Five Student-Oriented Tips for Computer Organization

One of the things that many computer users struggle with is organizing their files and folders. This is the same for younger computer users and older computer users. Student computer users struggle not only with organizing computers, but are also prevented from getting the most use out of their computers due to a lack of organization. In this article, I intend to describe five general, student-oriented tips for organizing a computer.

Student Computer Organization Tip #1 - Folders Are Your Friend
One of the most important points of organizing a computer is using numerous folders and sub-folders. For example, you should have no documents in the "My Documents" folder, only other folders. I have a school folder, then folders referring to type of school (high school or college), year of school, semester, course, and type of assignment. In the lattermost folder, I finally have actual assignments.

Is this overkill? I don't think so. I can quickly and easily find past assignments. It's much easier than having every college assignment in a generic "College" folder. If I want to establish a portfolio of my writing or refer to past labs as a manner of review, I know where I can find everything I need.

Student Computer Organization Tip #2 - Use Descriptive Titles
You'll write a lot of essays in your education, regardless of your ultimate career path. If you title all of your essays "english essay" or "essay for english," you will have a hard time finding assignments in the future, and may make the mistake of putting the wrong essay on a flash drive. Imagine how embarrassing it'd be to go to print out an essay for a freshman English course and find that you have only an essay you wrote in 10th grade. What'd be worse would be emailing a college professor a high school essay. Granted, using a filing system as described above will help to reduce the likelihood of this happening, you could still send your professor a prior essay you wrote for him or her. Depending on how understanding your professor is, you might or might not be able to successfully plead your case and save your grade.

Rather than titling essays "essay 1" or "3rd speech," use descriptive file names such as "Essay 1 - Abortion Rights Worldwide" or "Speech 3 - How to Care For Cacti." This helps you if you are copying your essay to a flash drive for printing, and also lets you refer to prior assignments more easily. You might be able to rework older assignments for use in future courses, or you may be able to use the same sources that you did for prior projects in new endeavors.

Student Computer Organization Tip #3 - Consider Having an Abstract Collection
If you do a lot of writing, you may want to consider having a document where you have links to your other documents and brief descriptions or abstracts of what the articles are about. This might be overkill if you're not an English, Journalism, or Communications major. However, if you are, it can make assembling a portfolio much easier. Likewise, if you do a lot of writing about the same topic, it can help you to distinguish between essays. Graduate and law school students might also consider doing the same.

Student Computer Organization Tip #4 - Keep All of Your Computer Organized
Keeping your assignments and presentations for school organized is important and useful for many reasons. However, keeping your entire computer organized is a smart move in general. This includes keeping your desktop, documents, music, pictures, email, and internet bookmarks organized. All of this makes your computer easier to use and will save you valuable time. As a student, having easy use of a fast computer is remarkably beneficial, and will prevent frustration.

Student Computer Organization Tip #5 - Don't Slip
Once you establish a system of organization for your computer, don't deviate from it. It's relatively easy to stick with a system once it's established. It is much harder to reorganize your computer if you begin to slip. Take the five extra seconds for each assignment and put it where it belongs.

If you are a student that uses a computer to complete assignments with any frequency at all, having your computer organized can make your life easier and more productive. If you have any other student-oriented tips for computer organization, please leave your thoughts in the form of a comment. Thank you for reading!