Organizing your files
By Kevin Lerner, Exec. Director of The Presentation Team

See if this sounds familiar: You save all your files to the My Document folder. All your downloads clutter your desktop. You never delete anything. You don't even remember what's on your hard drive. Those memos from your boss--that is, three bosses ago, circa 1999--are just collecting virtual dust.

If that's your idea of file management, you need to do some spring-cleaning. Just as you file paper documents in different folders and drawers, you should also compartmentalize your hard drive. The good news is that it's all very easy...and it will help your presentation development and overall productivity by helping you locate files more efficiently and methodically.

As a professional presentation developer, I'm constantly working to maintain a high level of efficiency and organization on my computer. I spend about 5 to 10 minutes every few days sorting and organizng my flies so that everything is arranged in an efficient "directory tree." One shortcut for displaying this directory tree on Windows is pressing the Windows+E keys, which opens the " Explorer"

For my presentation/client files, I've split everything into three main folders/directories: Current, Pending, and Completed. To make the computer sort these in "alphabetic order", I've put exclamation marks in front of each item. !, !!, and !!!...so that it looks like this:

Let's dive down into the "Current Projects folder" and look at the directory structure - to the left - for one specific client of ours, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). Within this main folder, I have folders containing Administrative items (contracts, letters, etc.), Raw Content (general photos, maps, logos, and content), and individual projects/presentations.

Yes, each individual presentation that I work on gets its own folder. And within that folder is a "Raw Content" subfolder, containing all the related files and graphics.

The Raw Content Folder has a photo directory filled with subfolders for each of the various subjects. It definitely helps keep things organized!

Let's look at one folder containing the ICS Training Presentation.

While working on any presentation, I'm constantly making additions and updates. To ensure I don't lose any data, I rename the file every few hours to Filename-V1, Filename-V2, etc. (Right).

Within the Raw Content folder of this "ICS presentation" folder is where all its related graphics, Photoshop files, and other material are stored.

When I'm done with that individual presentation, I move its folder to the "!!! Completed" folder, and ultimately onto a CD-ROM for storage.

Follow these tips, and you'll feel like Mary Poppins, effortlessly cleaning your mess with a wave of a finger and a click of a mouse!

Some article content by Yael Li-Ron and PCWorld.com

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