OT: Building an Efficient and User Friendly Files System

[Guest guest]

Hi Gabriela,

 

> Hi Butch,

>

> How do you set up your computer to be able to find stuff? You must

> have a system in order to organize all the information. I have tons of

> stuff saved on discs, paper, and in the hard drive. But I can't find

> anything when I need it. How do you do it?

 

Like any other file system .. adjust it to individual needs. Examples

of my needs are as follows .. and in the order of my files from top of

the page to the bottom .. the major file groupings are ..

 

AVNP - AT Course Members

thru ....................... (this is my my company business)

AVNP - Weekly Cash Reports

 

Butch - Analysis Reports

thru ...................... (these are matters only I control)

Butch - Web Site Fixes

 

EO - Amyris

thru ...................... (this and that info on this and that oil)

EO - Ylang Ylang

 

Posts - Agora List

thru ..................... (these are copies of posts I sent)

Posts - Woobey News

 

Reply - Azra

thru ..................... (these are personal replies to friends)

Reply - Vern

 

Sold - 1 - Herbal Teas

Sold - 1 - Robes ....... (these are buyers of ONLY those products

Sold - 1 - Rose Jam and not a lot of correspondence with them)

 

Sold - Art Snerd

thru ..................... (these are customer files .. the last one is

Sold - Yu Wee XXX (Texas) a Chinese buyer but living in Texas)

 

Taiwan - (A buyer whose name begins with A)

thru

Taiwan - (A buyer whose names begins with Z)

 

Though I serve customers in 64 countries outside the USA, my largest

customer base is in Taiwan .. so they get a different file grouping.

And I indicate the Taiwanese customers who do not live in Taiwan by the

state beside their name. All other customers outside the USA will be

listed in alphabetical order amongst the American buyers .. but with a

note as to where they are from .. like ..

 

Sold - John Ling (Singapore)

 

My Taiwanese customers allow me to exercise my brain a lot because they

almost all have an adopted American name in addition to their own. But

from time to time they send e-mails with different names .. like .

 

Suzy Chang ........ which I like cause its easier to file

Ming Yu Chang ..... not a norm for them but they think we like it

Chang Ming Yu ..... the norm for them .. family name followed by given

 

Keeps me hopping. But they are great folks with a super sense of humor

and they tolerate my knuckleheaded ways. ;-)

 

Treatment - Breathing Problems

thru .............. (traditional use of EO for temporary relief)

Treatment - Smoking

 

And it follows on through till I get to Young Living Crap

 

Of course, spread out between these major categories can be other files

but you need to group them .. otherwise you will never find them as we

don't always follow a pattern of naming files. A way to group them is

 

Something - 2 - whatever

 

Something - 3 - whatever

 

The PC will automatically put them in the proper order.

 

And its best to list the Sold Files with First Name first .. it is damn

impossible to list them as Snerd, Art and you will quickly see why that

is true when you start looking for a person's name. ;-) Also .. and I

am sure it bothers some folks .. I change their e-mail addresses when I

write to them because I must have consistency in files .. if they send

 

Humma-Humma Massage <Dingdongdell

I change it to

Jack Jones <Dingdongdell

 

And .. at the very bottom .. I have a few wild and crazy files that I go

to from time to time .. they are preceded with a Z .. it keeps them at

the bottom.

 

Z - that

Z - this

 

There are many tricks you will learn over time .. trial and error is a

good teacher. But when you deal with 80-90 e-mails a day and have a few

thousand files there is no time to play and not much room for error.

 

> Gabriela

 

Hope this helps .. and y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

 

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> In some respects that's probably true too .. comes from living long

> enough to see history made .. and having enough old mail stored in my

> PC. Now I have ..

>

> In Box .. 6,647

> Sent .... 5,378

> Drafts .. 527

>

> At least 2,000 individual files .. and this is only on my Netscape 7.1

> system .. got that many more on the Netscape 6.0 & 3.4 systems. ;-)

[Guest guest]

Hello Gabriela and Butch,

 

 

Gabriela, thank you for your the great question, I struggle with the same

problem

and Butch, thank you for your great answer, you can't imagine how much this

helps me.

 

Love,

 

Boa