7 Tips for Organizing Your Laptop

 

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Many of us spend a lot of time and effort cleaning and organizing our homes to ensure they look good and are much easier for us to live in. However, we spend very little time doing the same for our laptops and devices.

This is strange because many of us spend so much time on our laptops working and checking Facebook or playing games or doing our accounts as we do that having a more organized device would certainly benefit us just as much as having a more organized home.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of the simplest things you can do to organize your laptop or computer today:

1. Remove duplicate files

Just as you would remove physical clutter from your home environment it is a good idea to clean digital clutter from your laptop or device too. The easiest place to start is by removing duplicate content which will not be missed.

Many of us have multiple copies of our resume or our favorite songs or the same photos on our devices, and by getting rid of all but one (backing that file up on the cloud is a good idea) you can speed up your laptop and make it much easier to find the files you are looking for.

2. Remove junk files

Once you have done that, you should use a tool like clean my mac to remove any junk files and apps that you have downloaded onto your system, but which you do not use, from your laptop. This is really easy to do with a cleaning app, and it will free up lots of RAM which will speed up your system, and make your laptop much less cluttered, so you can do what you need to do without anything unnecessary getting in the way.

3. Create master folders

If you want your laptop to be as organized as possible, then instead of having hundreds of separate files which you need to wade through every time you need to find something specific, it is a good idea to create a number of master folders that you can then file everything on your laptop into.

For example, you could have a master folder for mp3s and music, a master file for ebooks, one for work-related files like your resume or current work projects, one for family photos, and well you get the picture.

By doing this, not only will your laptop be less cluttered, but you will spend far less time tracking down the information you are looking for on your computer too.

4. Then create subfolders

Once you have your master folders in place, it is a good idea to create subfolders within those master folders too, just to simplify things even further.

Taking the example of your master folder for music, you could then create a subfolder for pop music, one for rock, one for country, and so on, or you could create a subfolder for each artist you have on your laptop or you could arrange alphabetically too. It doesn’t matter how you organize your subfolders as long as they make sense to you and make it easier for you to find what you need when you need it.

5. Upload to the cloud

If you really want to clean up your laptop and ensure that not only is it not cluttered but also that it runs fast and simple, then one thing you can do is to stop storing files on your physical device altogether, instead uploading them to the cloud.

You will still be able to access them directly from your laptop, but they will not be cluttering up your physical hardware with their presence.

6. Name your files more efficiently

You’d be surprised at how many people simply call their filed document1, document2, document3, and so on. This can cause a huge problem when it comes to finding that work project or printing off your child’s homework file.

If your files are all generically names, and you want to be better organized, then you need to go through them and start changing the file names to something that very clearly tells you what those files contain. This may take some time to do if you have a lot of files, but once it’s done, you will be able to use your laptop way more efficiently, which means it will almost certainly be worth it, and you don’t have to rename all of your files in one sitting - so a few whenever you have a few spare moments and eventually you will get them all organized.

Oh, and while you’re renaming, weed out any files you no longer need and delete them from your system too.

7. Get rid of folders on your display

Just like being in a cluttered room can cause your brain to be more cluttered and stressed out, so can digital clutter do the same. That is why it is never a bad idea to get rid of all those files that show up on the screen when you turn your laptop on. You can delete these from the background by simply dragging them to one of your subfolders, and this will mean that all you see when you log on is the background you have chosen.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of your laptop’s background image, it is never a bad idea to choose a simple image that uplifts you every time you see it. After all, you will probably spend a lot of time looking at that background image and the nicer it looks to you, the happier you will be. It might seem like a small thing, but it can really make a difference.

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to clean and organize your laptop once you know how, and if you put these tips into action every month or so, you can bet that your laptop will always be in good working order, and more importantly, much easier for you to use effectively.

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