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The Best Way to Organize Your Computer Files - YouTube
Channel: Thomas Frank
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- If your desktop looks like this,
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then you and I need to have a chat.
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And well even if not, you're
gonna wanna stick around
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for this video because remember
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when I said my paper
file organization video
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was the most exciting video
you were ever going to watch?
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Well, that is a thing of the past
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because everyone knows
that everything gets cooler
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when it makes the transition
from analog to digital.
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So buckle your seatbelts once again,
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because this week, we are
talking about how to organize
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and systematized the files
within your computer.
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So organizing your computer
files is simultaneously easier
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and harder than organizing
your paper real world files.
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It's easier because computer
files don't weigh anything,
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they don't take up any physical space,
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so they can't really
create a mess on your desk
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or in your living space.
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But it's harder number one, because well,
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we were never taught how
to organize computer files.
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I don't know about you,
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but I remember being an
elementary school, middle school
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and having teachers tell me
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to put things in separate folders,
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to have a Trapper Keeper,
all that kind of stuff.
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But when it came to my computer files,
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no one was ever around to teach me
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how to organize my folder structure,
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where I should save things,
all that kind of good stuff.
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And secondly, we create
much more on the computer
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than we do in the real world these days.
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We have so many different
documents, pictures, music files,
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so it can easily get
out of hand much quicker
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than it can in the real world.
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And for that reason,
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I think it is crucial to create
a usable logical structure
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from the get go with your computer files.
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This is much more important
than it is in paper files
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because, well, in the real world,
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there just isn't a whole
lot to have to reorganize
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if you realize that you've made a mess.
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But if your computer is a mess,
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you might have hundreds of
files sitting on your desktop.
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So step one is to create
an organizational structure
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of folders that makes it easy
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to find anything you're
looking for quickly.
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And there's a couple different rules here.
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Number one,
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every single file in your
system should be within a folder
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that represents it
well, a specific folder.
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Nothing should be sitting
out on the desktop,
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and nothing should be
sitting in random folders,
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like Documents or Downloads.
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Everything should be in
something that makes sense.
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But number two, you wanna have a structure
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that makes it easy to find
those folders themselves.
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Now, you could just have
one long list of folders
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on one particular level of your system,
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but that's gonna make
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things pretty cumbersome, pretty quick.
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So instead, you wanna follow in the steps
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of that great philosopher, King Xzibit,
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and start putting folders
inside of folders.
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I call this a tree structure.
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If you think of a tree at the
bottom, you have the trunk,
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and then that trunk
eventually branches off
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into main branches which in turn branch
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into smaller branches.
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And that splitting process keeps going on
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and on until you reach the leaves.
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And actually if you
look closely at a leaf,
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you'll see that the branching
process even continues
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with vein splitting off from the midrib.
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Bet you didn't think you're gonna
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some tree anatomy in this video, huh?
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And if you look elsewhere,
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you'll find the structure
replicated both in nature
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and in manmade systems.
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Take your body's circulatory
system for example,
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all the blood goes through
arteries from the heart.
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But from there, it splits off into smaller
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and smaller blood vessels
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until it finally reaches
the smallest of them,
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the capillaries and gets delivered
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to the exact right place in the body.
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And road systems are very similar.
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Any two points in a city separated
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by a lot of distance are
going to be best reached
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by first making your way
to a highway or freeway
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or main road and then
branching off into smaller
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and smaller residential road.
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And just as the branching
paths of trees, blood vessels
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and road systems provide
the most efficient way
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of moving resources around,
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a tree structure provides
the most efficient
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and usable way of organizing your files.
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So the first thing
you're gonna wanna do is
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to create this tree structure,
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which starts with what's called the root.
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Essentially the trunk of the tree.
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And in my file system,
which I'm gonna show you
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for the rest of this video as an example,
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the root is called Google Drive.
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And the reason for this is
that I use Google Drive,
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which actually just recently
changed its name to Google One,
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to sync all my files up to the cloud
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and between all my different computers.
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But we're gonna talk about
that a little bit later.
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Within the root, I think
it makes the most sense
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to organize your main files
by kind of the main categories
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of your life or as I like
to call them life buckets.
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So the buckets of my life include College,
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College Info Geek, Learning,
for learning projects,
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My Life, which is all my
personal files, like taxes,
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and apartment files, things like that.
