Our company's shared work-related network drive (7.5 gigs of data) currently has 107 files and folders at its root level, though yesterday it had 149 before I spent some time consolidating redundancies and filing things. We try to label each folder by either company name or by category (consulting, contracts, invoices), with one folder marked 'Inactive clients“. Folders that get opened frequently live in the finder bar, and when I think about it, I give them custom icons to aid recall. Within each folder, we have several sub-categories (by year, by project), if merited. Since we still use an older version of Micro$oft Office (vX), our file names are limited to a certain number of characters, so usually only include Client_Project_Date. Files created in Pages, or PDF articles saved from the web can have more useful, longer titles.
Our network drive has existed (on various computers) since System 7.1, so we built it before Spotlight keyword searching was a possibility. Still, makes it easier to search for specific items if the file structure hierarchy is consistent, as only occasionally do we take the time to add additional metadata.
Joe Kissell (of Tidbits) has some additional thoughts about the topic:
Macworld: Feature: Finesse your files
The first step in reducing clutter is to devise a system for managing the files you create and download. How extensive this system needs to be will depend on your organizational strategy. Some people prefer to set aside specific places for everything in an elaborate system of nested folders, while others create broader filing systems and rely instead on search tools to locate what they want. Whichever approach you take, consider the following tips.
(blog title from Taxi Driver, of course)
