In my travels around the Web, I download a lot of stuff: video files, mp3s, pdfs, etc. But in the flow of my normal day, I don’t spend a lot of time organizing this stuff. I tend to dump my files in a documents folder or on my desktop, and it turns into a mess very quickly. Well, I realized today that the same Getting Things Done principles that help keep my real desk uncluttered could be applied to cleaning up my virtual desk.

1. Create a “Bucket” folder.
   I mentioned I use a documents folder or my desktop, but that’s not good enough. Just create a folder named “Bucket,” and move all your cluttered files into it.
2. One file type at a time.
   Click the top of your file list so that your Bucket is organized by type: so that all the mp3s, jpgs, docs, etc. are lined up together. Start moving through each type one file at a time and either delete it or move it to the proper folder.
3. File your files.
   It’s very tempting to save all your files in My Documents in Windows or on your Desktop in OS X, but that’s not what those places are for. Save your docs, your address book files, your spreadsheets, or your calendar info in your My Documents folder. Save your pictures in My Pictures, your music in My Music, and your videos in My Videos. That’s why those folders exist.
4. Maintain!
   It’s not that hard when you’re downloading something to choose the destination. So if you’re saving a file that you know you want to keep, go ahead and save it to the proper folder from the start. If it’s just something you want to watch or read once, save it to your Bucket folder. Then make some time once a week or once a month to sort it out.

So what’s the point of organizing your computer? External hard drives are cheap, and you can always burn a DVD archive. Well, data storage space isn’t an issue today, but it might be in a couple of years.

On Wired.com today, there’s a story about the amount of digital information we created in the last year. They estimate that all the emails, phone calls, Web pages, and other digital documents composed 161 billion gigabytes (a billion gigabyte is called an exabyte) of data. And they project that our digital data production will jump to 988 exabytes in 2010, but our capacity for storing that data will only have increased to 601 exabytes. While we won’t need to save all of that data (like phone calls), it still raises the question: how much space will we need?

If you get your digital life organized today, you’ll be ahead of the curve should a problem like that ever arise.

As thousands of kids of all ages know, Wednesday is new comic books day at comic shops across America. I’ve collected comic books since I was about 12. There’s something about the modern mythology of superheroes that fascinates me to this day. But the question arises after a while of what to do with all of your back issues, especially if you’ve been slack and left them unbagged, unboarded, and in stacks on your floor. I was in that situation a while ago, and I applied the “Getting Things Done” work flow method to my comic books. After a little bit of work, my comics now stay organized and out of the way.

Getting Things Done (GTD) is the name of a book by David Allen. It’s a back-to-basics productivity philosophy that advocates simple planning and action. The meat of the book is the work flow method that he advocates:

1. Collect all of your “to do” work in a “bucket.”
2. Start at the top of your bucket, dealing with one thing at a time.
3. Don’t put anything back in the bucket.
4. If the thing needs action:
   • Do it immediately if it takes less than two minutes. Or…
   • Delegate it to someone else. Or…
   • Defer it until your bucket is empty and you can spend the necessary time on it.
5. If no action is needed:
   • File it. Or…
   • Throw it away.

The most important step in this equation is getting the comics off the floor. Buy as many comic book boxes as you need to get the piles gone. When you’re filling the boxes, leave five to 10 inches of slack in the box: you’ll be filling that space with bags and boards.

Once you’ve got your boxes filled, start at the front of the box and bag your books, putting the finished books at the back of the box. A whole long box should take you a couple of evenings to finish bagging (or one, if you are really determined). Boxing and bagging the books is one iteration of the work flow. But your bucket is still full. Time to cycle through again.

This time through the work flow, you’ll be pulling the newly bagged books and filing them in with your existing collection. The amount of time this takes depends on the size of your collection. I have about 12 long boxes of comics to update, so it takes me a while. If your collection is smaller, or if you are organizing it for the first time, it should go quicker.

After I got the bulk of my comics organized, I realized that I would have to maintain the system somehow. Every week, I buy between five and 15 comic books. Once I’ve read them, I put them in a short box (my bucket) next to my bed. At the end of the month, I process the box using the method above.

I really like the GTD system because it’s so simple. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable, because there aren’t any motivational games or trickery like in most productivity programs. The motivation is real because you’ll see things disappearing from your desk (or your floor in the case of my comics), and you’ll want to keep it that way.

Note: One of my favorite blogs is LifeHack.org (it’s over in my sidebar, too). It’s a community of folks who believe in the Getting Things Done program, and they publish some really interesting and insightful articles along those lines.