As I mentioned on Day 2, I'm a hoarder/purger. The thing that most often gets purged is paper. I hate keeping it. I have yet to develop the ability to keep a decent file system, so most of my life is digital. And that is surely messy enough, so I decided it was time I enforced some organization on my virtual world.
I had been lackadaisical with creating a file hierarchy, but today was a kick in the pants kind of day to get it done. As a freelance writer/photographer, I have a lot of different files for a handful of different projects, and just tossing them all in "Documents" was no longer a useful solution. Each project now has a master folder, with sub-folders that work for me. I'm hoping to get a new external hard drive for photos, but until then, I think I can stick to this!
Another digital task that needs a little organizing is keeping track of daily deal purchases. Inspired by how Melissa found over $2,500 in "free money", I'm starting to collect my expired deals and forgotten crowdfunding perks. It's a process of phone calls and conversations, but you can always claim your deals for their paid value, even after they expire.
Need help with digital organizing? Here are some helpful posts:
• Easy Steps to De-Clutter Your Mac
• One Minute Tip: How to Paper-Free Your Desk
• How To Manage Your Personal Photo Collection Like A Professional Photographer
Is your digital world clean or cluttered?
JANUARY CURE LINKS:
• Day 14: Get Papers & Files in Order
(Images: Tara Bellucci)
Must-See Small Cool Homes: Week Two
Beth's Romantic & Retro Residence
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
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Oh man. One of my goals this year is to get our financial house in order - pay off all the credit card debt and the car notes and start saving for a house. Even though I'm an accountant, the financial files are a mess. I blame not being in the same place as my husband, which meant two of all the utilities and statements going to him when I'm the one keeping the books.
My plan for tonight is to get the bank accounts loaded into Quicken (we're in the process of changing from a bank to a credit union), set up electronic file folders for our bills, and get everything onto an external hard drive. (I don't want that info hanging out on my hard drive - I take my computer to school and log on to the university Wi-Fi network.) After that, I'm going to dig out the filing system for our medical bills and do a better job of tracking medical/dental/vision expenses this year, to see if we can itemize our taxes next year. I'll sleep better at night knowing that our finances are being well-tracked (and that I'm doing a better job at my profession).
Since today is MLK Day,this frees up more time home from work to work on todays assignment. Currently,I use a decorative "faux book" box to house my mail as it comes in.Checking this box only once per month caused me to pay my electric bill 5 days late.It will be better if I keep on top of this every 2-3 weeks from now on.There is no real place in my home to place an official file cabinet.Besides,they cost at least $100 at Staples.A heavy duty cardbox purchased at Walmart has served me well the last several years.I must respectfully disagree with keeping rent receipts only if they are deductible.What if a roomate,landlord or management company claims not to have your rent on time?Keeping the receipts untill the apartment lease expires seems like a better idea to me.
With so many files and passwords and other stuff in my computer I decided to 'embrace the cloud'. It didn't involve burning any incense, I just signed up to Dropbox to hold all my images, Google Docs to hold all my documents and Last Pass to remember all my emails. I am now using Freshbooks to keep my invoicing in check and Xero to do my accounts.
Now I can do anything anywhere and don't have to worry about lugging my laptop everywhere - and yet, I still lug my laptop everywhere. Go figure!
Anna@BohaGlass
Looks like you're in desperate need of Evernote!!!!
Today I moved all of the photos on my computer onto a portable hard drive. I keep putting it off and then panic and think what the hell would happen if I didn't have a backup of them and lose all my photos of my kids. Timely post!
While I do the hierarchy method of file naming and try to keep all audio on a partition on an external drive, photos in it's on, etc.
However, because I've had to remove stuff from the hard drive on my old now gone, dead computer, I've had to dump stuff on the photo drive (labeled my documents 1 or some such) and have a "Windows old" on the C drive from when Vista had to be reinstalled, and created a file for the old install, including programs, everything in my documents so things are now scattered about in several places.
I also need to get my financial house in order too, get Mint up and running, I have my W2 and have Turbo Tax linked to my bank account, as of this morning for tax duty purposes, stuff like that. Thanks to Turbo Tax, I've had very good tax returns the past couple of years, and hope to do so this year, despite having had to replace my then dying truck last January, and now pay a loan through Chase bank. Seemed to me they asked that question for 2011.
My physical files aren't too bad but they do need going through to get rid of old insurance packets and keeping later ones, filing stuff that needs to be filed etc.
But before I can do any of that, I need to get my PC fixed. Accidentally tripped the circuit breaker for the bedroom where it resides last week while it was running and it horked up the Windows Installer so it now gives me the blue screen of death during boot up. I know now what the issue is, and how to fix it, repair Windows. Once that is done, I can get onto these other tasks, along with portfolio work and job searching.
At least i did get rid of stuff I no longer want/need, and got rid of the dead computer that'd been under my bed since 2009.
Evernote w/Web Clipper. Try it - you'll be glad you did.