An already organized file system will consist of major categories and subcategories as a general filing scheme. Your supplies and office setup will probably also complement your daily workflow and you’ve got your paper-based productivity scheme maxed out at full effectiveness.
The rest of the world is a mess. The files are everywhere, you have no idea where your supplies are and your office setup is just wherever you got the desk, filing cabinet, etcetera.
Whether paper-based pro or total mess, you’ll have to organize and rearrange what you have.
Evaluate your files and discern their context within master categories and logical subcategories—either preexisting or newly created. Once you look at everything you have, you’ll realize this is actually quite a bit easier that it sounds. Your brain likes to categorize things, and looking at your files your brain will automatically start searching for sorting methods and patterns. Everything needs a place, and you’ll discover that you’ll find a pattern to the documents you have. You’ll just need to outline that pattern.
When you have that pattern figured out (or if you already have a pattern for all of your documents), fire up your word processor and create a quick outline / index for all of your major categories and their subdivisions. Save this file on your desktop and refer to it regularly until we get to the transition and filing process. These categories will be your organization bible for your electronic file system.
I used Notepad and created this simple list:
- Private Projects / Base Website / Page Content, Blog Content, Article Marketing Content, Ebook and Sales Letter
- Clients / Name of Client / Brief, Master Projects List, Projects by name OR deadline OR destination
- Reference / Writing Ebooks, Links
- Accounting / Year / Month / Invoices, Expenses
- Vendors / Name of Vendor / Brief, Master Projects List, Projects by name OR deadline OR destination
