How to manage your PC – Part 2
Yesterday I started to explain how to manage your PC. Today I will tell you what I meant by the necessary steps.
Delete
This one is obvious. Just delete anything which you do not need anymore or which is double content. Where double content in this case means, if you already store a copy of this in a different place. E-Mails are a good example for this. Maybe you have written a letter to your daughter about two months ago. You wrote it in Word saved a copy and afterwards sent it with your gmail account. Sending it with gmaili left a copy in your “sent messages” folder online hence you do not need the local copy on your hard drive.
Delete as much as possible. If you find stuff you haven’t touched in months it is probably a good idea to get rid of the dead weight. But be sure to keep stuff concerning government correspondence you might need in on further conversations.
Forward
There is lots of stuff – at least on my PC – which I only stored for somebody else like links, pictures or even data files. Go ahead sent them to the recipient and then dump them into trash or archive them.
Archive
Put everything in your archive which is old or does not need any further actions. Don’t through everything together – this is what you brought here in the first place – but rather think of it that way: If I would be looking for this data what would I be searching for? Would I look for a folder called “car insurance”? Or would I want to look for “bills”? Would I even want to find a folder called “Toyota”?
Then create a folder accordingly and move the files here.
To not keep any folders by default. Always question yourself. If the folder has a describing name and contains only related files then you may keep it but you have to check on every single file inside the folder so you can be sure that everything is where you will find it later on.
Double check
Now scan quickly through all your folders created in your archive. Are there some foulders which only consist of one or two files? If so is it possible to move these files to a different folder and still keep the chances to find it again? If so, move the files. If not keep the folder it will most likely be filled over time.
Empty Trash
When your stuff folder is empty go ahead and empty your trash can which will be pretty full by now.
Repeat
By now you will have a very well structured computer and in the beginning it will be easy and almost fun to put everything where it belongs. But after a while things will start to pile up again. Hence I never said “delete your stuff folder”. On the contrary keep this folder and if you’re not in mood or don’t have time to put your data in the right place, just put it there.
Then come back to this folder once a month and empty it again by deleting, forwarding and archiving.