Regardless of your Organization Type – you need to decide how you want to group your thoughts, your virtual files. Are you a filer?

Ask yourself, how do you “file” your memories (photos)/thoughts (documents).

• What main categories in life do you collect paper from?
• Do you go by year?
• Do you go by month?
• Do you go by whole date (month/year)?
• Do you go by event?
• Do you work from home?
• Do you have school-age children?
• Do you homeschool or do they go to school outside of your home?

Year – Month – Event – Topic?

As a Virtual Filer, my answer is All of the Above.

• I am a full-time mom;
• we homeschool;
• I enjoy photography; and
• I work solely from home as an
  • independent contractor admin;
  • a part-time employee admin;
  • doing graphic & web design as a business;
  • I also do editing | proofing | writing; and
  • consulting work for a couple of people.

Here is an example of what SCHOOL holds in my computer; these are only the high school files for each. Vince’s high school years were 2012-2016 and Christine’s are 2014-2018. The files prior to either of them being in high school are in a different place, they won’t ever be looked at again – high school might be needed:

You can see I have labeled the folder SCHOOL, inside there I have a folder with the school year and grades; then inside one school year I divide it out as needed. As you can see on the right. You can see the two grades from last year, and then this year and next are for just Christine.

This makes it so I can find which year and which child quickly, at a glance. Also, as I get information from online I can save it directly into the folder it would be most like to be used.

Notice: a blue file folder is like a file folder in real life. You can put one, more, or no documents inside the folder.

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave