Tips on organizing your project files

• Don't have multiple folders (also called directories) or files scattered through your computer.
  

• Make a directory with the name of that project. For example, you have a project about measuring plant stress and you're working towards a publication. You're going to create a folder and put everything related to that project inside that folder. For this example, that folder is called Plant_stress.
  

• Inside that folder, create sub-folders with each distinct data type. For example, imagine inside Plant_stress you have these three subfolders: - Experiments - Sequencing - Draft_manuscripts - Figures - Literature

Then, create a similar hierarchy inside each folder. For example, inside Draft_manuscripts you would have another folder called Figures and another called Literature.

This way, everything related to that project is under one parent folder or directory and you can easily find it.

• Once you are ready to create files, name them starting with the date of their creation and ending with the version number, using the following format: YYMMDD (two-digit year followed by month and then day). For example, the file you create on March 1st of 2020 with a root sample could be named "200301_root_v1.csv". This way the files will always be easily sorted by name (because of the numbers at the begining) and you will easily find the latest one that you should be working on (because of the version number).

• Keeping files organized takes only a few seconds and even though may seem like a hassle, it's worth your time. Much better than piling up files and folders in random places and one day not finding anything, because even though you remember now, you will forget what is what.
  

• Every time you receive an attachment from an email, every time you save a PDF, every time you create a file, every time you download a file from the internet, put it inside its proper folder. Even if it is an inconvenience for you right now, even if it sounds like a hassle, even if you are in the middle of something, it is most certainly worth spending the time organizing your files so that you can find them in the future.