and then the year, and then images, video, docs, and then the school year for 2021-2022. So all the files under ICT will be put into this folder, all my class records in here, and then all the LRMDS related files will be put into this folder. And also, I will separate all the word documents, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDFs, as well as video lessons, motivational videos, and another one, let's say dance videos or dance exercises.
Okay, so as you can see, it is easy to create a folder structure. Now that we know how to create our folder structure, let us apply it into creating folders inside our drive. Okay, so for example, you don't have uh your main folder yet. So let's create one. For example, let's name it sir oh personal files. Right. All right. So we have created our main folder. Let's go inside it, and then let's create the folder for the year 2021. Let's create a subfolder for images, and then another one for videos, then another one for docs, and music, and lastly installers.
Okay, so inside docs, we will be creating another subfolder. We have word, we have spreadsheets, we have PowerPoint, and lastly PDF. Right. So just do the rest until you have created all the subfolders. So that's how you create your folder structure inside your drive.
Okay, now that you know what a folder tree looks like, you may now choose how to formulate your folder structure. Here are two options that I think can be useful for anyone who wants to organize their files and folders. Okay, so for option one, you may separate your personal files and work files. So there will be two main folders, one for your personal files and one for your work files. And then inside your personal files, you will be separating your files by year. So next year, I will just create a new one, a new folder, subfolder, which I will name 2022, and so on and so forth as the years go by.
For option number two, you may set your main folder as the year, and then inside it, you will put in your personal files and work files. Okay, so next year, you will just create another main folder for year 2022. But I do prefer the first one. Again, it's a matter of your choice or preferences. I like it better than the second one because I like my personal files and work files to be separated. So that's it. You may choose between these two, or you may also create your own folder structure.
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All right, that's underneath my first step. Let's now go to step two. In step two, it involves file renaming. When it comes to renaming files, it's all a matter of personal preferences. I personally don't have a file naming system that I follow because of the volume of files that's being downloaded to my computer every single day. But if you want, you may follow a specific file naming system. For example, the ISO 8601, which follows a date format, which looks like this. The ISO 8601 format looks like this. It goes by the year, month, and the day. So for example, 2013 is the year, 04 is the month, and then 20 is a day. So instead of using final name or final final for final final final talaga, you can just use versions for your file names. So for example, I have here a text document. If I want to make a change on it, I will just copy this one and then create a copy of this file, and then the updated one will be renamed version 2, and the original one will be renamed as version 1. This way, it will not cause contribution to people who will access these files.
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Okay, now that you have created a system and you have renamed your files, the third step to our organizing your files and folders is to create a moving bin. So another moving bin. Basically, a moving bin is a one folder that rules them all. This is a folder from where you dump all the files that's being downloaded to your downloads folder, to your documents folder, to your desktop folder, etc., etc. So how does it work? It's easy, actually. You will just create a single folder and you will rename it however you want. For me, I renamed it a moving bin because I dump files into it from time to time. You may choose to rename it however you want. Now, I will show you my personal moving bin folder. So here's my moving bin folder, and inside it are tons of files which I haven't organized yet. We have Excel documents, we have four documents, PowerPoint, we have compressed files, and a lot more. So all these files are inside my moving bin folder. And to create one, to create your moving bin folder, just create a new folder or right-click new and then folder, and then name it however you want. So for me, I name it moving bin. For you, you can name it uh whatever or however you want.
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The fourth step into this process is to move the files. So this is when the actual organizing happens. Okay, so when it's time for you to organize your files, all you have to do is to dump all the files again from the downloads folder, documents folder, desktop folder into the moving bin folder. From there, you will organize them according to their type, according to their formats, and so on and so forth. So let's say you have created your to organize folder or your moving bin folder. Let's now try to move some files into it. So for example, you have your downloads folder right here, then just select files that you want to move to your moving bin folder, and then copy or cut those files, and then go to your moving bin folder, and then paste them. So here are the files that you will be organizing. From here, you can sort them by type, by name, or by date modified. So to easily organize them, just click on type or sort them by type. In here, I will just select all the PNG files and JPEG files because they are both image formats, and then right-click cut, and then I will go to my personal files folder, 2021, and then images.
Okay, let's go back now to our to organize files. Now let's move the PDF ones. PDF. Okay, so I will select the PDF, cut it, and then go back to my personal files folder, 2021, and then PDF. Okay, do this until all your files on the moving bin are organized and have been moved to their corresponding folders. So I just speed up the process, but you know the drill, and you know how it works now. Okay, so there's the last file, and we're done. So that's how easy it is to organize your files.
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Okay, so we are now in step five, and this time we will just add a moving bin shortcut. Okay, so I will show you how it works and how you will benefit from having this shortcut. So you will notice that inside my personal files folder, you will see a shortcut to my moving bin folder, and inside each folder, there will still be this shortcut. So for example, I will go to videos, then you will see the moving bin shortcut inside my videos folder. So if I go to um docs, you will see it again here, and you will also see it on these other folders. So what's the purpose of creating a shortcut to your moving bin folder? So the answer to that is that it will help us easily move between our personal file folders and to our moving bin folders. How does that work? Okay, so for example, you have mistakenly put this file inside this folder, and we want this file to be moved back to the moving bin folder. All you have to do is to right-click on it, cut, right-click on the moving bin folder, and then paste. So that file will now be moved into the moving bin folder. Here it is.
We are now on our final step, which is to schedule a date when you have to organize files and folders. So this can be once a month, twice a week, or every day. It depends on your personal preferences. So basically, this is just a day that you will set when you have to sit in front of your computer and do nothing but organize your files and folders religiously. Take note of that. You will have to do it religiously. For casual users, you may choose to schedule at least once a month or even twice a month. But for a power user like me, who downloads files every day, it's necessary for me to actually organize my files at least once a week. So what I do is that I set a schedule once a week, preferably in the weekends, and that's when I organize my files. Now, this is an important tip. When you schedule a date to organize your files and folders, please, please follow that schedule and do not procrastinate or stay away from Netflix and other distractions. When you skip a schedule or when you procrastinate, the tendency is that you will have more files coming in, and you will have tons of other files and folders unorganized on your next schedule. Trust me, it happened to me before, and it sucks.
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Okay, here comes a bonus tip: backing up your files. No matter how organized you are, if you don't back up your files regularly, there will come a day in your life when your hard disk dies, and there's nothing you can do to retrieve your files. And imagine that. There are different ways on how we can back up our files. We can save it on a flash drive, or for larger files, we can store it in an external drive. And the other option is to back up our files in the cloud or in the internet using Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, or whatever choices. I will create another video dedicated for backing up your files for a more thorough discussion, but in a nutshell, you should always keep a backup of your files regularly to avoid data loss.
All right, so that's it. I hope you learned something from this video. Give it a thumbs up if you liked it, and please subscribe to my channel for more content like this. Again, I'm sure oh. Keep safe, and I'll see you in the next one.
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