How I organize my files.
Let's be honest, file management can be daunting — especially if you have a rapidly expanding file collection. For me, a simple, streamlined filing system makes my work and personal lives easier because I never have to worry about losing important assets within a sea of folders.
In this video, I'll walk you through my file organization method. Yes, my system borrows concepts from the Dewey Decimal System and Universal Decimal Classification System. (It's easy to use, and I love it.) I'll also drop some tips for getting started and using tools to make your own organization even easier!
In this video, I'll walk you through my file organization method. Yes, my system borrows concepts from the Dewey Decimal System and Universal Decimal Classification System. (It's easy to use, and I love it.) I'll also drop some tips for getting started and using tools to make your own organization even easier!
Transcript
Hey I'm Luke, and I'm going to show you how I organize my files. First a scenario - let's say that I download a font from fontfabric.com and I want to put it into my official folder structure or what I like to call my "file catalog." So if I search for my official fonts folder I'm gonna open up Alfred type in "fonts" I'm gonna get a lot of results - and it won't be easy to tell which one is within my official file catalog. But now, with the Carter cataloging system and only $49.99 per month you never have to look for a file again! just delete the file and then if you want to find it call 1-800 Just Kidding but seriously though - every parent folder within my file catalog has the following structure. Call number - period - space and a description. I don't have to worry about remembering in the call number but I can just search for period or dot space description - so let's do that now. I'll do period space fonts and then I can look for a result that has a call number and I'll know that this is my official file catalog folder. PS I'm using Alfred from alfredapp.com to search my file catalog there's a setup video available at prodshop.co/alfred-setup - don't forget to add folders in the extras - more in that video, but back to the show Now searching for dot, space and a description I'll be able to identify which folder is my official file catalog folder, but let's say I use the description twice within my file catalog. So, I'm gonna go ahead and take a screenshot of this t-shirt that I designed, and put it inside of my sewing inspirations folder. So I'll search for a dot space sewing. Now there are two results so I'm gonna use the path to help give me a little clue on which folder is the right one. So if you look at the first one we can see that it says dot space sewing and then inspirations is the parent. So that's the right folder. The one below has a parent of manuals and I've scanned my sewing machine manual and put it in there so that's the incorrect folder. What I'm going to do in order to place the screenshot inside of the sewing inspirations folder is use Alfred's File Actions. The PowerPack is required. I definitely recommend getting it. If you do get it send them a tweet tell them that I sent you. So I'm gonna locate the screenshot that I want to file, I'm gonna activate Alfred's File Actions, I'm gonna type Move To, push enter, and do dot space sewing and then do the right key to go to the inspiration folder - and push enter. Now what did I just do? I'm gonna go ahead and open up the sewing inspirations folder again. And I'll go here. I dropped it inside of this folder - and this folder is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, layers deep. So I didn't have to click through and I easily dropped a folder into a complex folder structure with just one little command, that saves a ton of time. Okay, so here's the general concept. Each project or group of files - I treat it like a book, and I've created a very complex folder structure - or my file catalog, to file my books into. PS - I'm a designer slash computer person so my file catalog is gonna look a little bit different from yours. PS2 - I'm going to use the words "division", "folder" and "book" kind of interchangeably - but they mean "folder." PS3 - the concepts that I'm borrowing are from the Dewey Decimal System by Melvil Dewey and also the Universal Decimal Classification System. Google it - it's very interesting. End of postscripts. Here's how I created my file catalog. You can see here that I've divided my life into ten divisions, and I number them 0 through 9. Zero is the general folder. Since you can't have more than 10 divisions if it doesn't squarely fit into divisions one through nine, you put it in 0. Here are my main divisions and it mirrors how my website is set up, and how my work is organized. Now then last folder nine, archives, that's my personal stuff that I don't put on my website yet. So here is Information - everything that doesn't apply for one through nine. Design, Code, Productivity, etc. Now each division can have up to ten subdivisions. Every subdivision folder has the following structure -> Call Number, period, space and description. The call number is based off of whatever the call number of the parent is plus whatever division the current folder is. So here Books and Journals is 112 because it's inside of the Print folder which is 110, and then the print folders inside of Design which is 1. If we go inside one level deeper. Now this is what I call a book folder and it's actually the last level before the