Most employees like to be at least somewhat organized; few embrace sheer chaos and even fewer are so good at their jobs that they actually get to keep their jobs despite organizational chaos. Businesses like being organized in every sense of the word because it means greater productivity, better/faster decisions, and better teamwork. Being organized in the workplace nowadays means more than keeping a workspace physically organized because employees in almost every job have to use a computer at least a little while on the job. That means it is also important to keep the files on your work computer or any shared network drives as organized too. Here are some tips on how to do just that.
Organize your files at work by project to help cut back on the time it takes you to find the latest information. For example, if you’re part of the company’s employee recognition banquet, keep all the files pertaining to that event in one key location. Separate those files from unrelated files related to renting office space or the legal department, for example. When you are asked for an update on the banquet planning you know exactly where to go so he can make use of the information faster or he can get it to someone else who needs to use the information. This is extra important in emergency situations where every single second counts.
As difficult as it can be to find files on a computer or network drive sometime, it is still way easier than searching through analog/paper files. This means the sooner, more completely you can digitize all of your work files (policy permitting), the better. Why is it easier to search on a computer? Because all it takes is a few keystrokes and literally the computer searches for you. If you don’t know what folder they are in, you can literally search all of the files most computers by searching the C drive, but you will need to have an idea of the file name. One key note to digitizing files is to do it soon but not so quickly that there is no rhyme or reason for how/where the digital files are created.
The cloud is a common word in most workplaces today but it wasn’t so not too long ago. Think of the cloud as one big place for people and files to congregate and exchange information. Network drives, which were mentioned earlier, are similar to the cloud in that they need connectivity to/from the different hosts on the network (typically via the Internet) in order share files from a specific hard drive. The cloud shares files using the Internet too, but as far as the end users are concerned, cloud services typically don’t have a “specific hard drive.”
Organize your files at work by project to help cut back on the time it takes you to find the latest information. For example, if you’re part of the company’s employee recognition banquet, keep all the files pertaining to that event in one key location. Separate those files from unrelated files related to renting office space or the legal department, for example. When you are asked for an update on the banquet planning you know exactly where to go so he can make use of the information faster or he can get it to someone else who needs to use the information. This is extra important in emergency situations where every single second counts.
As difficult as it can be to find files on a computer or network drive sometime, it is still way easier than searching through analog/paper files. This means the sooner, more completely you can digitize all of your work files (policy permitting), the better. Why is it easier to search on a computer? Because all it takes is a few keystrokes and literally the computer searches for you. If you don’t know what folder they are in, you can literally search all of the files most computers by searching the C drive, but you will need to have an idea of the file name. One key note to digitizing files is to do it soon but not so quickly that there is no rhyme or reason for how/where the digital files are created.
The cloud is a common word in most workplaces today but it wasn’t so not too long ago. Think of the cloud as one big place for people and files to congregate and exchange information. Network drives, which were mentioned earlier, are similar to the cloud in that they need connectivity to/from the different hosts on the network (typically via the Internet) in order share files from a specific hard drive. The cloud shares files using the Internet too, but as far as the end users are concerned, cloud services typically don’t have a “specific hard drive.”
