This takes me back to the time I was working for someone else. Not long after I joined them, they began re-structuring the IT departments of all their companies world-wide. Up until then, each company had their own system that made is very hard to exchange information between each other and also report back to headquarters. 
On a smaller, everyday level, the re-structuring made perfect sense too because it would allow each department to be able to generate reports that they want and still be able to share information freely. I was working in the marketing department at that time and it was super frustrating when I asked for a specific drill down or a report that turned the data another way and wasn’t able to get it.
They had the data. Lots of it. It just wasn’t accessible. So yeah. They needed better tools.
How does this all factor in to our small business? Well, one of the things that whole episode taught me is you should always collect data on your business lots of it but what’s more important is, being able to find and manipulate it so you can use it to draw a good picture of where you are, where you want to go and having the information when you need it.
Simple things like having a filing system on your computer may seem mundane and pointless but it really does matter. If you constantly throw your downloads into a virtual pile somewhere on your computer, you’re never going find it when you want it and you’ll waste precious time trying. It’s hard to get things done like that.
Maybe you have a desktop search utility installed and figure you’ll be able to find it later using that. But truth is, search is only as good as the organization of it. Remember the good old computing rule – GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out.
If you don’t know where to search, you can’t find it or you can but it’ll take a long time. I don’t know about you but I have hard drive sizes in the Terabytes across the network. I’m not sitting around all day long to wait for the computer to find that one article I wrote.
If you don’t know the name of the file or the file type, all that makes it even harder too. So here’s the challenge for you. If you don’t already have a filing system, create one now. It’s not fun, it’s not sexy and doesn’t make your adrenalin pump but it can be just important to your success.
Photo courtesy of Guillermo Alvarez
Hi Lynette,
although I am collecting lots of data (christmas wishlists of the kids from all around the world) I don’T go with TB HDs yet. I stick to the smaller ones because they are easier to backup.
Organizing is a big issue – I try to put data that doesn’t change on sepaate disks. Photos and videos have their own drives and they are not really defragmented what keeps access and read times on the low end.
Data files like email, spreadsheets and documents are on an other one which is well organized (folder structures). Operating system is residing on a smaller drive of its own.
I must say that Your post is interesting. I’ve never used any search engines on my database, just tried to fill everything in the right gap. The right organization from the beginning is crucial to future work, and here You are right again – one can spend all day looking for an article that could be found within minutes.
Thanks for discussing organization and just how imperative it is to keep important documents in accessible files. I learned the lesson the hard way a year ago; my hard drive crashed. The IT guru was able to retrieve some of my documents but not nearly what I needed. I had been “storing” way too many items on my desktop and now file things readily in folders.
Lynette,
Exactly, Organization is extremely important to success. I try to be organized in all aspects of my life and have succeeded when it comes to keeping my files for my business in order. However, I am currently in college and have a very hard time organizing my notes and other material. I am thinking of doing everything electronically next semester so I can organize it in folders. What are your suggestions?
@Santa: I only have one 1TB disk throughout the network. Most of my disk sizes are smaller and if they are big I’d partition them however if you add up all the disks in the network they’d add up to several TB’s. I really don’t want to search through each disk either. Same difference 🙂
@Lynae: Hi there! I think we all been there at one point or another huh. Yeah, I know of people in my family with everything on the desktop till you can hardly see the desktop and can never find anything they need. They the call me it’s like I know some magic or something.
@Ryan: Hi! I feel your pain! Even though I no longer am in formal school, but I do a lot of learning, meetings and note taking too. That is often a challenge. Recently, I invested in the Livescribe Pulse Pen. Now I’m not saying it is perfect it does have some things that I find quite annoying but on the whole I really like it because I can digitize and search my paper notes. I’m not sure if this is something you can afford or if it is right for you. The 1GB pen starts at $149 and the 2GB is around $199. Overall. I find it more and more useful.
Organization is one of the most quintessential keys to success in the small business (and mid to large size business) world. Our company has had tremendous success utilizing collaboration resources like 37 Signal’s BaseCamp to stay organized and keep client projects streamlined.
Aside from maintaining meticulous file directories and backing up data religiously on external hard drives, we are also exploring online data storage options like Mozy.
Any other recommendations for organized data storage solutions?
heh heh, it’s as if people become less organised through the laziness brought about by our hi-technology.. As though we don’t need to be organised because our tools will do it for us
Adding a search engine to our database seems definitely a great idea. However you don’t need compulsorily a search engine to manage all the info. All you need is a very well organized database.
@Miami SEO: Mozy is a great backup solution. I have been using them for 2 years. Since you are already doing backups religiously, I’d say you’re headed in the right direction, backing up to an off-site source.
@Musically me: Maybe so but I’ve always believed you should be able to help yourself when your tools fail 🙂
@Jill: not sure sure I follow you although I do agree you don’t always need search tools if you are organized still, it does help to have some search capabilities once in a while especially when you’re like me and the memory isn’t what it used to be 🙂