Unless you place your faith in internal search engine software or document databases to track your work, consider a relatively low-tech enhancement to your work methods. I promise it will pay big dividends.

How do you name your files and folders? Have you missed an opportunity to clear the clutter and make your work more accessible? When you look at file names within a folder, do they sing out to you with sweet meaningfulness, or are they a cacophonous jumble of confusing heiroglyphics?

The eye likes symmetry. The mind loves order. When you create files and they pile one upon the another over time, does their accumulation reflect a master plan or a disaster unplanned? When you view your list of files, is your eye happy, your mind content?

How often do you discuss file & folder naming strategies? Is it a topic in your company? It should be. File naming is an unrecognized art, and you can be the artist.

Filenames Should Begin with Chronology

Lets start by considering the basis upon which files should be ordered. I will jump to the punchline and say it out loud: chronologically.

To order files chronologically, have the filename start with a datestamp prefix such as YYYYMMDD- or YYMMDD. If you do this, your files will always sort themselves chronologically and you will have no trouble finding the latest and greatest work within a folder.

Important note: the year must be first, month second, day last in order for chronological ordering to occur.

Poingo Email-Printer has an automatic date/timestamp filenaming feature which is worth investigating. Amazing coincidence: all three date formats offered put the year first. Files named by Email-Printer will always sort chronologically.

Then Place a Locator in the Filename

What you do following the datestamp prefix depends upon how the file will be used. If the file travels to someone else as an email attachment and then returns back to you after some sort of review, I recommend having the second portion of your filename be a locator.

The locator can be a 3-5 character abbreviation which will give you a solid hint about where the file needs to be refiled upon its return.

You develop the locator so that you and others in your group recognize it as an abbreviation for a project or topic. When they see the datestamp prefix and locator, they will already have much information about the contents of the file.

Then the Descriptor...

After entering the datestamp prefix and locator, now you can write a nice, meaty descriptive text, the descriptor.

Use up to 15-20 characters in your descriptor. Beyond this length, the filename will be truncated during display and you will lose, rather than gain information.

Verify Maximum Filename Length

check your screen display when viewing your favorite view in Windows Explorer(tm), or the "File-Open" dialog in your favorire applications. What is the longest filename you can easily see in those various windows? Develop your own filename-length guidelines.

If you determine, for example, that 30 characters is maximum for viewing the full filename consistently, subtract 7 characters for the date stamp and 3-5 characters for the locator. This will give you 15-20 characters for your descriptor.

After you confirm filenaming guidelines which are comfortable for you, take the lead and encourage others in your organization to adopt them. Your team will soon notice that finding and sharing information will be much easier.

Bad Descriptors

Heres how you will know if you are doing a bad job with descriptors:

BAD: When you see the identical descriptor in multiple files.

Don repeat descriptive text unless you specifically want to highlight the similarity between the two files.

Tips

Tip:  NO spaces in names of files or folders. Spaces are not FTP-friendly and you may be FTP-ing sooner than you think.

Tip:  NO unnecessary capital letters and DEFINITELY NO TEXT WITH ALL CAPS. Its not only irritating, but it also takes away a useful tool, that of using upper and lower case text for better conveying your message.

Tip:  Find a style and stick with it. For example, if you like the looks of hyphens separating datestamp, locators and descriptors, then do it that way every time. If using underscore between words in the descriptor feels right, then make it a habit. Even artists can have discipline.

Tip:  Use language to the greatest extent possible. In other words, use words more than acronyms. Cutsey corporate acronyms, after the first dozen or so, get pretty boring.

Examples of good file names:

Bad file names: