Organizing your computer

One area students do not often give thought to is organizing their computer files. Keeping these files in a managed plan will make your life much easier and you will be less likely to lose things along the way. How to set it up? I suggest taking a few minutes and lay out how you will want your dissertation folders and files to look, here's an example (if you are using a bibliography program, such as endnotes, that may affect your organizing scheme): 

Dissertation

             Data (SPSS files/ interviews, etc.)

             Drafts

             IRB

             Literature

                           Resilience

                           Self-efficacy

                           Older adult

             Research journal 

Once you are happy with your plan, create a folder for Dissertation and subfolders for your other topics. Within your draft folder, keep every draft that you create- do not just keep rewriting the same file. That way it is easy to go back and find that section that you took out 2 drafts ago, and would be perfect now. Always have the date on each file and indicate, in some way, ones sent by your chair. 

A last word of advice on organizing your computer: Always back up your files regularly! There are cloud services that you can set up to back up your computer regularly, so you do not have to think about it. Take the time and spend the money to do it, do not get caught when your computer crashes (and it may!) and losing all of your hard work! 

Next time we will take a look at your quarter plan and how it went. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu