Hello, and welcome to this week’s tip-of-the-week! If you’ve missed our previous tips-of-the-week, check them out here.
This week, we’re going to talk about organizing files and folders for translation work. Although it may seem obvious, good organization is the key to efficient management of client projects and for maintaining your own records.
With advanced search capabilities so prevalent, organizing files and folders may appear to nearly be a thing of the past. As creatures of habit, though, people depend on routine, which includes knowing where things are and how to quickly find them.
Besides, if you don’t have to always spend time searching for documents, that’s time you can spend translating, proofreading, or going to the bank to deposit the check from your latest client!
Advantages of organizing files and folders:
- Saves time and frustration – Files and folders are easy to find, no matter what you rename them.
- Helps others – If you collaborate on a project with colleagues, being well organized helps everyone know where to find materials, whether they are located on a local computer, a server, or Google Drive.
- Increased sense of well-being and focus – It has long been understood that a clean and well organized physical workspace makes people feel better and increases concentration and focus, and there is no reason this shouldn’t hold true for a virtual workspace, as well.
Tips for better organization:
- Folders are your friends – Use folders and subfolders to organize files, which can be grouped by year, quarter, month, week, or any combination that best fits your needs.
- Use sorting features – Windows offers several different ways to sort files and folders, and files within folders, including by name, date last modified, file type, and date last opened.
Suggestions for increasing organization:
- Have separate folders for each client and subfolders connecting client projects and related information.
- Group related project materials in separate folders, such as all original, translated, and proofread documents.
- Use a separate folder for dictionaries and glossaries, and have separate files for translator-created dictionaries/glossaries and client-provided dictionaries/glossaries.
- Use consistent file names when possible, but since you are creating folder structures, using an exact file name isn’t as necessary – it will simply make the process of saving files that much quicker!
Bonus tip! If you have folders you use regularly, why not put a shortcut to those folders on your desktop? To create a desktop shortcut, do the following:
- Locate the folder you want to create a shortcut for.
- Right click that folder and choose “Send To…”
- Select the location, such as “Desktop.”
- That’s it!
You can save time and frustration by using these simple tips to keep your files and folders organized, better collaborate with colleagues, keep an efficient workspace, and quickly access frequently used files and folders.
Well, that’s it for this week’s tip-of-the-week. Do you have suggestions for tips we haven’t covered? Do you have thoughts on good organization as a freelance translator? We’d love to read your thoughts in the comments!
