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Cleaner desktop fever hassles
Feb, 2008: Follow the golden rule of a place for everything, and
everything in its place to 'de-clutter' your PC, suggests Nizar
Diamond Ali.
Information overdose is one of the main areas of concerns for netizens in 2008 as new ways
to exchange information online keep growing and bombarding users. From e-mails,
IMs, social networking, blogs, twitters to RSS and P2P – there are a number of
incoming items that one has to keep track of. In this regard, its easy to pile
up loads of items in PC in an unorganised manner, such that it becomes extremely
difficult and time-consuming, if not outright impossible, to locate a file or a
piece of important information when it is needed.
The amount of
electronic clutter on personal PCs has increased so much that especialised
desktop search tools have evolved to solve problems of locating relevant
information.
Yet, the better way is to de-clutter, delete and organise
the PC in a way that it follows the golden rule – a place for everything and
everything in its place!
So, today we will explore two areas of a PC
which are often found littered with information on home and work place PCs, and
see how these areas can be streamlined. These areas are desktop and files /
folders on hard disk.
Desktop
Some people are in the habit
of saving e-mail attachments, downloads, files copied from friends' USB disks
and new documents to desktop – presumably for the sake of easy access. True as
the case may be, but continuing to place files results in a cluttered desktop
from top-left to bottom-right. This not only makes the PC look ugly, but it
becomes increasingly difficult to find relevant stuff.
To counter the
instinctive use, start with creating folders such as Downloads, Documents and
Misc on the desktop and use these folders to save files. This will ensure enough
empty space on the desktop.
Ultimately, move these folders under your
named folder in the hard disk. Some avid desktop users even create dated folders
when their desktop is over-crowded. However, it is important to assimilate such
folders into the above mentioned folders to avoid disorganised
information.
Files and folders on hard disk
One of the
reasons why people push desktop to its limits is because they are almost sure
that any thing placed outside it or anywhere in any other folder on the hard
disk – will probably get lost. The key to an aesthetic and clean desktop is a
learn and organised folder hierarchy on disk.
Let us build one. Start
with a folder with your own name -- if you do not have one till now and place
all the important files here. This includes everything you create and access,
and you would like to move if you change the PC. Create context-wise sub-folders
in your own-named folder, like Books, Documents (with sub-folders CVs,
Financial, Educational, Reference etc), Downloads, Multimedia (with sub-folders
Songs, Movies, Images, Icons etc), and Setups folder to hold programme
downloaded from the internet and important device drivers.
Now go through
the entire hard disk and copy-paste items spread all over the disk into these
organised first level of folders under your own-named folders. This also
prevents accidental deletion of important documents if Windows is reinstalled
and My Documents folder is overwritten as a result. When all the information is
consolidated under folders mentioned above, then you can streamline them further
by creating context or date-wise sub-folders. For example, a student can create
folder MBA, with sub-folders Semester-1, Semester-2 etc, each with sub-folders
of relevant subjects, which can be further sub-divided into Report, Tests,
Reference etc. This makes it very simple to locate information, say term report
of Economics: you will find it in folder c:\Nizar\Documents\Education\
MBA\Semester-1\Economics\ Report
Archive of the least used
files
While mopping up the vast disk spaces, you may find files that
are not needed right now, or in foreseeable future but still holds some
importance. Place them in a folder with a relevant name, for example, Java_Work,
3D_Models etc., and zip that folder. Place the zip file (automatically named
Java_Work.zip) in the Archives folder and delete the actual one. This makes up
free space, so copying and moving becomes easier and reduces the number of
folders one has to keep. Thus, Archives folder under your own-named folder will
hold all information that is irrelevant at present but important enough to be
saved.
Use naming convention
Come up with custom naming
conventions to name files and folders. For example, using prefix 01, 02 etc, is
a good way to keep files and folders listed in order since otherwise they are
listed alphabetically which is not particularly useful. This comes in handy when
a project has a fixed number of files. For example, company policies and
procedures folder could have files sequentially numbered for easy
access.
Another way to embed visual information in files and folders is
to append date with the file name and possibly version number so that chances of
accidental removal or overwriting is minimised. Also, do not use spaces between
file names – instead, use underscore. Such naming scheme also helps in keeping
frequency based files organised.
For example, a monthly report can be
named as 01.Status_Report_Jan_2008.xls. All subsequent reports will then be
automatically listed chronologically in folder if you follow this naming scheme.
And any file that is not a status report will be easy to identify, to move into
another folder. One more organisation tip is to name folders according to years
whenever it makes sense. Say, a doctor can have folders 2007 and 2008 under
c:\doctor-name\patient_log\ to keep time-relevant information
compartmentalised.
Start slow and proceed gradually
At
first, this may seem a daunting task to have a detailed folder layout, and it is
easy to get overwhelmed by the perceived effort it will take to organise the
information spread over desktop and numerous folders into one of your own-named
folder. Start small with a couple of levels -- as and when you have time to
spare, continue to refine the folder structure deeper, and ultimately it will
become a habit – a second nature.
The time needed to organise information
once is less than the combined time wasted in looking for relevant information
if considered over a slightly longer period of time, say, a quarter. So consider
organisation time as an investment that would pay off immediately as well as in
longer run with higher efficiency, reduced stress and most importantly, time is
saved.
It also makes it very easy to take backups – online or offline,
say over DVDs. Moreover, you can even impress your boss and surprise your peers
with the speed with which you will be responding to e-mails requesting some
information, when generally people take hours – with fair amount of uncertainty
to locate even a year old report or a presentation. Dawn
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