Computer

Getting Organized Column
BackStage, January 2006
topic: organizing your computer files

Organizing Your Computer Files
By Kristine Oller

Just as your friend is leaving, you remember that you want to get his feedback on a new marketing piece you are creating. “Hold on,” you say as you turn on your computer. “This will only take a second.” Your monitor reveals a desktop crammed with dozens of files. After scanning the screen, you realize that the file for your marketing piece is not there, so you start to hunt and peck through other folders, wondering what you named it and where you saved it. Your friend checks his watch, doubtful that he can stick around long enough for you to find the piece. What now?

A hallmark of any actor’s life is the constant nurturing of multiple activities and projects. Finding the time and motivation to sit down at your computer and make progress can be challenging. Facing a computer full of uncategorized files every time you are ready to work can swiftly put a damper on your creative spirit.

The key to organizing your computer files is to build a self-guiding system that enables you to locate the exact document you want while bypassing unrelated documents along the way. “Self-guiding” means the folders are arranged and named in a logical series that anyone could understand and follow easily. This comes in handy if you ever need to have your roommate or spouse retrieve something when you are not home.

The System

With this system, you click through a series of folders before you ever see any individual files. With a limited number of folders at each stage, it will only take a moment to make a choice and open the appropriate folder. So, even if you have to click on five folders before you get to the desired document, that’s only five or six seconds of your time – compared with five minutes or more spent opening and closing individual files.

Start by creating two main folders labeled Personal and Career. If you prefer, Career could be called Work or Business. Nearly everything in your life falls into one of those categories. If you have a day job or projects not related to your acting, those projects can still be filed in Career. Now when you open your computer, you need only ask yourself one simple question: “Is the file I need a Personal file or a Career file?” Also, while searching for a Career file, you will avoid your Personal files altogether — and vice versa.

Inside the Career folder, create several folders that break down the category a bit more. For example, in my Career folder I have a folder labeled Acting and one labeled Organizing. Likewise, my Personal folder breaks down to the general categories of Household and Volunteer and My Stuff (for miscellanea).

All of those folders will then contain other folders that break down each category even further. At this stage, your category names will depend upon how your mind works. One person’s Acting folder might break down into folders for Commercials, Voice Over, The Actors’ Network and Unions, while another person’s might have folders for Marketing, Auditions, and Writing Projects. As you sort through your files, you will get a better idea of how many folders you’ll need and what to name them.

With a system like this in place, showing your friend your marketing piece would simply mean clicking on your Career folder, then on your Acting folder, then on your Marketing folder and then maybe on a folder named Postcards and finally on the file named New Year Postcard 2006.

The Setup

Having to re-file all of your existing computer documents may seem overwhelming. I suggest setting aside time each week or two to tackle the project in the following stages:

1) Create the new folder system and start filing your brand new documents in it.

2) Gradually look at each of your old documents. One by one, trash what is no longer useful and file the rest in the new folder system.

3) The goal is to be able to scan the contents of any folder fairly quickly. Therefore, when any folder in the new system becomes crowded with individual files, it’s time to create one or two sub-folders.

4) About twice each year, schedule a few hours to weed your computer files. Having a future date set for weeding means you don’t have to think about it until then.

5) Break the habit of saving files to your desktop. Parking a file there temporarily to draw your attention to it is fine. However, when “once in a while” turns into “regularly,” your desktop will become cluttered and nothing will stand out.

Accessing your work does not have to be work. If you already have a difficult time getting and staying focused, navigating an ever-expanding sea of random files certainly won’t help. Propelling your career forward at a competitive speed requires the ability to use your computer without hesitation or hassle.

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