A professor from the Global South emailed me to ask if I would consider writing a blog post on best practices to maintain an organized set of folders for students. To be perfectly honest with you, I was never taught how to do this. These practices, whether best or not, are the ones I have developed over the course of the years. Hopefully my process and strategies may be of use to scholars and students all over the world.
Like anybody, I, too, get disorganized every so often. This is something that happens to me when I am overwhelmed and I just say “oh, I’ll dump my files in my main Dropbox folder” and then I have to take an entire day to re-organize my life. I use various cloud-based services. My Twitter thread explains with details and screenshots how I work.
Dropbox has my core working archive.
Most of my work is here (though as you can see, my folders do not always “jive”, like the “Pandemics and Biopolitics” one, because the group of researchers I am working with on this topic and I have not yet decided if we’re writing anything. pic.twitter.com/NQJpJuo7d7
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 5, 2020
You will notice I have a folder with the title “Vancouver Studies”. I’ve always wanted to write and publish a paper using my hometown as a case study. Sadly, a reviewer asked me to cut it from one of my papers so it’ll have to wait yet another year. I do have a few projects that use Vancouver as a case study and I am working on getting them out.
This paper has already been accepted and is in press, so I don’t feel bad about sharing the folder structure (it’s for my forthcoming Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning paper)
Note how I make new folders every time I get an R&R pic.twitter.com/FTH4AFziuu
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 5, 2020
This is a refined version (all diagrams made with https://t.co/GfefCCMwDS)
To be clear: this is EXACTLY how I organized my files when I wrote my undergrad, Masters and Doctoral theses. My method has not changed even now that I am a professor.
(some call this a tree diagram) pic.twitter.com/jzfQ69KOJw
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 5, 2020
As anyone who reads my blog and follows me on Twitter will know, I’m a Virgo, an “Upholder”, a Type A and someone who thrives when having a clean and organized environment, both physically and mentally.
One last item.
OF COURSE my root Dropbox folder gets disorganized. I have to finish 4 articles within the next 2 weeks so my root Dropbox looks like this right now.
Because I promised several followers that I would write a blog post on how to write research grant proposals… pic.twitter.com/skoT4lao3Y
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) July 5, 2020
This means that I need to spend some time creating a folder called “Grant Writing Books” and moving it to OneDrive. But I seriously haven’t even had the time to do that (though I may just do that right after writing this blog post).
And, like anybody else, I also have a “To Organize” folder where I dump stuff. I set time aside every weekend to reorganize my files, but because I already have a system, it takes me SUBSTANTIALLY less time to do it nowadays. Some articles I’ve downloaded I want to read are there too.
Personally, I find it easier to work when my work has structure, order and organization. So I hope these suggestions will be useful to those who follow me and read my blog.
Olá, professor. Sou Suzana, aluna de doutorado no Brasil.
Gostei muito da apresentação do seu método e do conteúdo do blog como um todo.
Parabéns pelo trabalho!