I am an organized nut! I keep everything organized and even my junk drawer is organized right down to the last rubber band! My desk is organized right down to the last pen. I’m going to be posting articles about getting organized for the next several posts. I am hoping that my articles will inspire you to get more organized so you have more time to yourself for the fun things you enjoy!

First I’ll give you a little ‘run down’ on how my files system and backup system is over here.
I have several hard drives, even external hard drives and a backup server! Why do I need all this space? You will find out why very soon I have three physical hard drives in my computer. The first one contains the C drive, D which is my windows 98, E which I have for software only. Your computer will run smoother if you have your software on a separate partition. Keeping the C drive for important system software such as your anti virus. I have a separate partition for each category in your business. I even have one for ‘Downloads’. I have a ‘Projects’ partition for current projects and documents that have not yet been saved. I have two backup drives, a master file drive where I keep all my files for when orders are placed I don’t have to go searching in folders for the zips for customers. Most of our files are readily downloadable from the website once customers make their purchase, but I still keep them in a separate partition on my computer. I have a partition for each and every category of products we have. Why? Because I like to keep my files organized and easily accessible. I don’t like to spend hours trying to find something.

Let’s start getting you organized by starting with your computer. It’s important to keep your computer organized so you can find your documents quickly and efficiently. Everyone has important documents that can not be lost. I never store anything on my C drive, nor do I put anything on the same partition as C. First you need a completely different hard drive than your C drive to keep your documents, project files, and business documents. I can’t stress enough on how important this is to keep your work OFF the C drive and OFF that partition. Let’s face it, windows crashes when you least expect it to and if you are unable to reboot, you have just lost everything sitting on that C drive! If you have any work on it now, move that first. I know what you’re thinking right now and your documents and files are not safe on CDs. CDs eventually go bad and can no longer be read. Yeah, you better start grabbing that stack of CDs and start putting those files back onto your computer!

First let’s start with drives. You should have a 4-6 gig drive named “Projects”. The projects drive is where you will keep all files that you are currently working on and have not yet backed up. Your next drive you should have is a very large drive named “Backups”. The backup drive is where you will ‘COPY’ all of your project files. When making a backup you should create a folder and name it the exact date you are making the copied files, something like this ‘2008-0208′. Then you can make a CD or DVD backup for extra storage. But NEVER remove the files from your computer. After you have created both backups, verify the data is all there. Once the data is verified it is safe to MOVE the data to it’s appropriate location. Such as if it is a logo you created for someone move it to the partition named ‘Custom Design’ or ‘Custom Logos’. I backup my files in 2 locations, one on my ‘Backup’ drive, and one on my ‘Server’. My server holds every single file I have ever created and it is the largest backup system I have.

Now, to get your categories organized. Let’s use my scrapbook projects as an example. Within the Scrapbook drive I have folders named exactly with my product names. We have embellishments we make by hand and that folder is named ‘Scrappy Doodles’ because that is the name of our product. Within that folder is numbered, ‘001-Panda-Balloons’ and so on. Each time I create a new embellishment, I put all files associated with that item into that particular folder. When I create a label for the package, that goes into that folder as well. Anything that doesn’t belong, is NOT in that folder.

If you use this method of organization for your computer you will find that you will be able to locate your documents quickly and efficiently. And you will be able to complete your orders in minimal time! I hope this article helps you get better organized.