☘️ Organizing Digital Files & Folders In 5 SECONDS, How To Organize My Computer Declutter Challenge

if your laptop or computer is constantly running out of space it's slow you can never find what you need a quick cleanup will sort you out i know that can sound really daunting but stick with me i am going to show you how to completely clear your desktop and it's only going to take you about five seconds let's go hi guys it's laura and digital space is so different to physical space because no matter how much junk you throw in there it's not taking up any more shelf space you don't see it expand you don't have to buy another desk to fit it all but when you cannot see physical consequences it's so much easier for things to get out of hand it's like the difference between paying for something with a credit card and paying for something with cold hard cash never fear help is here this is day 22 of the declutter challenge clutter free in five where we tackle small clutter spots and get big results and all in just five minutes be sure that you are subscribed if you want to reclaim control of your home okay you want to know how to clear your desktop completely in one fell swoop without having to make any agonizing decisions or without accidentally deleting something important this is where we get nerdy step one create a new folder on your desktop and this next part will kind of depend on your fandom but i call mine the sorting hat i even changed the icon image to be a picture from the actual sorting hat from harry potter then you select all of the other files and folders on your desktop and you just drop them in there to be sorted you can call yours the tardis the holodeck whatever i don't care whatever makes sense to you it's just a place where you are going to put all of your files until you find better homes for them step two stand back and admire your handiwork step three grab all of the other files from all your other folders you know documents photos etc and drop them in the sorting hat to anything that you are not 100 happy with they go in the sorting hat now if for example you have a music folder and you know that it's only music files in there then you can go ahead and just leave that that's already you know a decent setup on its own but anything else that is just a mess of files and folders and photos into the hat step four go into your sorting hat or equivalent and sort the files by date created you should be able to do this on both a mac and windows by right-clicking or doing the old two-finger tab on the mac and then just selecting sort and by date you want the newest stuff at the top step five look at all of the files and folders that you have created this month or stick to just this week if you have lots and go through each one you only have two decisions to make here whether to keep it or delete it delete as much as you can if you are unsure ask yourself if you will ever reference that file again genuinely will you ever need to look at it again do you need to keep it for some legal or otherwise important reason also could you access a copy of it elsewhere if you needed to could you just redownload that brochure or that pdf is there someone else who has a copy of that same thing that you could get from them if you needed to and does it belong in a better format would these thoughts and ideas work better in a blog post would all of these little snippets of memories work better in a family newsletter i don't know if you have a family newsletter maybe you do a scrapbook something like that are they ideas you've had for things that you want to create could you then actually go and create that thing bring it to life so that you no longer need to keep it in a list and then the ultimate one if your laptop died and you lost that file i mean completely irretrievable how negatively affected would your life be really like i said delete as much as you can now for the stuff that you are keeping step six use the folders that are already on your laptop or computer or create new ones based on very broad categories you know i'm all about the broad categories i'm talking a general documents one you probably already have that set up but that's where you're going to put all of those files all of those word documents all of the mac pages documents things like that any sort of pdf or download you know yourself if it would come in kind of letter or document form that's where it goes photos pretty self-explanatory doesn't matter what type of photo it is just lump them all in there for now you might have a folder for music files you might have one for ebooks you might have one for films and tv shows or maybe you don't have a lot of each of those so you just have one folder for entertainment or media only create folders based on categories that you actually have and use subcategorizing that's for later for now just lump them all in now before you start moving the files from the sorting hat to their new home step seven look at the file name and if you need to rename it there is no point having a document called letter or a photograph called 1234.jpg this is pointless though i do have a document on my laptop called angry letter to bank it is six pages long and i know exactly what it's about but you should be able to easily find and identify what your files are so ask yourself if i were searching for this like actually typing searching what word or phrase would i use and then just make sure that if you have similar files that you are differentiating them in some way so stranger things season one episode one stranger things season one episode two etc once you have got them renamed then step eight drop them in their new home whatever lovely broad category they fit into and from now on every time that you create a new file or save a photo or download a pdf and you are not immediately certain about where it should go drop it in that you can actually set it up so that anything you download from the internet will automatically be saved to that folder and it will be slightly different for each device but a quick search online will show you exactly how to do that obviously if you already know where it goes you can just drop it straight in but any uncertainty sorting hat try also to get into the habit of renaming things if they need it as you are saving or downloading them if you are downloading something from the internet and it comes with some string of letters and numbers and symbols i find that all the time then just take a second and rename it to something that makes sense but be sure before you save or download something that you actually want or needed go back and reference those questions we asked earlier now as your folders start filling up then you can start subdividing if you want to so for example in your films and tv shows folder you might want to create a specific folder just for stranger things and then drop those episodes in there but only create new folders if it makes it easier for you to find and access things don't be creating them just because the fewer clicks between you and the file that you want the better and honestly if you've named them properly you won't even have to go looking for them a quick search will bring them right up now once a week or once a month depending on how heavy a computer user you are go into your sorting hat or equivalent and look back at the files from the last 7 days 30 days or however long it has been since your last sort then all you have to do is repeat steps 5 to 8 delete as much as you can figure out where the rest where the stuff that you're keeping goes maybe you need to create a new folder for it maybe not rename the files if you need to and then drop them off at their new location as for your desktop then keep your sorting hat there so you can easily drop things in and then also keep folders that you access on a very regular basis you know your most used ones as well as any current projects you are working on if you do a lot of work for example on your laptop you may want to create a folder like literally named current projects and drop those in there just for that super quick access now once you're done with them you can move them off to some long term storage or just delete them and if you want to go an extra step now that everything is clear and lovely set yourself a nice desktop background could be a photograph of your family could be a nice quote you know really inspirational quote could even be a vision board and finally remember to empty the trash too now if you find that you are spending too much time on your device scrolling through social media the next video is going to be perfect for you because i am talking about lots of different ways that you can easily whittle down the accounts that you're following this helped me cut way back on the amount of time that i was spending on my phone every day remember to subscribe so you can catch that one and claw back some of that time grab me the microwave okay salon

Channel: How to Get Your Shit Together

Views: 20,012

Keywords: computer organization, how to organize my computer, digital organization, digital declutter, organizing digital files and folders, digital minimalism, how to organize your computer, how to organize computer files, digital decluttering tips, decluttering files and folders, how to declutter computer files, digital organization tips, laptop organization, declutter challenge, declutter challenge 2020, decluttering challenge, decluttering challenge 2020, macbook organization

Id: sq8s6UzDqA0

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 22 2020