I use a couple of tools to keep myself somewhat organized. Besides a general methodology (David Allen’s Getting Things Done), the most important tools are:

• a good task management tool (I use My Life Organized)
• a good desktop search (Copernic)
• and a tool for keeping notes, web clippings, etc. (Evernote).

These three tolls help keep ideas and tasks organized and make it easier to find information in files. But file management is always an issue, primarily because of changing locations… I reference a file in a note and then the location changes because I move the document to an archive or external drive or new folder and the reference is useless. Searching helps, but ideally I could create shortcuts that actually work (Windows shortcuts are not recognized by many tools).

Until recently, I had no idea that Windows had the ability to create and use “hard links” similar to those available in Unix.  To simplify, in the world of Windows, hard links to files are called hardlinks while those to drives or directories (folders) are called junctions. Both are explained– simply and then in depth– in this shell-shocked article as well as in Wikipedia.

Simply put, junctions (which I find most useful) are like Windows Shortcuts but they actually work.

Let’s say you have a folder where you store all your documents called My Documents buried on the C: drive. You can create a shortcut to that at the root of your C: drive called docs to easily get to your documents. But while this works in the explorer and folder windows, most applications don’t treat shortcuts like real folders– many don’t recognize them at all.

Junctions, however, are (by default) indistinguishable from real folders. They work everywhere and with every application. In fact, if you delete the junction called docs you delete the “real” folder as well. This makes organization much more useful– and persistent when locations change. So if I move all my files to a new drive, new computer, or new location, I just create a junction to the proper place.

I highly recommend using a utility that not only makes creation of junctions and hardlinks (which are just like junctions, but to individual files instead of folders or drives) easy, but also puts an indicator on junctions so you know they are links to other locations. I tried a few and the NTFS Link utility worked best. Simply install it and then you will have options in your context menu to create and modify junctions and hardlinks, and all junctions can be identified with a small icon overlay similar to those of Windows Shortcuts.