project files are actually in there. The structure of the book folder is Call Number, Author's initials and a description. If there's multiple examples by the same author, since most of my work is mine, I put a little dash and a number. Now you can see here once you get inside of the book folder - the files are organized however. I think prescribing one folder structure to organize every project is pretty impossible so it's however you want to do it. I do use a similar naming convention for my projects and I'll do a later video on that that's specific to designers. Now I don't make a book folder for everything - just for my work stuff. Let's go to a personal folder where I just throw it in there - GIFs. So I'll search for dot space GIFs. You can see that they're just thrown in there and I changed the file names on some of them so I can find them faster. Now let's say I need to add a profile photo to a website or a little avatar. So I'm gonna go to my photos folder but I don't know exactly which description I use but I know that media was involved so I'm gonna search for a dot space media. I'll go ahead and push enter and then the folder would come up and you can see all of the divisions that I created. Now it's a picture that I took so it's in Capture and then it's organized into people and then me. So here are all the photos of me, and then I I sort them by subfolders, by just random descriptions and then you can see like all my friends - and then all my crushes. It's totally normal to organize photos of your crushes using the Dewey Decimal System right? Now the idea is to have a complex directory structure that uses super generic folder names that way if you don't remember the exact description of the parent folder you're looking for, you can generally get there or halfway and then click your way through. The other idea is that if you're in a work situation someone could click their way through, and then once they learn what the descriptions are more or less they can search with Alfred and find it quicker. Now you might be wondering how to set this up. That's a bigger conversation and I'm gonna make some future videos on it I just wanted to show you how I do it today. I have some AppleScripts to help with making the call numbers and creating new book folders. If you want to get started now, I recommend creating your divisions, and then putting things into your file catalog little by little. If you have a bunch of stuff in your downloads folder, and you don't know where to start check out my video How I organize my downloads, and it will give you a strategy on how to start with a bunch of unsorted files, and then organize them into folders according to their extension. It's a good way to get started and if you refer to something more than twice, I recommend putting into your file catalog. If you'd like me to create your file catalog for you, I am definitely available for freelance file organization - for sure. Otherwise if you want to get started on your own, and you need some help you can email me at hello@theproductivityshop.co or join the Productivity Shop slack channel [prodshop.co/slack] Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you later! Bye!
Hey I'm Luke, and I'm going to show you how I organize my files. First a scenario - let's say that I download a font from fontfabric.com and I want to put it into my official folder structure or what I like to call my "file catalog." So if I search for my official fonts folder I'm gonna open up Alfred type in "fonts" I'm gonna get a lot of results - and it won't be easy to tell which one is within my official file catalog. But now, with the Carter cataloging system and only $49.99 per month you never have to look for a file again! just delete the file and then if you want to find it call 1-800 Just Kidding but seriously though - every parent folder within my file catalog has the following structure. Call number - period - space and a description. I don't have to worry about remembering in the call number but I can just search for period or dot space description - so let's do that now. I'll do period space fonts and then I can look for a result that has a call number and I'll know that this is my official file catalog folder. PS I'm using Alfred from alfredapp.com to search my file catalog there's a setup video available at prodshop.co/alfred-setup - don't forget to add folders in the extras - more in that video, but back to the show Now searching for dot, space and a description I'll be able to identify which folder is my official file catalog folder, but let's say I use the description twice within my file catalog. So, I'm gonna go ahead and take a screenshot of this t-shirt that I designed, and put it inside of my sewing inspirations folder. So I'll search for a dot space sewing. Now there are two results so I'm gonna use the path to help give me a little clue on which folder is the right one. So if you look at the first one we can see that it says dot space sewing and then inspirations is the parent. So that's the right folder. The one below has a parent of manuals and I've scanned my sewing machine manual and put it in there so that's the incorrect folder. What I'm going to do in order to place the screenshot inside of the sewing inspirations folder is use Alfred's File Actions. The PowerPack is required. I definitely recommend getting it. If you do get it send them a tweet tell them that I sent you. So I'm gonna locate the screenshot that I want to file, I'm gonna activate