It seems to me that there are three types of necessary electronic filing that needs to be mastered:

1. Computer Documents
2. E-mails
3. Web Sites -Bookmarks and Favorites
4. Files You May Not Even Know You Had

At first glance, you might not think that web sites is a filing issue. Let’s go right back to one of our analogies that world wide web as one gigantic shopping mall. In the mall, how do you find your favorite stores? You go to the information kiosk. There you will find a map and various stores listed by type and alphabetically. If you are really lucky, you might find a real person and be able to ask him or her. The real person represents a search engine. The Index Map represents your bookmarks (for Netscape users) and your favorites (for Internet Explorer users.) Over time you can build, rearrange, group the sites as you see fit. Some of the sites may disappear or you forget what they are called. This is why it is important to manage our bookmarks / favorites.

Before you start, it is hard to imagine what kind of headings you will need. If you can think of typical file folders that you might use, all the better. Some suggestions that I use are:

• Personal and Family (under this I have sub headings like child sites, travel, entertainment)
• Business (under this I have sub headings in my field of work),
• Finance
• Technical
• Reference
• Hobbies

Computer Files AND Documents On PC 
(I am sure that Mac has a similar process if I remember)

If you use Microsoft Office products, the default place for filing is "My Documents". The default location for Corel WordPerfect Office is "My Files". Use on or the other depending on which product you use the most. I prefer My Documents. You can put it anywhere. Sometimes I may have a separate archive file outside of My Documents and will save it there instead. Here is the trick – if you want to put it into a file folder when you are saving it, the folder has to already be in existence. How do you do that? Open up your computer, then c-drive, then either the file folder for My Documents or My Files. Click on File, New and Folder. Type on what you want to call this folder. You can change the name later by going under file and clicking on rename. You can easily move the folder by cut and paste or drag and drop.

The key here is to have meaningful file folders. In My Documents, I have 20 main file folders each with up to a half dozen sub headings. Some that I use are:

• Client
• Reading Material
• Training / Presentations
• Projects
• Webs, Personal
• Coaching Material
• Pictures
• Scanned Images
• Invoices
• Correspondence
• General
• OD / Leadership and on and on.

I also have a separate file folder in the C-drive that I call Internet Downloads. Here I put anything that I have downloaded from a web site or was sent to me in an e-mail (that isn’t business). That way I can readily locate it and delete it at an appropriate time. Sometimes the computer will automatically create a "My Downloads File" folder and put downloads there, so check it out.

I also like to click on the view heading and click on details. That way I can learn a lot about a file that I may be looking for. Once I have the details, I can also click on name, type, or date modified to find it by those headings. Sometimes, if I know what I am looking for, it can be faster than using the find feature under the start menu.

Just because you have filed it, don’t forget about the importance of back-ups or perhaps putting the information of individual clients on a separate disk and into the hard copy files you may keep.

E-Mails

All of the same principles of Computer Documents and Bookmarks / Favorites apply to e-mails. You figure it out. Go ahead and set up folders and even sub folders. Drag them over or use the headers at the top to move them.  For more information check out E-Mail Filing

Don’t leave everything in your in-box. Unless you are going to deal with the message that day, put it into a newly created Pending Folder. Delete some of your e-mails. They can still be retrieved until you empty it from the Trash. Group your messages, including those that you sent. If you have a series of e-mails that were replied back and forth, just keep the latest one.

If the e-mail is from someone you may want to contact in the future, click on his or her address and put it into your e-mail address book. You can create different address books with various distribution lists.

Adding Bookmarks / Favorites

There are two ways to add a web page to your bookmarks / favorites. Here is the easiest – right click anywhere on the page with your mouse. It will say Add Bookmark or Add to Favorites. Click on that and presto it is added to the bottom of your list to be hopefully be filed later. If you right click, you will also see the choice Create Shortcut. This is a great choice to put the link up on your desktop. Use this ONLY if you need the site for a short while and the will be deleting the site. Otherwise you will truly clutter up your desktop. The other way to add a bookmark / favorite is to click the Bookmark Heading near the top left of the Netscape Browser OR click the Favorites Heading – fourth one in at the top of the IE Browser (not the little icon one in the middle). Then follow instructions.

Arranging Your Bookmarks

IE Explorer.

Click the Favorites Heading – fourth one in at the top of the IE Browser and then click on Organize Favorites. The instructions from there are pretty straightforward. You can create folders, move folders (you can also do this by highlighting a folder or site and dragging it to another place), delete and rename. The rename is important because it may just show up as "Welcome" but you won’t remember welcome to what. So do rename some of the pages to something that will trigger why you added it to your favorites in the first place.

Netscape

Click the Bookmark Heading near the top left of the Netscape Browser and click on Edit Bookmarks. You can play around here using the headings to guide you and create folders, move, rename, delete etc. Remember, do rename some of the pages to something that will trigger why you added it to your bookmarks in the first place.

 

Files You May Not Even Know You Had

So you visited a web site and you meant to bookmark or put it into your favorites but forgot. Now it is days later and you can’t even remember what it was called. Find the History icon at the top of the IE Browser and click it. Presto – there are all the sites you visited in the last two weeks. You may have to click on the folder entitle 2 weeks to open it up. Netscape has a similar feature, Find the Communicator header, then go to tools and you will see History. Click on it and you will find the least 14 days of visit.

Have you ever wondered how the police on TV shows can go into a computer and retrieve e-mails that were supposedly deleted? Let’s say you trashed a very important message. It still exists. But it had better be REALLY important to go to all the trouble to find it. I am not going to go into it here, but sometimes files are around that you didn’t think was possible.