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Now, I do want to note that
this is not the only way
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of organizing your file tree.
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And that is something
that could be repeated
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for every single level of the file tree.
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In fact, if you go look
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at the datacurator
filetree project on GitHub,
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you will see that the top level
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of their suggested file tree
actually has folders split up
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by media type, audio files, documents,
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literature, video, etc.
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Personally, I like to keep anything
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that isn't a document in
a specific media folder
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within my file system.
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And that brings me to kind
of the main point here.
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Your file system should be expandable,
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it should be flexible,
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it should maintain its
logic when it does expand.
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But most of all, it
should represent the way
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that your brain organizes files.
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Assuming you are the only person
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who's going to be you using this folder,
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because I know a lot of
you guys are gonna go
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into the professional world,
start working in companies
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and start using shared directories.
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So with your own file system,
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you can kinda query your
brain a little bit more often,
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but with shared directories,
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you're probably gonna wanna adhere
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to some agreed upon rules and conventions.
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So I wanna go over just a couple of here.
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First one is organizing by category,
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which is exactly what I'm
doing in that main folder,
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in my file tree, and it's the structure
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that I adhere to for
most sub folders as well.
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To give an example,
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let's go into my College Info Geek folder.
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This is where basically any file related
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to my business goes,
whether it's LLC paperwork,
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or the thumbnail for this video.
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So once we drill into that folder,
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we're gonna see some folders
like Business, Content,
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Courses, Projects, Speaking and Tools.
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And within the Content folder
to go a little bit deeper,
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we're gonna see other folders
like Articles, Email List,
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Graphics, Podcasts, and Videos.
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And with this structure,
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it is easy to find pretty much anything
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that I need really, really quickly.
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And just to give you an example,
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I'm gonna throw the path of a random file
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onto the screen right here
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so you can see the
logical sequence of steps
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that I would take to get to it.
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And again, it's very
easy to find this file
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and pretty much anything else.
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That being said,
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organizing by category isn't the only way
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you can organize your files.
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And you're gonna get
into certain sub-folders
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where it makes sense to adopt
a different structure such
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as organizing by date.
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And I find this particular
structure to be very useful
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when the files that I'm
trying to organize would fill
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so many different category based folders
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that would end up with a huge long list.
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And a great example is my college classes.
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During my college career, I
took over 40 different classes.
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And well I could just shove
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every single class folder
into my college folder,
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that would be kinda messy,
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I'd be looking at a list
of 40 different folders
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every time I needed to
go save or open a file.
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And most importantly, during
every single semester,
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I would go into that college folder
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and I would see a bunch
of very irrelevant folders
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from previous semesters.
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So instead of just organizing by category,
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I instead created another
level of organization
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by splitting things up by year.
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So I've got Freshman,
Sophomore, Junior, and Senior.
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If we go into say, Sophomore,
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we're gonna see all the classes I took
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during my sophomore year.
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Then once we drill into
a class based folders,
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such as English 313, we're
gonna see all the files
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that had to do with that class,
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but also project specific folders as well.
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So if you have a project,
but lots of different files,
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I think it absolutely makes sense
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to group those files
into their own folder.
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But anything that's kinda
like an individual handout
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for the class, just keep
that in the class folder,
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and you'll be able to easily find it
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as long as you name it intelligently.
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And speaking of naming your files,
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that is actually step two in this process,
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which is honestly an ongoing process,
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'cause you're always
gonna be naming files.
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But I do wanna talk a little bit about
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how you should name your files.
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And we don't have to talk a lot here
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because the main principle is
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that your files should be
named relatively specifically.
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You should be able to know at a glance
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what it means within the context
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of its location in your file tree.
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And I make this point
because there are a lot
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of other productivity gurus
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and organizational gurus out there
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who have these overly complex
file naming conventions.
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They're putting the
date in their file name,
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they're putting, like every
bit of context they can.
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And honestly, I think
this is a waste of time,
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because as long as you are being vigilant
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about where you're saving your
files in your file system,
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then each file really only needs
a little bit of specificity
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for you to know at a glance what it is.
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So obviously, don't name your
homework, just homework.docx
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or paper.docx.
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Give it a name that at
least jogs your memory
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as to what it should be,
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but don't worry about being
overly specific either.
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And that brings us to
step three in the process,
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which I referenced earlier in the video,
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I think that you should
absolutely use a Cloud Sync app,
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like Google One slash Google Drive
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as the root of your file tree.
