INSIGHT
‘‘ Professional Development
Getting your files in order A
T this time of the year, thoughts might be turning to reflection, planning and organising. Over the last
12 months you will have created many electronic documents, so this month’s CPD column will look at simple strategies to organise your files. Having a good file management system means that you can easily find what you are looking for, and save pieces of work which you are especially proud of. This can be useful if you want to compile a portfolio of your work or if you are changing jobs and you want to keep a record of your excellent work.
Creating a file structure Whatever system you decide to use, it is important that you note down your structure, so that you can go back and ensure you are following what you have set up. It can be easy to forget what you have decided, and you might end up having to start all over again. At work, you will normally have a personal drive onto which you can save your work, so try to make it a habit to always save work into this area. Avoid using the desktop, as saving too many files in this area can make your desktop look busy and messy. Another suggestion is to use your “my documents” folder. When you are creating your file structure, create a hierarchy, so that you
have three or four high level files, into which you can add additional folders, for example CPD (see fig 1). You can add an archive file, this way you will be able to move older files out of your main files so you can easily see what you are working on. Going back to the files structure, you can add more files within the second layer of folders, so for example:
l Workshops/Courses Undertaken/Year l Workshops/Feedback given
l Workshops/My presentations/CILIP Conference
You can also investigate how your workplace organises its shared files, and see if you can use a similar structure. If you have a shared folder within a team or department, discuss with the team how they are finding this structure and if it still makes sense to them. Whatever file structure you decide to use, it is important to ensure that you are consistent.
Tagging your files If you haven’t used tagging before, think of it as adding keywords to files to help you categorise them and more importantly help you to locate them afterwards. You can add any number of tags to a document, which will allow you to locate and search for the file more easily. It is important to keep a glossary of all of the tags you have used. Some examples could be CPD, followed by the year or a particular project such as finance, could include, budgets, forecasts, invoices. You could also include month
CPD
and year of your work. Software packages will vary, but investigate and see whether they can make a difference.
Housekeeping
It is also good discipline to go through and delete old files which you no longer have any use for, or to archive files and documents which may no longer be needed. This can seem like a long and difficult task but can easily be broken down into smaller chunks. You could set aside 15-30 minutes to work your way through your files, organising and deciding upon your file structure. It might be an idea to add a reminder to your diary to help you do this on a regular basis.
Moving on E-learning Workshops Figure 1: Example of a folder system 28 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL Reflections
Professional Qualifications
Archive
You can also use this system on your home files and documents. There are a number of online storage systems such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox or the CILIP VLE which you can use to store the work you are proud of and that could be used to develop portfolios in the future. If you used the same file storage hierarchy, then all you would need to do is copy and paste your work in without having to create a new system. IP
December-January 2017/18
Nicola Forgham-Healey (
Nicola.Forgham-
Healey@nhs.net) is Library Manager, North Somerset Healthcare Library.
Whatever file structure you decide to use, it is important to ensure that you are consistent.
Professional Development
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07/12/2017 15:43
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