Organizing My Creativity — Project Folders
This is the start of a new series about how I organize my creative life. I’m naturally an organized person. I like to keep the house neat and clean, making sure things are in their proper places. I always bring in trash and items from the car that don’t belong there. I clean up after myself when I’m done making lunch, I unload the dishwasher that ran overnight first thing in the morning after waking up and before hitting the gym.
I find it easy to organize physical items in my everyday life. However, when it comes to my digital life, it’s so easy to let systems and processes get cluttered and fall into a state of chaos.
Methods to the Madness
I discovered a simple organization system for digital files, maybe even one you’ve heard of, PARA Method by Tiago Forte. There are four main categories of PARA which are below with the official explanations.
Projects (P): Short-term efforts with a clear deadline or outcome (e.g., "Launch New Website," "Plan Vacation").
Areas (A): Long-term responsibilities that require ongoing management (e.g., "Health," "Finances," "Home").
Resources (R): Topics or interests you're saving for future reference (e.g., recipes, photography tips, articles on Stoicism).
Archives (A): Completed projects or inactive items from Projects, Areas, or Resources that you want to keep but don't need frequent access to.
While I haven’t fully embraced PARA 100% into my workflow and organization of digital files, it has brought me some peace of mind and clarity with my file system.
Let’s get into how I organize projects for myself and client work.
Organizing Projects
I’ve been using a Mac for 34 years. That’s a long time to build up a vast collection of files and folders. I like to organize my creative life into two main categories.
Client Projects — Work I do for clients as an independent visual designer.
Studio Projects — Websites, comics, children’s books, and cartoon art I create for myself as an independent creator.
Each of these project areas has vastly different needs for organization.
Organizing Client Projects
My Client Projects folder is pretty-well organized. This first level down are all the clients I’ve worked with. Since I’m a Mac user, I tag the client folders I’m currently doing work for as active which changes the project folder to green. I then sort my Client Projects by tags which brings any active clients to the top of the list.
