Make information retrieval easy

We work with 1000 GBs of data and virtually thousands of files on a daily basis. You get a call, and suddenly one of your bosses is asking for a proposal that you prepared in 2008. Gosh...that would be the response that most of us would let out. Microsoft has given us a good search tool. But that proves useless, as you have no clue what to search for. You consider the year, even the text within the file...then you search for the open window next to you..to sneak out. But i can assure you that this will not happen, if you had taken that little pain of arranging the files in your own computer.

Keep an Index:
First try to keep a clean index of your files. Index need not be a notepad which you keep on the desk top as an icon. It may be even a folder structure.

Follow naming conventions:
Try to give files proper names. Do not under any circumstances give numbers. It will be very difficult even for a computer to search them out. I have even seen people pressing any combination of random keys and give names. I have seen my friends giving names of local kerala foods to jpg prototypes. Next time when you download a file from the net or visit an HTML page on any website, see if these files carry any of those stupid and irrelavent names in live. If possible follow a naming convention that even specifies the purpose or situation where this file or matter will be used.

Learn to cat and subcat.
Organise your files inside different folders. Organise these files under categories and subcategories. See a simple folder structure as below for all the files:

today, this_week, other_weeks_ of_ the_ month, last_months, 2009

today will keep all files that you are working on that day

this_week folder will keep all the files that you have worked on till yesterday

Other_weeks_ of_ the_ month folder will keep all the files that you have worked and completed in past weeks of the ongoing month. Sometimes you may have to keep this folder empty if you are in the first week of a month.

last_months folder is where you need to keep all your files that you have worked on till last month

last year or 2009: This folder needs to carry the number of the last year. As you go on working on a computer for a number of years. The folders assigned to years will increase.

Now what you need to do is to keep on changing the files between these folders. When you name the files try to name the files in line with its use. eg., manual_version1_blackpearl. Here i assume that blackpearl is a software name. There are many other ways to organise files. But this would be a nice beginning.

How to do it:

First you need to closely examine the situations of information or file retrievals. Ask yourself the following:

Do i search for files in relation with an year or month?

Do i search for a file in relation with its purpose ?

Do i search for a file with relation to the creator of the file?

You may come up with similar questions and try to create a knowledge structure based on that.

No matter where we work and how much intelligence and wit we use in our jobs, there are areas where we generally ignore to use our common sense. If we take that little pain of organising our own file structure, not only our productivity would improve, but it would help us to get that important information or file in a flash. If time is money, by organising yourself, you indeed can make a lot of it.