No matter what we do, our days will always remain limited by the amount of hours we have available. Out of the 24 hours a day consists of, a good portion of it will unavoidably be spent sleeping, and we need to do our best to spend the remainder of our time in the most productive and efficient manner possible.

Having some good case management in place, as you can probably tell, is a solid start. The good news is that we live in a digital age, where the possibilities to organize our files are nearly endless.

It all goes back to the days of filing cabinets and paper

Even so, the basic idea behind digitally managing our files goes back to the times when computers were non-existent. We had to physically place the documents inside a filing cabinet, marked with a specific letter of the alphabet. In certain cases, this is still required, but for the most part, we've moved on to accomplishing this task in a digital fashion, which allows for many more possibilities when it comes to how we want to organize our files.

The digital benefits of organizing our files

Thanks to the advancement of technology, we are no longer bound by the physical limitations of any sort, which means we can organize our documents in any way we want. This could be according to the first letter of the names, or even by grouping them together categorically. Nowadays, certain operating systems are smart enough to allow for advanced searching inside the content of several files at once, but if your particular OS seems to be lacking that particular feature, there are certain case management software solutions out there designed directly for that purpose.

Don't go too wild with folder creation

While grouping your documents together and placing them inside different folders is definitely a wise thing to do, you shouldn't go overboard with folder creation. The reason lies in the fact that it's easy to get lost in it all, defeating the purpose of doing it in the first place. A good rule of thumb is to only create additional folders if you tend to want to save your files in the same place, only to find it doesn't exist yet.

Thinking in terms of hierarchies

Do you have a lot of bills scattered all over the desktop? The first thing to do is to place all of them in a single folder, then, if you feel the need to do so, further organize them by placing them in subfolders in a hierarchical manner. This will often be enough to find exactly what you were looking for, and it especially comes in handy when trying to locate something very specific. But again, don't go ten levels deep if you don't have to.

Conclusion

The great thing is that things are completely up to you when it comes to organizing your files. While we've tried to give you some general tips to help you along the way, the fact of the matter is that everybody tends to do things a little bit differently as far as organizing is concerned. There is no ultimate way to do it. Try to think of a system that best serves the needs of your business and stick to it. That way, you will be able to spend less time finding what you need and more time doing things that actually matter in your chosen line of business.