Ya Gotta Get It Together - Part Two

Getting Organized—Part Two

or 

Now that I got it what do I do with it?

A  practical approach to getting organized using Denise Levenick's article "The End of the Paper Trail" in Family Tree magazine.

Step One was to get rid of my flatbed scanner and buy a sheet feed scanner.  You can use a sheet feed scanner as a flatbed scanner if this capability is needed. 

Sheet feed scanning will produce an enormous amount of digital documents and NOW to deal with naming and filing.

Step Two was creating a "file-naming scheme" Levenick suggests a system that "you know what is in the file before you open it."

Levenick suggests these two naming options:

1) date first (1930 Smith_ James_census), 
or

2) surname first (Lott_ Cornelius_Jamaica-NewYork 
or even my suggested naming option by

3) type of document (Swiss_Lacapo_lecture)

Creating the file name and folder name system is not hard. It helps you:
*pull it together 
* get some semblance of order

BUT

* Now that you have named it 

where do you put it?

Step Three was to consider the " folder system" on my computer.

I had my own "folder system" and surprisingly it was almost what Levenick suggested. (See detailed example in Levenick's article step 8.)

It is all a matter of getting a file naming scheme in place "consistently" as well as a folder system in place "consistently."

(A suggestion from Nancy Loe and Sassy Jane Genealogy, too.)

This is time consuming work especially if you have not done any organizing but it is even harder when correcting what you thought was organization.

Levenick suggests a cheat sheet with the naming scheme(s) posted near your computer.  I concur Denise.

Personal Note:

Consistency (I fall down here)...I am working on it.  

  
More of my challenges in organizing with comments from Levenick on"Adjusting your Workflow" in Ya Gotta Get It Together — Part Three.

Have you been organizing? 

Please let me know your challenges and solutions.

See ya down the road...

____________________________________
Denise Levenick, "The End of the Paper Trail," Family Tree magazine, July/August, p 21-26.