How does one 'organise' a documents folder/library?

[subtletylost]

Hey guys I was just curious as to how you organise your documents folder/library, you know the place where documents are stored on your computer, because mine is so disorganised that I may have actually lost some of my WIPs.

Any ideas how I might be able to straighten it up?

Ps it looks something like this:

only inside each folder here is like 50 billion misplaced files and folders within folders within folders and i can't find the things i need. when i need them. (when i don't need them though I can't not find them.)

 

[subtletylost]

. Here's a link to the image bigger: http://starmartiza.deviantart.com/art/njuf-309729510

 

[alchemist]

That looks pretty neat to me.

I have three folders on my desktop, all subdivided towards infinity

1. WIP
Draft 1 (each chapter and combined draft)
Draft 2 (ditto)
Draft 3
Notes
Pre and post critiquing scenes

2. Short stories
Folder for each, containing different drafts

3. Chrons writing challenges
75 word submitted
75 word discarded
300 word

As I say, each has folders in folders in folders etc. The advantage of three basic folders is it's easy to drag them onto a memory stick for backup.

 

[Hex]

Hiya -- your layout looks pretty good to me (and have you tried the 'search' option? I use it a lot). Anyway, I have a 'Writing' folder with titles (all the shorts are called short[titlename] so they sit down at the bottom of the list). My wips are in their own folders, like this:

Title: Ink

Layer 1 -- the current draft and a 'notes/ thoughts' document.

Layer 2 -- older drafts and notes -- I name the drafts according to the month I wrote them, so for example Ink__June2012__ver2

(this works for me because I tend to start a new version whenever I make significant changes so I have about 50 older drafts).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Gah, you're all so organised. I have various documents with various titles including AC last ever rewrite (8 months ago), AC Never again (6 months) AC this time or it goes in the bin (4 months) and AC final, which is currently being taken apart and revised. I have them all in my documents, floating around, and I email the up to date one every couple of days. Plus, somewhere there is an unlabelled memory stick which has short stories, etc. on it. I also have 3 other open word docs with the title of the wip.

Must try to emulate organised people. Must....

 

[Jammill Khursheed]

The easiest way to keep track of things I find is having the same naming system for all files, that way you know which file is what... for example, I use the system...

SERIES_TITLE_DRAFT/VERSION_DATE.doc

i.e. If I was JK Rowling and I'd just started the third rewrite of the philosiphers stone the document would be called

HarryPotter_PhilosiphersStone_Ver3.0_20.06.12

And then just put all your stuff in the same folder... My folder tree goes

Writing - Poetry, Scripts, Novels, ShortStories

and then each of those four folders are split into subfolders for each individual project (except for poetry, they're split into 'Jammill's poems', and 'Bubba's poems', but that's because I perform in character with a completely different set to the page poetry I write as myself)

In each individual project, I Split the folder into Manuscripts, Notes&Research, OlderVersions (i.e. previous re-writes that have fallen by the way side and are not being worked on), so the previous mentioned title would be in

C:/MyDocuments/Writing/Novels/HarryPotter/Manuscripts/HarryPotter_PhilosiphersStone_Ver3.0_20.06.12


Don't know if that helps, but I haven't lost anything for a while now


Jammill

 

[subtletylost]

look what happened when I removed all files from their folder and put them on a flash key: http://starmartiza.deviantart.com/art/h-309738718

and thats not even all of it.

here it is with only word processing documents: http://starmartiza.deviantart.com/art/dhfk-309740028

Soo much stuff

 

[The Judge]

I'd suggest you start by making a list of the main folders you want eg WIP1, short stories, poems, essays, whatever, and then how you want to subdivide each one. Create those empty folders, then open each existing folder and go to each individual file and move them around into the appropriate place. It's just like making sure the socks go in the sock section of the top drawer of your chest of drawers and not into the jumper section of the bottom drawer.


If it's of help, I'm as anal as alchemist and Hex.

I have a Writings folder, which is sub-divided into Total Judge (the SF), Total TMD (the fantasy), Short Stories (including the 75 and 300 worders) and Website.

"Total Judge" folder is split into 12 sub-folders, including one each for the 2 novels set in the same world and the notes for book 3, short stories in the world, critiques from others, story lines for other books, and draft hooks/synopses etc.

Taking the sub-folder for book one, that's divided into 10 sub-folders, mostly different drafts for when I've made important changes which I've labelled with the draft number.