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So if you don't know
what a Cloud Sync app is,
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basically, it's an app
like Dropbox, Google One,
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Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud Drive,
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there are some other
ones out there as well.
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They basically sit on your computer,
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and they upload anything
within the sync folder
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to the cloud, and then sync
it to any other computers
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that you have as well.
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And using an app like this
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gives you several different benefits.
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Number one, all of your
files are kept up to date
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across your entire system.
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So if you make a change
to a Photoshop document
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or a Word document on one computer,
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that change will be dutifully
synced up to the cloud,
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and to any other computer that you have.
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Secondly, you have access to
your files, wherever you are.
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You got access on your laptop,
you got access on your phone,
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I'm actually reading the script
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for this video off of this bone right now.
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Even have access on any
computer in the world
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as long as you can log into your Google
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or your Dropbox account
and download those files.
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So that brings us to a question,
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which Cloud Sync app should
you use, which one is the best?
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Well, I'm gonna go ahead
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and recommend Google One for most people.
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Now there are a lot of
competitors out there again,
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Microsoft One Drive, Box,
sync Dropbox, iCloud Drive,
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but I think Google One makes
the most sense, number one,
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because they give you 15
gigabytes of free space,
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which is much more than
any other competitor.
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And I think that unless
you're a content creator
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or photographer or graphic designer,
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you're gonna take a long time to fill up
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that 15 gigabytes of free space.
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So that just keeps you from
having to spend a whole lot
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of money right up front.
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Secondly, if you do need more space,
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with a competitor like Dropbox,
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you have to immediately go
up to their two terabyte plan
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for 10 bucks a month.
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Whereas with Google One or Google Drive,
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or whatever you wanna call it,
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it's just $2 a month for 100 gigabytes.
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And again, I really don't
think most people need
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a whole lot more than 100 gigabytes.
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But what you do need
regardless of who you are,
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even if you don't need a
tonne of extra space is
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to make sure that your files
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are adequately backed up and secured.
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Now, if you are using a Cloud
Sync app like Google One,
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then you do have some
measure of protection
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for at least hard drive
failure on one computer.
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So if I have all my files
just on this one computer,
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just on the hard drive,
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not synced to Google One
or anything like that,
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and this goes down the toilet,
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well, this probably won't
fit down the toilet,
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but someone tries to
force it down the toilet
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or someone steals it, or
Loki comes out of a portal
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and cast a spell on it,
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he gives it legs and
runs away from me, right?
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I would lose all the files,
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because they're only on this hard drive.
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But if they're synced to the cloud,
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and all I lose when this
thing runs away from me
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and goes to frightened children
is the hardware itself.
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And this computer can
be replaced with money,
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but all those files,
they cannot be replaced.
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So at least with the Cloud Sync app,
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you have some of measure protection
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against hardware failure.
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But what you don't have
protection against is people
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who are malicious.
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If someone goes in and like
hacks your Google account
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and deletes all those files,
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then you don't have a whole
lot of protection against that.
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Now with Google One and
a lot of Cloud Sync apps,
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you can go back in time and
restore files out of the trash.
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But you usually have like a
30 day time limit on that.
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But again, somebody could go
in there and empty the trash.
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Or you could accidentally change a file
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and not realize it until a
month down the road and realize,
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oh, well, I needed the
old version of that file,
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and now it's gone forever.
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So I think you should
have a backup strategy
[720]
that extends beyond Cloud Sync.
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And there are a couple
of different options.
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So the option that I use personally,
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and the one that I
recommend for most people is
[728]
to use a separate cloud backup app
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like Backblaze or CrashPlan.
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And I'm gonna use Backblaze here
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'cause it's the one that I use,
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but for about $5 a month
or 60 bucks a year,
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they will backup an unlimited amount
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of data on your computer
across any hard drive connected
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to it with the exception
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of anything like network attached storage.
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But the other thing is
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that provides some measure of redundancy.
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If something gets into your
Google Drive and messes with it,
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or someone deletes all those files,
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they're also backed up and Backblaze.
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And for me, I wanna have my data
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in multiple different places.
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This is kind of a pain in the butt to do,
[761]
but if there ever comes a time
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where one of those data silos goes down,
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you're gonna be very happy
you took the precaution
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and had a backup.
