Personally, I like to keep a copy of everything (yes everything!) and that means I must keep it handy because keeping a copy makes sense only if you find it at the right time and place. The trick hence is to be "ORGANIZED". But more often than not, the busy schedules and deadlines mean that we tend to ignore this simple thing and end up cluttering everything.
P.S. the post is dedicated only to organize the laptop/computer; the bookshelves and cupboard needs another round of tips and explanations.
Tip 1 - Personal vs Professional Folders:
The first step to organize your laptop is to always keep your personal and professionals files separately in separate folders. For obvious reasons say, your photos of recent visit to a holiday destination should never be lying in your PhD folders!
Tip 2 - Name, Name, Name:
Don't you think it'll be problematic if we had names like "wp2004/opscdf" or "Mfe8prMh_v4D"? There is a reason we have been given easy to call names (okay not all of us, still) and precisely for the same reason I argue that it is important to name each and every file and folder on your desktop. No, naming a folder "important" is not sufficient! Why not name the folders as "PhD Literature", "PhD Data Work", "PhD articles to check", etc etc. Basically names that you can most relate to. Just imagine how easy would it be to find your Excel sheet precisely in your "PhD Data Work" folder. So today I am going to rename all my remaining files and folders.
[For naming of PhD articles I follow a different approach - See Tip 4 for details]
Tip 3 - Naming Different Versions of the Same File:
This is very very useful at times. So you recently wrote a document on some ideas and it is still going rounds and rounds between you and your Supervisor. But every time you want to check the previous comment you would probably have to go back to your email, right? (Just imagine if your email is hacked?).
Why not rename all your versions as follows (Eg. Synopsis):
Synopsis v1 Rough Draft
Synopsis v2 Draft 1 Sent to Supervisor
Synopsis v3 Supervisor's Comments on Draft 1
Synopsis v4 Draft 2 Sent to Supervisor
...
etc
Tip 4 - A Master Excel Sheet for PhD Literature:
This one is my favorite! :) So you have a list of articles that you download and download and download! And the next month you Google you probably would download the same article and keep it in a separate folder. Lets de-clutter them as follows - First of all try and divide the articles into broad categories (this is very specific to your PhD, so create categories based on your broad searches or Chapter Scheme etc., but do create them). Name those categories as 1,2,3,4,5 and so on.
Now, rename each article in category 1 as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and so on. Similarly for category 2,3,4....
Now create an excel sheet and name it "Master Excel Sheet" which would look like following:
S.No.
|
Name of Article/Paper
|
Year of Publish
|
Author
|
Name and location of the folder
|
Status of Print
|
Summary/Important points
|
1
|
Food Consumption Trends and Drivers
|
2010
|
John Kearney
|
PhD Literature > File Name 1.1
|
Yes
|
The paper is broadly talking about blah blah blah
|
2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Infact it is a good idea to "hyperlink" your file so that you need not visit the folder separately. I know this process looks slightly complicated in the beginning but it is very useful esp when you know your PhD is not going to finish in a day.
Tip 5 - Be Regular:
I know life is tough and busy and all this organizing stuff takes patience and time. But trust me you just need an hour every week for this process. You don't need to fix up a time - you just need to find a time when you are not in a mood to do mind-straining PhD work. But once a week all your files must be put in a place where they need to be!
Tip 6 - A "To Arrange" Folder if the week is busy:
It is always advisable to rename and organize files immediately when you download them but sometimes that is not possible. In situations like those always keep a folder on your Desktop "To Check" or "To Organize" so that this folder always remind you of pending work.
Infact keep minimal files on Desktop. Rather desktops should mostly be filled with shortcuts of your main folders.
Tip 7 - Backup, Backup, Backup:
Everyone will agree how useful it is to take backup esp when you are doing all this organizing stuff. But are we actually doing that?
I would suggest 3 things:
- Every once in a fortnight you need to save all your files in a harddrive/pendrive. Put reminders if you actually forget dates.
- Point 1 is not always trustworthy so its important to have something like a "Dropbox" Account. Here also either you download Dropbox Application for your computer for automatic backups, else every fortnight save your folders in the online account. Set reminders.
- Emailing the files is also advisable esp when you are working on Public Computers/University Computers.
All these are some simple steps to keep your Laptop clean and organized. Next time whenever you feel like not working, why dont you follow these simple steps and make your life easy :)
This is my Plan B and I am going to follow it everyday. :)
