ARTICLE: Where's that document??

Not directly related to photography or design but if applied well, it's incredible how much it will help you continue concentrate on being creative, what is it? Good digital file management!

It dawned on me recently that I have a lot of digital files scattered over a lot of different hard-drives, phones and other devices. I realised that I had to sort this out as ultimately it was slowing me down looking for and preparing files for use. Not good. And then integrating the final work maintaining a common structure for the future.




So recently I've set up a completely revised file structure system which seems completely obvious if you think about it, but to consolidate all the files in ONE PLACE, ONE FOLDER, round them up into their
respective groups. Once there, decide how these groups can be broken down again, and again. Even this one big group (essentially the nest of folders) could be part of an even bigger group.

And you can't always rely on just using the 'spotlight' search like on the mac either. Example, I'm sure that if you spent five minutes casually browsing around some folders, you would come across some gems hidden somewhere. Therefore, not the best option.

You need to be able to almost visual where ANY particular file (or folder) is on your network. Now when I say network, i'm not necessarily talking about anything as complex as an 'office' network, I mean something as simple as a single computer, connected to the cloud with a Dropbox account, that can be accessed by any other computer or mobile device.

(If anyone doesn't know what Dropbox is, it's an amazing application for mac, pc or most 'smart' mobile devices, which is based around a folder generally located on a computer hard drive. The contents and file structure of this folder are continually synced into your online account in the cloud, which can then be securely accessed from any terminal on the planet, and best of all it's FREE with I believe 3GB of storage, payable for more).

With this kind of accessibility available, and if an organised file structure is followed, it makes all your selected files easily accessible from anywhere, leaving you to concentrate on creating.



Simon @ theblend
http://www.theblend.co.uk/

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Location:Barcelona,Spain