One of the directives of The unLibrarian is to improve the information culture experienced by individuals and businesses. This part two to an introduction to my definition of information culture and give you lots of points to reflect on your own information habits within your information systems.
File System Culture is what develops after years of using any sort of filing system, paper or electronic, does not matter. The habits you develop in filing inform your culture but your culture can also inform your habits. You see, each time you save a file, you are defining your information culture. So it is important to be aware of your habits, like: are you saving it in a drop zone or where it really should be located?
With an informed information culture, long term sustainability is achievable because you can streamline habits. Informed practices are less susceptible to changing over time.
That said, a system grows with your information needs. Regularly reviewing your practices is an important element in this step. Much like how we speak to ourselves and the words we use in our own minds, the right words informs your information culture too. Working language directly impacts mindset when in those tasks. So we are going to talk about wording too. Last and certainly not least is that systematic records management can only so far to be adaptable. It requires a great dedication of creativity to come up with useful information structures and appropriate nomenclature to use in an information system.
I always start with how things are presently. In my consultations, I critically observe filing habits and structures to create a system that flows well with natural tendencies. Generating a filing system without context is foolish. So, it is best to start with some questions that you can consider for the next couple of weeks, so that every time you interact with your information systems by accessing, saving, or sharing files. Post these questions beside your screen to encourage reflection. I follow a format common to most questions: where, what, who, and why.
So, first of all: where are all your files? Make a list and you may be surprised to find there are more locations. Between drawers, paper piles, journals, local computers, external drives, cloud services, and other devices, files can easily be spread out.
Secondly, for each location, is there a goal or a common theme of the types of files you are saving in each location? Which do you access the most often? Which locations are more for archival storage?
Thirdly, sharing is very common these days. Who do you share with from which locations? What types of files?
And lastly, if you sit back and think, what kind of ideal system do you picture? This question will likely take the longest to answer clearly.
So, in addition to the qualitative questions posed, there are more quantitative questions that are give exact details without subject to any particular whims. These habits are purely informational that can be modified with a new filing structure such as: save locations, duplication checks, streamlined nomenclature, filing locations, and screen click habits.
Now, let’s talk about nomenclature. I mentioned earlier that the words you choose for your file and folder names informs the language you use in your day to day functions.
You may find that you say something one way but write out a synonymous term.
Take a look at your most common filing location and as yourself:
Are there any words or terminologies you would change?
Do some give you a different idea than you were intending?
In file sharing situations, if it was anyone other than yourself, could they find it?
Have fun writing them down. I suggest to sketch out your ideal wording structure if you want to have even more fun with this exercise. Wording is fun, but we also have to be realistic in function too.
There are some best practices developed over time and some of you will recognize the frustration of not following these kinds of rules:
No more than 5 or 6 clicks to get your files. Three is ideal once you consider parent structure, subfolder, and then file.
To prevent lots of scrolling, keep the number of subfolders to a folder limited. Often times, if there are too many, there may be duplication or restructuring is required. Yes, there is such thing as purposeful duplication, but that should be a rare thing and shortcuts can be employed.
Lastly, this come from older days when accents and fancy symbols such as a pound sign, asterisk, period, dollar sign and such just confused computers. Same goes for languages that uses accents because each accented letter is really an ascii code according to a computer. This is why you will see garbly junk sometimes in file names — the computer got confused about what you are trying to say. So, keep it simple to words, numbers, and dashes.
Truly, the actual fun part of going through your files is all the corporate knowledge and memories you will find! I strongly encourage you to allot time to do this, especially when it is your own files.
Really, knowing the qualitative (the fun stuff) and quantitative (dry, systematic stuff) allows you a nice mix in evaluating your information culture because it should be a fun exercise. So, keep in mind to have fun but also be realistic that you will remember what you meant at the time (kind of like passwords that way). Oh, and if you do require encryption, find a system and stick to it. Coders create their coding manual once and use it from there to ensure consistency and does not rely on memory.
So that’s Information Culture in a nutshell:
Take a look at where you are to inform your future.
Once you are done the evaluation, create a new folder structure — wait to move everything at once though!! You do not want to be flipping between multiple systems. Schedule it.
I strongly encourage checking over the files one last time after your blitz, once your brain has had some rest then hit delete. DO this within 2–3 days. If you wait too long, you are more likely to hold on to the old system and the associated chaos.
Once you have done all of this, set up an information culture check twice a year.
And remember, every bit of work you put into your information culture will save you time, energy, frustrations, and create a navigable environment that will grow with you over the years.
Thank you very much for your interest in informing your information culture.
Kindest regards,
Amanda, The unLibrarian
Keywords:
File Management
File Sharing
Information Architecture
Information Management
Entrepreneurship
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