How often do you waste time trying to find files or folders, as you search through your online and offline filing systems? Sometimes it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack as you try to remember what you called it and where it is. If you organise files and folders in a logical and consistent way, you’ll save time and effort when you’re trying to find the information you need. Whether they’re paper or digital it’s helpful to apply the same system and naming structure to both.

Naming files and folders

Create a file naming structure as a guide for naming your digital files and physical folders, documents and records. This ensures your files and data can be found quickly and easily.

Your business or organisation may already have one in place, so make you sure you understand and follow it. If not, create one based on a few of the following suggestions. Take into account that other people may want or need to use it and if you’re sharing files and folders. The simpler and more logical it is, the easier it is to use. For instance if you bring in new staff or outsource your work. What makes sense to you may not make sense to anyone else.

Benefits of consistency

Naming files in a consistent and logical way helps to identify similar files and make it easier to store and find them when you need to.

You might think you’ll remember what a file is called when you created it. A few months or even years down the line, if it hasn’t been named correctly or logically, it will be more difficult to find.

Finding Files

With changes to operating systems and apps it’s easier to find digital files. Searches will find key words inside a file, as well as in a title. Using a good naming structure makes it quicker and easier to find what you want without relying on guess work and coming up with a whole list of irrelevant files first.

Think about the type of data you need to store. How might you search for it? Break it down into folders or categories.

• Business vs Personal.
• Projects, Clients or Customers
• Time – months, years
• Products or Services
• Department or Roles

Use sub-categories to further organise your data. For instance:

• Clients/JSmith … Clients/ABrown
• Meetings/Agendas … Meetings/Minutes
• Project[Name]/Proposal … Project[Name]/Contract …

Good practice and some legal requirements expect all information to be identifiable and traceable. Include additional information such as:

• Author(s) or Originator(s) Name/Title
• Date of creation, edits and updates
• Version number(s)
• Description fields can be used for additional reference.

Suggested file and folder naming

1. Keep file and folder names short, but meaningful.
2. Create your own shorthand – Mktg = marketing, Rpt = report,
3. Use underscores, hyphens and capitals to separate words e.g. “2021_StatusUpdate_Summary.docx” or “2021-StatusUpdate-Summary.docx” rather than “Project summary report.docx”
4. Use two-digit numbers in a file name 01, 02, 03 rather than 1, 2, 3. They won’t order numerically when you get to double digits e.g. 1, 11, 12, 2 … Useful for ordering by month 01Jan, 02Feb, rather than Jan, Feb which will order as Feb, Jan.
5. Use the International Format for dates – YYYYMMDD. It’s easier to find by year, instead of using DDMMYYYY which would sort by day rather than year. e.g. 2021_03Mar05Marketing_Report. I sometimes include the number and name for the month for ease of recognition as well as using the DDMonYY format, where Mon is the 3 character abbreviation for the month.
6. Use initials or initial and surname or surname/initial if this makes it easier to identify and distinguish one file from another similar file for a different person.
7. Include words like Draft, Template, Sample, Final at the start or end of file names, if it makes it easier to identify the file. e.g. Draft_Planning_2021 … 2021Planning_Draft
8. Order the elements in a file name in the most appropriate way to find and sort the files of a particular type. What do you want to see come up when you sort alphabetically or numerically?
9. Include the date and description for recurring events with similar names. e.g. 2021_SalesEvent_London, 2020_SalesEvent_Birmingham.
10. For letters and general correspondence, include the name, subject and date. Include To/From if this is needed.
11. If multiple versions of a file are required, include [Name]_v1 … _v2 or …_d1 …_d2 for draft versions
12. Avoid using non-alphanumeric characters in file names.

To keep a high-level structure organised, move older files into a sub-folder. For instance, create a sub-folder for each year, keep the current files in the main, top level folder and move previous years into a sub-folder. This makes it easier not only to find files relating to a particular year but easier to archive or delete them when they’re no longer needed.

If you don’t already have a structure in place, start now. You don’t have to rename all your existing files, just start as you mean to go on and only if it makes sense, rename them as you find them.