If you are a writer, in all likelihood, you are working on your computer. Depending on the exact topics you are writing about, your work may be more or less creative. Still, even if you regard yourself to be a real artist, creative chaos on your desk as well as in your computer is never a good approach.
As you can imagine, storing files on your computer without any system or categorisation will make you waste a lot of time searching for the ones you really need right now. In such a way you are also risking to keep too much files which you do not need at all. As a result, you can even run out of memory on your computer and still avoid cleaning it as the more files you have, the more time you will need for searching for your files there. As you can imagine, productive work requires neatness not only at your desk itself but also on your computer. Here are several suggestions which will make your life easier.
Clean your desktop
First of all, clean the desktop thoroughly. Do not keep here anything which is not needed. Do not feel sorry about deleting things you never utilise.
If you have a bunch of important files on your desktop, it is high time to systemise storing them. Certainly, it will be impossible without changing their names into readable ones. Many writers have a variety of versions of the same project under different names. Sometimes it is easy to understand the sequence of changes in them if their names are sensible. Yet, in many cases, it is impossible to decipher names and make any sense of them. If it is your case, check all those “edited”, “the last version”, “text1” and so on. Since now, you have to be very careful about the names you are giving to your files. Of course, keep the files related to the same project in the same folder.
Clean the system disc
Providing you have a variety of rather heavy folders and files you do not need frequently, it will be a good practice to transport them to the external discs. Of course, it is also crucial to check all of the programmes stored on your computer and delete the ones you do not need even if they are relatively small.
Use a special programme for deleting temporary files and cash
There is a variety of programmes which can efficiently clean your system from cash, temporary files and their fragments as well as from the identical files. Needless to say, everyone has a couple of equal files on one’s computer without even realising it. Checking such files manually can be rather tedious, so you can also use a function available in many programmes assisting cleaning computers.
What to do in the future?
As you can imagine, it is a way easier to keep your computer clean right from the very beginning than to spend hours and even days on checking all the files and trying to understand what is really needed and what is not.
You should develop a habit of deleting whatever is unnecessary and unwanted right away. Another useful habit is not using your desktop as a place for storing anything within an easy reach. In the reality, it leads to the desktop overfilled with various files and making the navigation through them rather tricky.
In addition to it, you might find it convenient to save all your files regarding work on cloud. In such a way you will be able to avoid unpleasant situations in which you cannot access something important because your computer is not working or it is out of reach. Of course, this will work if only you will be keeping your cloud account neat as well.