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Now the other option, which I
think is a little less robust
[771]
than good cloud backup,
[772]
but it's still useful is
to just get your hands
[775]
on a small external hard
drive, plug it in once a month,
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and copy your data over to that one drive
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and then just keep it
unplugged from the computer,
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keep it stored somewhere
that's secret and safe.
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And then actually remember
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to plug it back in once a
month and make that backup.
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And that brings us to the
final step in this process,
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which is to make use of shortcuts
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to more quickly access
the most used folders
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and files in your system.
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Because here's the thing,
[798]
when you have this beautifully
organized tree structure,
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sometimes you're gonna have files
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that are six, seven, eight
levels deep from the root.
[806]
And if you need to
access those files a lot,
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you're gonna be clicking through
[810]
eight different levels of folders,
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and that is not very efficient.
[813]
But luckily computers allow you
[814]
to create shortcuts or aliases.
[817]
These are kind of interchangeable terms
[818]
to access those files quickly.
[820]
But even more efficient than
shortcuts, in my opinion,
[823]
is the Quick Access and
Favorites areas of the Finder
[826]
and Explore on both Mac and Windows.
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So on Windows, it's called Quick Access,
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you can easily pin any folder
or file to it on the sidebar.
[833]
And in Mac OS, it's called Favorites,
[835]
and it gives you the
exact same functionality.
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So if you see my explorer here,
[839]
you'll see that I am have
pinned many different folders
[841]
that I access on a regular basis.
[843]
Some are permanently there,
[845]
but you're also gonna see folders related
[846]
to the individual video
that I'm working on
[848]
at any given time.
[849]
So right now you're gonna see
172 Computer File Organization
[853]
since that's the video that
I'm currently working on.
[855]
So, start using Quick Access,
start using Favorites,
[857]
start creating shortcuts,
[858]
and you're gonna find yourself navigating
[860]
your file tree much more quickly.
[862]
And then as long as you
maintain the integrity
[864]
of that file tree, as long
as you maintain vigilance
[866]
when saving new files
and creating new folders,
[868]
you're never going to
lose another file again
[871]
and you're gonna be so
much better organized.
[873]
Of course, the best way
to stay organized is
[875]
to be very deliberate about
the projects that you take on,
[878]
about the files that you
create in the first place,
[880]
about the content that you consume.
[882]
This is called being an essentialist.
[883]
It involves being very in
tune with your priorities
[887]
and your values in life.
[888]
And if you wanna get better at doing this,
[889]
I have a book recommendation for you.
[892]
"Essentialism: The
Disciplined Pursuit of Less"
[894]
by Greg McKeown is one
[895]
of my absolute favorite
self improvement books,
[897]
it's one of the most useful
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that I have found in
my personal experience.
[901]
And if you want to actually
listen to that book for free,
[903]
you can do so by going
over to audible.com/thomas
[906]
or by texting Thomas to
500-500 on your phone.
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Doing that will get
you a free 30 day trial
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of Audible service which comes
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with a free Audiobook download,
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which can be anything you want.
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But of course, I'm going to
recommend "Essentialism."
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But it also comes with
two Audible originals
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you cannot get anywhere
else along with tonnes
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of audio workout, fitness,
yoga and meditation programs.
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And of course, Audible is the
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They have an unmatched library
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just in case you wanna fast forward
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something, you can easily go back
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[953]
So once again, if you
wanna get a free trial
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that comes with a free Audiobook download,
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two Audible original that
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meditation programs,
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go over to audible.com/thomas and sign up,
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or text Thomas to 500-500 on your phone.
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Big thanks as always goes out Audible
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for sponsoring this video
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and being a big supporter of my channel.
[974]
And thank you as well for watching.
[977]
Hopefully you found this video helpful.
[978]
Hopefully it was a great complement
[979]
to that paper organization video
[981]
which I'm gonna put right here
in case you didn't see it.
[984]
And of course, you can
always subscribe right there,
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if you haven't done so already
[987]
and you wanna get
notifications of new videos.
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Click right there to get a free copy
[990]
of my book on how to earn better grades.
[992]
Or if you haven't seen my
latest collaboration video
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with my friend, Matt D'Avella,
[996]
I'm gonna have that linked right here.
[998]
So definitely check that out.
[999]
Thanks again for watching
[1000]
and we'll see you in the next video.
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