Kim Gaskill shares how to organize photo and video files with consistent naming systems. She recommends starting with dates, adding keywords, and using categories that match how you actually search for things. The key is setting up a system early and adjusting it as you go.
It's a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill, and this is the Daily Spark. How do you name your files? Do you name your files? It's called having a naming convention. If you really think about it and organize your files correctly, there's a way that you name them consistently so it's easier to organize. I've tried different naming conventions through the years, especially with photography and video. It's very important to have a good naming convention so that you know where your pictures are at. If you're selling pictures or videos and you have to access different keywords that you associate with your pictures and videos, it's very important to get a good naming convention so that you're not pulling your hair out trying to find that one perfect picture that you know you have, but you can't remember what you named it. I was talking with a friend yesterday about all of the content that I created last year. Videos, pictures, photos, Snap Stories, Instagram Stories, articles, and I really got out of the habit of having good systems set up for how I organized my files. I used to be very good at whatever I created during the day. I made sure that night I took some time to at least get them in the correct folders and categories so that I could access them and organize them later. But I got away from that. Things start popping up, you put it off for a day or two, then before you know it, it's a week. And now I'm sitting here looking at all of this content that I have from last year, and so much of it is not renamed correctly. And I'm frustrated. I'm overwhelmed. And so I was thinking, What do I need to do now? How much time do I need to put in now re-looking at all of that content and renaming what I want to use? It's so much easier if you do it when you make it. So my suggestion to you is if you don't have a naming convention, if you don't have folders set up to organize your files as you create them, think about this— that this week and set up some systems that you have in place so you can be consistent in how you name your files, how you organize your files. I don't care if you start with the date first and then you tag it with some keywords. I don't care if you create folders for different categories and put everything in. Whatever works best for you. But until you start doing it, You'll never know what that is because I can guarantee you the first thing that you try might not be what works best for you. It's gonna take some trial and error to realize which naming convention, which system setup for categorizing is your best bet. So do that today and I'll catch you again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.
