Organization is Power

Your Workspace

Take a look around yourself right now.

What does your environment look like? Is it tidy and kept or is it chaotic and dynamic?

There is extensive evidence linking organization and cleaning to positive mental health and success. Why is this the case? The answer is easy - efficiency. Efficiency creates simplicity. When you are organized and kept, you can always find what you need very quickly. You will waste less time looking for lost things and, more importantly, you minimize the chance for distraction.

It is extremely easy to dive down several rabbit holes because of distraction. Distractions are often more appealing and are likely easier to pursue than what you had been working on. However, that will cause a slippery slope. One minute, you are looking for a misplaced note about a project and, 3 hours later, you’re having a conversation about something completely different, still not having found the note.

What you have just read is a perfect example: I started off by asking you about your desk and now we’re talking about the rabbit holes of distraction. While this was intentional, it is a good example to show how distractions can interrupt.

Get Organized

As with all things worth doing, start small. You do not need to transform an entire to-do list of disarray into clean immediately. It takes practice and it takes time. Start with your workspace.

The first think to think about is where you are set up. Find a location that works for you and stick with it. You’d be surprised by the improvement experienced by having consistency (a form of organization). Once you know where you are working, simplify the space. What do you need; what do you not need; what do you like - these are all things you should consider when setting it up. If your desk is littered with trinkets, papers, and random other things, it is going to cause stress (conscious or not). Once you’ve done that, apply the same practice to other relevant places in your life - your room, your vehicle, your office (if you commute).

Another key area to consider is your digital landscape. Organization is not just about the physical space, it also considers the virtual environment that you probably spend a considerable amount of time using. Digital organization will improve your productivity, sanity, and collaboration significantly. Depending on your organization, you may have different categories of content, but everyone shares 2 key ones: a desktop and file folders.

Your Desktop

Your desktop should be a reflection of the things you need regularly, it isn’t a place for everything. If you have more than a couple icons on your desktop, your approach is not optimal. Modern technology allows for so much flexibility, customization, and organization - cluttering everything in one space defeats that entirely.

Break. It. Down.

Your desktop should have, at most, five things on it - your trash bin (permanent) and four other files that you use/access regularly. Notice the term “files” - this is not the place for application shortcuts (you have a taskbar to house those) - this is just for the files you use frequently. These will change over time and you should plan for that most of the time.

If you find yourself taking more than 1-2 seconds to locate the “important” file that you regularly work on here, you have too much on your desktop.

Your File Folder

File folders are a Wild West for many people. Stuff lives everywhere - in the cloud, in a downloads folder, documents folder, custom folders, etc.

How can you possibly find anything with this kind of structure? You can’t.

The solution: simplicity and consistency. Rather than creating a new main folder for everything, you should only have a couple main categories on your machine - personal, professional, and shared.

Your personal folder is where all your individual things go. This can be anything that you want to keep just to yourself for whatever reason. The most important aspect of this folder is that it is organized in a way that is best for you. I recommend breaking it down by category of interest and, if you are using files here often, separating between active and archived.

Your professional folder is likely something that is collaborative. Even if it isn’t, you should plan on it being shared eventually. Create it in such a way that this is attainable. Things like: consistent organizational structure, naming conventions, grouped by project, grouped by timeline, etc. are all extremely valuable. This is especially true in the evolving digital age we find ourselves in.

Your shared folder combines both of these worlds. Perhaps you create this folder to share with friends, or family, or a combination. Whatever group you share this with, you want to keep things consistent.

Now that you’ve created your folders, stop keeping files anywhere else. They should only live within one of your pre-assigned folders. This will keep your sanity.

Naming Conventions

I mentioned this topic a few times so far but, due to their importance, it warranted a separate section. I cannot understate how much of a positive impact naming conventions will have for your digital organization. Everything will be so much easier to find and will be better organized in every way. The best part is the scalability - anyone who accesses your content, for whatever reason, can know exactly how everything works.

This approach is essential for businesses, especially those looking to scale. If you do not have a consistent folder structure and naming convention in place, you will experience frustration.

If you don’t know where to begin at all, feel free to use a slightly modified version of my structure (I use the “|” in place of the “_” that separate the text):

File_Name _ Folder_Name _ YYYYMMDD

Example:

Organization_is_Power _ Blog _ 20230725

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a convention, just ensure you use it consistently. Additionally, make sure that your naming convention works with your computer so that it doesn’t cause any file-name issues. Characters like “-” and “|” and “/” can easily cause issues if you’re not planning effectively.

Iterate

There’s a good chance that you take all of these ideas and apply them to your life, but find that they don’t quite work out. That’s perfectly fine! These aren’t intended as hard-and-fast rules, but as a foundational structure to build on. I don’t recommend taking things too far, but you should definitely put your own personal touch on things. This will make the space(s) feel more like your own.

Over time, you may find additional adjustments or tweaks to make to your structure. Try them. Worst case scenario - they don’t work, so you scrap them. Just remember to be balanced with these situations. Too little may not help you get to where you want to be. Too much may upset your system.

Ultimately, it all boils down to harmony. Maintain that and you’ll be in a great place.