AB: All-Round Nice Guy

Computers are indeed weird inventions - apart from a lot of plastic, some metal and the occasional carbon/silicon giant polymer, most of our interactions with computers are dealing with untouchable, ‘virtual’ things. From the intangible bits of information on our hard drives, the fleeting images on our screens, and to the vibrant hues reflected in our CDs and DVDs, this virtual world has a whole new set of rules and customs as compared to the physical world.

In business circles, people have long since perfected the art of coping with physical information: inboxes, outboxes, photocopiers, filing cabinets, shredders - all the paraphernalia of a typical paper based office. 

But in the virtual world, we’re not so proficient in managing our information as robustly - in many many cases, I see people who are experts in paper-based systems treat their equivalent electronic systems without any of the same proficiency nor zeal. 

The ‘digital divide’ is said to delineate ‘Generation X’ from ‘Generation Y’ - those who grew up with personal computers vs those who grew up before them. While the definitions of the range of ages of these two generations differs depending on who you talk to, I would suggest that it’s not so much age-based, but confidence-based.

That said, let me pose a few typical computer filing situations, and show you how to ‘file with style’ in the virtual world, and feel more confident with your own digital information. 

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SCENARIO 1: Your email inbox is your filing cabinet.

With so much email in and outbound daily, it’s very common not to save out attachments as they arrive. After all, if I scroll through my inbox, find the email from 5 months ago, and click the attachment, it’ll open up - what’s the big deal?

Solution: The problem here is that unless you use your email program as your *only* filing system, then you will also, by default, have a secondary filing system somewhere on your hard drive. The truth is that your email program can handle managing your emails, but it’s not a replacement for saving your email attachments and your own created documents in your main working folder. 

Given that you’ll make you own documents over time anyway, you may as well use a ‘folders and files’ approach for your projects: first, choose your (one) main working folder. It might be your ‘My Documents’ folder, or your ‘Home’ folder. In any case, start a new folder for each project, and make a folder called ‘Archives’, where you move old projects to, once they’re less vital. 

Then when emails come in with attachments, rather than simply clicking to open them from the email, save them to your project folder first, then open them. In this way, you can create you own structure of folders for different resources for that project: client briefs, legals, etc.

This means that you can then use all the information you’ve been given via emails directly in your new working documents. Since you’ve put them in a know spot, you can insert them into your new documents from that known spot. 

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SCENARIO 2: You’re not really sure where you save things. 

Is this the same folder that I was in 5 minutes ago? Is this the right file? Should I just open it up and find out first? All common thoughts when *ahem* you’re not sure who’s the real owner of your files: you or your computer!

Solution: Make known folders convenient to get to, and give these known folders decent names.

The latter first: there’s no excuse for not knowing if the folder called ‘data’ is the same or different to the *other* folder called ‘data’. Operating systems can handle folder names of way more than 30 characters - so feel free to call your folder: ‘this is the data that I wasn’t sure where to put until now’.

And to make your main working folder more accessible, make shortcuts to it in various places: on your desktop, early in the top of your hard drive, and if you’re not using the ‘My Documents’ folder as your main working folder, then put a shortcut *to* your main folder in the ‘My Documents’ folder - a lot of programs default to this location when you first save your files.

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SCENARIO 3: You prefer to read things in print form, not on screen.

Apart from the environmental overhead, reading documents in print form then means you have to deal with filing or trashing that print document afterwards.

Solution: It’s much easier, from a filing point of view, not to print that document in the first place. 

Yes, yes, I hear you - reading documents on screen isn’t always a joy - small font sizes, and you can’t flick back and forth between sections very fast.

The answer is to use your screen to the fullest: if reading PDFs, go the the view menu, and enter full-screen-mode. Same with Word, at least zoom in to fit your page so it’s full width - then all you have to do is scroll up and down. 

Use your Page Up and Page Down keys to jump whole pages/screen at a time, and use the Home and End keys to jump direct to the start and end, respectively.

Moreover, learn to use the document outline modes with PDFs of Word docs - then you can jump direct to the section you need. 

The final solution is to start a trend, and begin making any of your new documents in landscape mode. For the life of me, I’m not sure why we still default to A4 vertical pages, when our screen are getting wider and wider in proportion. Give it a test this week: type a new document in A4 landscape mode - you’ll be able to use more of your screen when typing, and your readers will be able to be zoom in easier on screen to read it, too.

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SCENARIO 4: When you do file something, you’re not sure what you called it.

Was that document called Document 12 or Document 14?

Solution: Hmmm… no excuse here - related to the earlier topic of naming your folders with distinction, this one is ever more vital: give your documents decent names. 

If you’re making a new document, or if you’re saving an email attachment to disk, you have the opportunity to either create a totally relevant name for your new document, or at least you’re able to tack on your own ‘qualifier’ at the end of someone else’s document. 

So when you’re next emailed ‘Document 14′ as an attachment, save it as ‘Document 14 - Sales data from Harry on Aug 3rd 2008′.

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SCENARIO 5: You manage your filing system one way, and others manage theirs their way - and never the twain shall meet.

Well done - you’re taking some steps to reclaiming a bit of control over your documents now - but, uh, that’s only half the battle. If there’s more than one of you in your home/business/department/whatever, then which filing system wins out?

Solution: Grab a tea/coffee/Milo, and have a quick round table to share how you’re working with your virtual documents, and most importantly, discuss how you can all use a common folder system in a shared location. That way, you’ll have all your documents being saved to the one spot, accessible to all, in known folders, and - and this is HUGE - all able to be backed up by something bulletproof once a day or so, and then that backup taken offsite once a week or so.

It’s one of things that’s not urgent, but it is important - so grab a cuppa and see how your filing regime can improve the lives of those around you.

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Well - how did you go? Did any or all of the above 5 scenarios ring true? 

I won’t put up a ratings scale with ranks next to how many you answered badly, because I’d suggest we all fall into most of the above traps a lot of the time.

Hopefully you’ll have some food for thought as you go about your regular contact with this hidden, virtual world. 

If you plan to take a measure of control over your computer (and don’t let your computer control *you*!) then you’ll be across the digital divide in no time. Don’t panic - I’ll meet you halfway…  

AB out