Taking the sub-folder for the most recent draft that's divided into 5 -- Glossary, Miscellaneous, Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Taking the Part 1 folder, that has separate files for the Title Page and each individual chapter from Ch1- 14 and the 4 inter-chapter bits.


I'm not very efficient at naming, so every chapter 1 is simply called chapter 1, which means it could come from any of the 3 books and from any one of the drafts, so just looking at the title alone would never help me to identify a document and exactly where it belongs. But unless I bin several chapter 1s and need to retrieve only one of them, it isn't likely to cause problems, I don't think. *crosses fingers*

 

[subtletylost]

i have a lot of things that just end up being called untitled or untitled document and that causes a lot of problems.

 

[Mouse]

Blimey. I don't really bother. My current WiP is on my desktop. Any notes associated with it are in the same document, written at the end where I can see them and delete as necessary. I've got some abandoned WiPs... somewhere. Possibly on the other computer.

I've got some completed things possibly also on my desktop (or in my documents folder).

The only thing I've made some sort of effort with is short stories. I've got a short stories folder and inside that I've got 'completed published,' 'completed unpublished,' and 'incomplete.' Oh, and I do some writing for a Canadian website, so stories for them have their own folder too.

 

[The Judge]

i have a lot of things that just end up being called untitled or untitled document and that causes a lot of problems.

I suggest that you put aside a few hours and go through the documents and give them names then! Make them as descriptive as possible but in as few words as you can so "Notes: Rosie and Matt romance" or "Draft scene: Tommy drunk" and then put those in the relevant sub-folders.

 

[Vertigo]

Agree with The Judge there. First and foremost always name files in a way that you will remember them. Having files called just 52 etc. is just asking for trouble. At least have something like MyGreatOpus Ch52.

Regarding folder organisation just try to logically link stuff up in a sensible manner. Think about how you organise your bookshelves. Think of a bookshelf as a folder and a shelf as a folder within that. Then each book is another folder and potentially another folder for each chapter if you want to break the chapter down into scenes in separate files. Also have a Research folder (not just one but one in each WIP folder) into this put all associated planning, research, ideas etc. (note each of those can be sub folders too.

You really shouldn't be worried about making deep folder hierarchies. I personally think the deeper you start the more room you have to widen out over time. I frequently have folder hierarchies that go down 9 or 10 levels. A well organised folder structure should mean never losing anything.

Dare I ask whether you have all that stuff backed up?

 

[Phyrebrat]

I am – or rather was - touch and go about housekeeping until someone on this site mentioned Scrivener.

I downloaded the 30 day trial and before I’d even finished the tutorial I had paid the money to get the unlock key. It is a lovely little programme; all your ‘gumpf’ whether it is notes, research or actual text is held centrally in each save file. You can drag and drop pictures and so forth into the corkboard area, write directly into the manuscript, fill in the Character card templates, add reminders, notes, etc. I just love it. My WIP had not stalled but I had become so entrenched in details that I could not keep track of without flicking between copious Word docs, that it may as well have done so. Now it is all held centrally, and when I open the Scrivener file for my current WIP (Soot), everything I have is there in one easily-navigable area.

Works for me.

Of course, if I was a bit more organised and could carry things in my head (even mental arithmetic is a challenge for me! Dancers only have to count up to 8 so I get confused thereafter ) I could use the ways recommended above and save myself (I think) $40 but it is such a neat little programme that it’s well worth it.

I took a screenshot of the main working page but it is twice the size of the forum's limit; when I reduce it it is illegible so if you wish I can send it privately.



On the left is Main Tree which has parts and chapters (my works do not have parts, just chapters, but these are all customisable). Under each chapter folder are your scene docs, which make up one chapter.

Below that are the Character Cards which is a pro-forma affair where you type all you know about the character, even irrelevant stuff, which works as a nice jumpstart when you are working with a particular one.

Under that are the place and research areas which contain your notes and pictures and so on.


One last thing; I am PC-phobic after switching to a Mac 2 years ago. I'm therefore running Scrivener on a Mac so I can't comment on what it is like on a PC.


Hope this helps

pH

 

[Ursa major]

Being very untidy and forgetful, I have a very strict folder organisation AND I name my files so that I can find them wherever they might be incorrectly** filed.

