Thread

Polling the smartest people on the planet (ee community) on what tried and true methods you use for organizing your documents folder.
Mine’s kind of a hodge-podge of every year and new machine (computer) something new. This year I got the bright idea to organize by quarter which was just a procrastinator’s way of putting off archiving last years junk.
So today I finally archived 75 gig’s worth out to my external hard-drive for safe-keeping now I would like to try and organize for the future.
For a while I used folders by client, then by year and not sure how to keep it all just simple really.
Had a look at this, not sure on the logic of it though:
http://www.lifeclever.com/how-to-organize-your-cluttered-desktop-and-regain-your-sanity/

Anybody else got anything then?
Thanks, k-ee-p the p-ee-a-c-e 😊

I have a mac so all music, video and pictures go in their respective folders. I have a folders titled client files, color samples, finance, illustration, stock photos, inspiration and wireframes. All web files go in the htocs folder for MAMP. The two important ones Client Files and Web Files have folders for each of the clients. Only thing that is made difficult by this set up is when backing up to my external hard drives I need to make sure that I dont overwrite the wrong files.

I use Mac too so all music goes into the iTunes folder but everything else that I do which is work goes into a separate folder in the documents folder. Every piece of work I do for a client has a job number so I usually name them such as :

Client Name - 12345 - 12-03-09

So I have the client name, the job number and then the date the work went underway. I have a database I created which auto creates a job number for me and I place all the information pertinent to that job in the record so I can find anything I have done over the past 10 years or so really really easily.

Backing up is easy too as I use Retrospect which I have been using for years now and this only backs up files that have changed etc… There are quite a few programmes nowadays that do this but I’ve never really found any of them to work quite the way Retrospect does and I just think it handles this really well. I must take a look at the new version soon though as I know they have just brought out a complete re-write of the programme.

Anyway once a job is backed up if ever I work on it again I can get all the files back and if I am making substantial changes I will assign a new job number and apply that to the main folder, then when I backup I will have essentially a new job folder but any files that I didn’t change for whatever reason won’t need backing up again. Saves time, space and headaches for me every time!!

Best wishes,

Mark

Thanks for the input guys, I decided to go with the link setup 0. through 4. to that mix I added 5. Dev Projects (not for clients) and 6. Ads Mgr since I have to manage/create all online ads now for in-house publications 😊
It’s a clean place to start, also another tricky thing is how some applications like to define folder in the documents folders and those were already defined I went ahead and archived some of those anyways, have to cross that bridge next time I open some of those progs. maybe need a folder for like App Settings.

Hope you guys don’t mind the billing as “Smartest people on the planet” or is it the busiest? lol. thanks again.

I’m so glad I went with the recommended folder structure top of the thread link of:

    “0. Inbox”

    “1. Actions”

    “2. Incubate”

    “3. Current Projects”

    “4. Archive”

I’ve had to add a few other’s namely Dev Projects and Client Updates.
The thing about what I’m tossing in the Client updates folder is it will be things that are really just temporary. They are not design file PSD’s or anything that would need to be kept for a long period of time, it will really help my archive file from bloating which is still what I’ve got now. 😊
It’s really so easy to navigate and sensible thus far!
Ten thumbs up, or all thumbs as the case may be, lol.
-t

Stepping aside slightly, I use the following folder structure purely for our web site work:

-Web sites

—domainname1.com

—-Admin
——200905
——20090511 Invoice

—-Backups
——20090511

—-development
——200901 redesign
——20090511 May amendments

—-www

Each set of directories starts with the domain name.
The Admin directory has admin stuff inside ordered by dated directories (I use year month day as the first part of the name to ensure they are ordered by date.

Back ups directory has directories for each time I back up. I back up each time I am about to work on the site and this will include MySQL and full html directory backups that I can download through my host cpanel. For EE sites I also do a separate MySQL back up on a monthly basis even if no dev work is happening (well that’s the theory).

Development directory contains all sorts of stuff used in developing the site or doing amends. I split them up by date.

The www directory holds a mirror copy of the flat file site and I tend not to use this with EE sites (Yes I still build some sites without EE).

Hope this helps someone.