Here's my setup:

I like to keep all my essential work materials in a folder, organized by project. This includes academic notes and project support material. I keep this work folder synced among several machines and always have an up to date copy of it on a usb thumb drive and/or iPod.

I'm currently considering putting this work folder under version control (subversion).

All the rest of the non-essential stuff gets filed by type: MP3s, images, software downloads, old project archives, etc.

Email is easy with gmail. All my email organization is within the gmail web app. I download messages to my home computer for archiving/backup, but I leave them in one big dump folder.

I use DevonThink (Mac only) to organize my webclippings, notes, receipts, etc. I can also index any important projects/folders in this amazing information management tool. One of the best features: ability to import del.icio.us bookmarks and create smart folders of weblinks based on del.icio.us tags.

The category thing is the what-question . That question changes with perspective and over time. Try sorting by 'when'.

If you are a Windows user, you should definitely upgrade to Vista then.

Vista makes it very easy to tag your images, to search files, to filter them etc.

Take a long look at what kind of files you generate and create a folder structure with as few folders as possible so that you keep distinct categories separate, but don’t have to remember 5 levels of folders to find a specific file.

Then, as you sort files into these folders, rename them with good file name and tag as appropriate with Spotlight or whatever windows offers. Good file names are essential.

I use this naming structure:

• ClientFile TypeTarget/ReceipientSubjectDate_Version

There was a post on the main page about tagging that relates to this. Make sure your file name fills in the who what where when about the file.

As you continue to use a consistent and descriptive taxonomy, it become second nature and you find yourself renaming files sent to you by others with silly names like “Letter to Client X.doc”

I have a related concern on this topic — having certain years’ worth of very occasional snapshots, backups, etc. I need to clean this stuff up. More succinctly, what I’m saying is … without a good, clean organized home directory structure, backups are unwieldly.

For one thing, I can’t easily merge large folder trees, when they have different structures. I can do a manual merge, but that is quite tedious.

I can’t really do network backups (over the WAN) … over the LAN, yeah. But if you want to use an Internet-based backup scheme, then you need to only back up “the essentials” — so, the folder structure needs to make that easy to mark, tag, or segregate.

The main idea I’ve had on this, thus far is — keep the “media” files and libraries somehow separate/segregated from the documents, settings, and configuration information. “media” storage is inherently more bulky.

(Email storage is bulky too, but … that’s easier to organize and clean up, for some reason — probably ‘cause you can do it mostly via drag and drop in the mail client gui, and those moves/transfers don’t take very long, plus the searches and sorting results can be used to clean up the message collections. Side issue on email — my “Sent” mailboxes are always a mixed bag, I don’t know how to keep those messages cleaned and segregated!)

I rambled, but am trying to say — I need to find a good way to minimize and organize my personal files, making them easy to back up, and how to differentiate media storage (and backup) versus the smaller essentials (documents, settings/configs, records). Thanks for any advice; Larry C.

See this post. One part folder structure from Enine on the old 43f forums, one part coping mechanism for culling through tons of duplicated content, and one part to be added on how to safely sync it all for disaster recovery and easier bike commuting.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

An article here might help you.

http://maclawstudents.com/blog/not-mac-specific/organizing-your-digital-law-school-life/

I wrote a set of Applescripts that help me rename and file everything on my mac. It is the most organized my computer files have ever been. And it’s amazing how much more productive you can get when your file system is properly defined and organized.