The main folder under Documents is the series title

Title of the Individual novels in that series

Draft of that novel in question

Version of that Draft***

​

Voice Recordings

Spreadsheets
​

Maps and diagrams

Originals (usually PowerPoint)
wmfs and emfs
​

​

Did I ever mention that I might be a bit anal...?

​

** - This happened this very afternoon. I was copying a file from my old desktop to an USB stick (for further copying to my new PC and I released the mouse button too early. It was easy to find the file, whose name is of the form:

<name of novel> <version***> <generation****>.doc
​

*** - This may be a combination of draft/sub-draft number, reason*****

**** - Something like 1m or 2d. When I'm working on two machines, I make one the master (it has generations of 1a, 1b, 1c, etc.) and one the slave (whose generations are that of the master version being edited plus +1, +2, +3). I do this because I save with a new file name whenever I want to do an edit; it means that I always have the previous versions. (This is why I have literally thousands of files: 2981 of them, in 108 folders, taking up 4,129,488,013 bytes. Okay, a few hundred are diagrams, maps and spreadsheets, including their multiple generations. Oh, and 300+ digital voice recordings of me reading various chapters of the text. I blame the George III operating system....)

***** - When I was moving to a new format, but not changing the content, there would have been a files with the name:

Ursa's WiP1 - Draft 8 - New formatting - 1b.doc
Ursa's WiP1 - Draft 9 - Removing it and there was - 1g+3.doc
​

 

[RcGrant]

I am – or rather was - touch and go about housekeeping until someone on this site mentioned Scrivener.

Ditto. I came across it about 2/3rds into my current project, so I haven't bothered to import everything (only my novel text) but it's brilliant. I will be utilising it fully as I map out my next project (apart from the random sentences jotted down on receipts and napkins. *cough*).

 

[kaal]

Definitely go with The Judge & Ursa major on making sure everything has a name. I would suggest that Ursa's & JK's naming conventions are the most robust (more so than the one I use ).
The directory structure I have to (try and) keep track of my stuff is to have a Writings directory in which there are:-
Stories/<Universe>/<Series>/<StoryName>
Manuscripts/<Universe>/<Series>/<StoryName>
E.g.: ./Manuscripts/USSMC-Universe/Expansion/LeavingEarth or ./Stories/GodsGiven/Novels/DisappearHere

K

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Only way to really organize anything is with clearly marked folders and folder trees. If you have documents, but all jumbled together....WHAT A MESS.

But you could have one WIP in this folder, say, The Pink Chicken Hero, and another one here in The Moon's Mistress, or whatever. (Don't ask about the examples. Please.)


And within those you can have further organization, like, "Outlines in this particular section, first draft goes in this one, edit one in this one, etc."

 

[mithril]

Ditto. I came across it about 2/3rds into my current project, so I haven't bothered to import everything (only my novel text) but it's brilliant. I will be utilising it fully as I map out my next project (apart from the random sentences jotted down on receipts and napkins. *cough*).

Double Ditto before that I was using evernote though. That's free and it probably would have done a much better job of organising my WIP research than using folders, subfolders, documents etc would have for me...

 

[Sapheron]

I hold that organisation is for wimps. As such, I have a mess of documents scattered randomly across the desktop and within an impregnable maze of folders throughout two computers, a USB stick and two email inboxes. Needless to say, if I want to find something in particular it can take up to hours, if I manage at all.

Still, I kind of like it this way.

Also, I don't want to spend a few days trying to sort it out.

 

[Ursa major]

Also, I don't want to spend a few days trying to sort it out.

You're right not to want to do so, because it could take longer (and much of the effort might be wasted).

The way to go, if you want to organise things but don't want to get bogged down, is to set up a structure and gradually populate it when you create new files. And, when you've spent an odd hour or two finding an older file, save it to the new structure when you've finished with it.

Over time, your files will become organised - if they don't, no file structure is going to help you (because the key is process**) - and what is left lying around will never have been accessed (and so wasn't worth re-filing in the first place.)



** - File systems are wonderful. Files tend to stay put, unless you actively move them. In real life, I lose things all the time, because I tend to pick something absent-mindedly at random, and equally randomly leave it somewhere else. (And more stuff goes missing when I'm searching for something that may be in one of a dozen physical folders; I start very methodically, but as time passes, the previously mentioned absent-minded moving of stuff kicks in with a vengeance. )