How to organise your digital life
When it comes time to submit an important paper or upload your final project, the last thing you want to be concerned about is whether you have chosen the correct version. Browsing a cluttered desktop, trying to choose between documents labelled _Final2 and _FinalFINAL, figuring out which journal articles were downloaded for which assignments – these are common issues students face that can stand in the way of your success.
Fortunately, there is an easy solution: information management.
Better information management
Managing information might sound boring, but it’s actually an incredibly crucial skill now that all of our most important work is on our devices. Don’t worry, though! You are probably better at managing info than you think.
Creating a music playlist, saving or sharing posts on social media, organising photos from your last holiday – these are all ways we manage information on a regular basis.
We have put together some of our top tips to help you learn how to organise your digital life and start 2020 with a clean screen.
Cluttered folders or desktop?
You are probably juggling several assignments at once, so it’s important to keep the information for each one together to avoid confusion. Try creating separate folders for each assignment and store all the relevant articles there.
Too many versions of the same document?
It’ll serve you well both at uni and in future employment to develop good file naming practice. There are several different ways you can name your files, but you can’t go wrong with the template below:
YYMMDD_UnitCode_AssignmentName_Version
Rather than naming any file ‘final’, just use the most recent version instead. That way if you make more changes afterwards, you avoid using Final2 or other confusing names!
Difficulty sharing group work?
There are loads of cloud-based tools that allow you to work on the same document at once while keeping track of all changes. OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox – these are all great options that help ensure you don’t lose work and are always collaborating in the most recent version.
Get started!
The best part about all of these tips is they take very little time to put in place, and they save you a lot of hassle and frustration down the road. It’s worth setting aside a little time at the beginning of the year to go through your files and get organised. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, the library is here to help. Contact us through Library Chat or get in touch with your Liaison Librarian.
If you’re interested in learning more about good information management practice, check out our new video: