Why look after your documents?

I know a lot of small businesses that have a lot of paper floating around and a few that keep everything digital.  There are a lot of pro’s and con’s to doing this.  If you have everything on one computer and it crashes then you could be stuffed.  This could never happen!  I had a computer die on me more time then I care to count.  Once I was even teach someone at their desk and their computer died.   Luckily all their documents were saved on the network.

Everyone has heard about backing up their computers and networks and doing this regularly, it is true, but if what you are backing up is disorganised and it takes you forever to find anything, then what is the point?

You have to have an organised file system then if someone else needs to find something in your system they can easily.  If you are thinking that you don’t want anyone to find of your files, it is better if they could.

I was training a course when someone received a call that her colleague had been out skiing the night before and broke his leg.  He would be in the hospital for 6 weeks!

There is many ways to organise your documents, if you work on projects, then keeping project documents together makes sense.  If you have clients you can keep everything within client folders, if you have topics create topic folders.  As a Business Software Trainer I have one folder for every application I train.  I also have project folders within client folders so that I can find all bespoke documentation for a project.

Once you have decided on a format you can look at whether to use Windows Explorer or to use document management system (DMS) like NetDocuments.  Some DMS are for internal use only (for use on a company network) but others you can access your documents from outside the company network, great if you are on the go, you don’t take the document with you, but check it out like checking out a book.  When you are finished you check it back in and everyone else in company can use it.

Once you have decided on if you are going to use windows explorer or invest in DMS software you can then organise all your documents.