One folder, or twenty
Set up a small set of folders you will genuinely use, and know when a folder inside a folder has earned its place.
Everybody who has ever tidied a computer has built a beautiful set of folders, used it for three weeks, and gone back to saving everything on the desktop. The scheme was not wrong. It was too deep.
The test for a folder is simple: in two years, without thinking, would you look in it? If the answer needs a moment’s thought, the folder is in the wrong place or should not exist.
Folders inside folders are not forbidden. They are expensive: every layer is another decision you must make correctly twice — once when saving, once when looking. So they need to earn it.
Key points
- Make a folder and move something into it.
- Choose five or six folder names you would actually say out loud.
- Keep the folders you use weekly one press away.
What to remember
- New folder, name it, then choose a file and move it. Nothing is copied and nothing is at risk.
- There is no correct filing scheme, only one you will guess the same way twice. If two folders both feel right, pick the one you would say out loud.
- Pinning a folder is the difference between a scheme you use and a scheme you abandon.
Try this
Make one folder tonight — only one — with a word you would say out loud on it. Move three things into it. Do not attempt the whole computer; the people who tidy everything in one evening are the people who abandon it by Friday.
Practice: One folder, or twenty. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.