Alfred's File Actions, I'm gonna type Move To, push enter, and do dot space sewing and then do the right key to go to the inspiration folder - and push enter. Now what did I just do? I'm gonna go ahead and open up the sewing inspirations folder again. And I'll go here. I dropped it inside of this folder - and this folder is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, layers deep. So I didn't have to click through and I easily dropped a folder into a complex folder structure with just one little command, that saves a ton of time. Okay, so here's the general concept. Each project or group of files - I treat it like a book, and I've created a very complex folder structure - or my file catalog, to file my books into. PS - I'm a designer slash computer person so my file catalog is gonna look a little bit different from yours. PS2 - I'm going to use the words "division", "folder" and "book" kind of interchangeably - but they mean "folder." PS3 - the concepts that I'm borrowing are from the Dewey Decimal System by Melvil Dewey and also the Universal Decimal Classification System. Google it - it's very interesting. End of postscripts. Here's how I created my file catalog. You can see here that I've divided my life into ten divisions, and I number them 0 through 9. Zero is the general folder. Since you can't have more than 10 divisions if it doesn't squarely fit into divisions one through nine, you put it in 0. Here are my main divisions and it mirrors how my website is set up, and how my work is organized. Now then last folder nine, archives, that's my personal stuff that I don't put on my website yet. So here is Information - everything that doesn't apply for one through nine. Design, Code, Productivity, etc. Now each division can have up to ten subdivisions. Every subdivision folder has the following structure -> Call Number, period, space and description. The call number is based off of whatever the call number of the parent is plus whatever division the current folder is. So here Books and Journals is 112 because it's inside of the Print folder which is 110, and then the print folders inside of Design which is 1. If we go inside one level deeper. Now this is what I call a book folder and it's actually the last level before the project files are actually in there. The structure of the book folder is Call Number, Author's initials and a description. If there's multiple examples by the same author, since most of my work is mine, I put a little dash and a number. Now you can see here once you get inside of the book folder - the files are organized however. I think prescribing one folder structure to organize every project is pretty impossible so it's however you want to do it. I do use a similar naming convention for my projects and I'll do a later video on that that's specific to designers. Now I don't make a book folder for everything - just for my work stuff. Let's go to a personal folder where I just throw it in there - GIFs. So I'll search for dot space GIFs. You can see that they're just thrown in there and I changed the file names on some of them so I can find them faster. Now let's say I need to add a profile photo to a website or a little avatar. So I'm gonna go to my photos folder but I don't know exactly which description I use but I know that media was involved so I'm gonna search for a dot space media. I'll go ahead and push enter and then the folder would come up and you can see all of the divisions that I created. Now it's a picture that I took so it's in Capture and then it's organized into people and then me. So here are all the photos of me, and then I I sort them by subfolders, by just random descriptions and then you can see like all my friends - and then all my crushes. It's totally normal to organize photos of your crushes using the Dewey Decimal System right? Now the idea is to have a complex directory structure that uses super generic folder names that way if you don't remember the exact description of the parent folder you're looking for, you can generally get there or halfway and then click your way through. The other idea is that if you're in a work situation someone could click their way through, and then once they learn what the descriptions are more or less they can search with Alfred and find it quicker. Now you might be wondering how to set this up. That's a bigger conversation and I'm gonna make some future videos on it I just wanted to show you how I do it today. I have some AppleScripts to help with making the call numbers and creating new book folders. If you want to get started now, I recommend creating your divisions, and then putting things into your file catalog little by little. If you have a bunch of stuff in your downloads folder, and you don't know where to start check out my video How I organize my downloads, and it will give you a strategy on how to start with a bunch of unsorted files, and then organize them into folders according to their extension. It's a good way to get started and if you refer to something more than twice, I recommend putting into your file catalog. If you'd like me to create your file catalog for you, I am definitely available for freelance file organization - for sure. Otherwise if you want to get started on your own, and you need some help you can email me at hello@theproductivityshop.co or join the Productivity Shop slack channel [prodshop.co/slack] Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you later! Bye!
The Productivity Shop, LLC / Trademark 2020