The Back-Up Drive Is Organized!

Well, it’s taken a few weeks but I finally took all the files, dumped the duplicates and other files I didn’t need, and put them all in an order where I can find them. Along the way I figured out an directory system I can use in the actual backing up (which I probably won’t waste your time with) that works for me and I can find stuff in. I used techniques I learned from physical record and media organizing, and some things I learned here will work in future stages of those projects.

Now I just need to do the same with my project drive, but that’s for the future. Additionally I managed to get myself to work on something that may not be the most interesting articles, and I apologize for that, but decluttering isn’t just about doing the pretty projects, or the parts of your home/office that you can see. While you don’t have to drive yourself mad with compulsive organizing, which also ruins any spontaneity and would be hard for the less rigid-minded types, a good system is a good thing to have. Just know that as times change and things are both acquired and unacquired, as the paths of your life take a new course, a new system may have to be created. My problem was lacking a good starting point to build off of. Now I have that so if anything changes in the future, hopefully I’m ready to change with it.

Next time I may be ready to do a more interesting project to discuss, but this was something that needed doing. If you stuck it out with me then thank you and I hope you learned something from this project like I did.

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Quick Report> Back-Up Drive Almost Done (or phase 1 anyway)

 

I’m starting to get as bored with this project as I keep imagining you are. I also keep forgetting to update the images of this project.

Still, I pushed through on this one. Yesterday I went through my old videos, which like with the photos was a nice trip down memory lane. There are duplicates I’m going to have go through in the future, as well as compare with my video project drive but that’s for some later project. This is about organizing the back-up drive so I can start backing things up again. I did a good number on this one. Additionally I managed to go through the leftovers from my first PC (my first actual computer was the Atari 800, the first PC was an AST Adventure 200), a lot of which were files for whatever version of Windows I was running at the time. There were audio and image files that I can use elsewhere, back-ups of sample footage from video editors that I can use in other videos and audio projects, and clip art for days. New folders were created, too.

I think once I’ve finally gotten this stage done I’m going to do something else for your sake as well as mine. This is something I needed to do, though when I go to actually back things up I can always do some further sub-organizing then. I have other things I want to do, some physical clutter to clean or things to review that will be far more interesting than these quick reports. So for any of you still reading I’ve hopefully encouraged you to get a back-up drive, organize the one you have, or start doing back-ups before your current computer gets the drop on you like my last computer did to me. Otherwise, we’re almost through this project and it’s still shorter than the comic mega-project.

Quick Report> Still Learning From The Back-Up Clean-Up Project

I know, it’s still not exciting but this is about me getting the projects done and this is something long overdue. Today I tackled the images and downloads folders. I also did a bit of an archive of one of my older computers that was also on this drive. This is where I feel like using the program that came with this drive to back-up files was not as helpful as they intended. For example:

• When you change your directory set up on the actual computer the back-up drive program doesn’t know that. I ended up with a bunch of multiples from this alone.
• Also creating multiples was one of the programs itself, that seemed to create new images with every advertisement or install. I had like five or more folders just for the same set of images because they were under different numbers. It makes me wonder how many duplicates are on this computer now.
• Some of these were programs I don’t use anymore, or in the downloads they were older versions of new programs I can just get off the internet currently. In only a handful of cases are they programs that may or may not have a new version, while some I already have a newer version of on this computer.

I spent hours deleting the same pictures because they were duplicates of ones I have. In a way I’m lucky the program doesn’t work with Windows 10 because it did more harm than good and used up a lot of space. Lucky for me this is a huge drive so I had the room for it, but how much of that space was clogging up my hard drive space when it was on one of my older computers–and how many duplicates are doing that to this one–I can’t really say, and in the latter case I wouldn’t even be sure which ones I can delete, like all those images for software I’m using. I still have a bunch of folders left and remember this is only the first pass of organizing my old back-up files. If I can somehow squeeze in time during the week I’m going to see if I can speed this along but it’s not the only active project for me right now so we’ll have to see if I can get away with that plan or if it’s just going to be the usual Saturday project.

Quick Report> Back-Up Drive Documents

Not a whole lot new to add. This time I worked on my documents folder, possibly my biggest file set. There were a lot of links I moved to my links to try folder on my computer. I want to start going through those and deleting what I don’t want while just re-bookmarking them in the browser. Thanks to syncing I can have my bookmark list accessible on any computer provided they were included in the last sync up. So in the future I hopefully won’t have to save all my bookmarks and lose a site. I’m curious to see what sites I haven’t visited in years are still around.

Meanwhile the documents were sorted, some files were actually moved to a different folder I’ll be further sorting later on, and I got rid of a few duplicates, but I did keep some I want to double check later on. This one was a trip through the past, which was kind of fun. Except for some of the more saddening memories in hindsight, memories you cherish but remind you those people aren’t in  your life, or in some cases THIS life, anymore. You miss them but we have photos, videos, and writings that keep them with you forever, even if somewhere down the line they won’t mean anything to someone. They mean something to you and there’s nothing wrong with keeping them. You just have to organize them better so they aren’t as clutterful. Stuff you don’t need to remember can be done away with however.

Old documents, old images, old videos, stuff I kept from previous computers that I plan to eventually resort into the new system, manuals for things I use and some I don’t anymore…when I’m done it will be a lot cleaner system and I should be able to find stuff I want while having the extra room not cluttered by clutter. This is going to be a longer project that I thought but it’s one I really want to do before the inevitable computer issues and just stuff I didn’t get into the computer or “artputer” in the past. I’m glad I’m finally doing this.