Modern computers used by businesses can have ample storage space. Having the hard drive fill up to 100% is no longer so common in SMEs, but that doesn’t mean that other problems don’t occur when it comes to organizing or managing data.
Many companies see their information increasing significantly over time. But they do not take steps to organize the data in a safe way and that facilitates the location of any document. In this post we will give you some tips so that you can have a well-organized computer.
There are several important aspects you need to consider when organizing data in your company.
1. Don’t have data scattered across multiple computers.
It seems logical that if you work in an office with 5 or 6 computers, each employee stores data on his or her computer’s hard drive. But this habit can have a problem.
To begin with, each employee’s information is on his or her computer, so if you don’t have the computers networked it is not accessible to the other employees. It is often necessary to have collaborative solutions that allow teamwork.
This can be having the computers networked, using a virtual desktop or taking advantage of the cloud to store data in common.
2. Sort your files into folders
Working with a computer is not synonymous with order. Many employees and businessmen have their PC desktops full of folders. Finding a document can become a real madness, even using the search engine. If you can’t remember the nomenclature you have given to the file, finding it in the midst of a mass of data can be maddening.
The best thing to do is to follow a procedure and organize your computer equipment intelligently. Each department should have its own folder, with the data or information that is relevant to it.
3. Use a document management software in the cloud.
If you want to go a step further, don’t rely on files or archives anymore. Keep in mind an important point. Files are fixed elements, which we can create, modify or send. But what we all want is to be able to access the data inside them online.
That’s done with management software. If you have a program to do invoices, you don’t need to have thousands of invoices in pdf or Excel. You do it automatically with your invoicing program. You don’t have to file and check invoice by invoice anymore. You can simply log into your software with a username and password.
4. Delete the files you do not need
Although it may seem like an unnecessary task, deleting useless or old files may be necessary. For example, you may have thousands of images and video proofs stored on your hard drive that you no longer need. They are photos that you may have used at some point to publish on your blog and that you downloaded from an image bank. But now that you have published your article on your blog, you no longer need those images to be there taking up space.
The same goes for the “outtakes” of many videos you may have saved for your YouTube channel. Also think about what’s in your “Downloads” folder. Maybe you have lots of duplicate files that you have downloaded several times.
5. Minimize the use of e-mail
E-mail can be your best ally and your worst enemy. On the one hand, it allows you to communicate easily with other employees, suppliers or customers. On the other hand, you may have thousands and thousands of attachments lost in your mail, and you can only locate them after a long time, using the search engine and sometimes entering mail by mail, especially when the “subjects” of the mails are very generic and do not give us clear information about what is inside.
Instead of sending so many attachments by e-mail, try sharing them directly through the cloud. You can create the file and let other users of your program see it directly, without having to touch the mail.
Not having all your data in paper documents is essential. But that is something that fortunately is already history. Now the problem is different. Managing your hard disk well so that you can work more efficiently. And above all, so that you can work remotely and online.
As you might expect, the situation generated by Covid-19 has affected the way many companies are organized. Many have started working from home or even continue to work from home. It’s time for your company to have the right tools in place so that you can work online properly. If you want to optimize the organization of data in your company, contact us.