Alright, let me tell you about this thing I tried, I called it ‘kisic’. It wasn’t some big official method, just something I cooked up myself to sort out the absolute chaos on my computer.
I was getting really fed up, you know? Couldn’t find anything. Downloads folder was a nightmare, desktop looked like a bomb hit it. Just files scattered everywhere. I figured I had to do something, anything, to get a handle on it. So, I decided to make my own little system. Why ‘kisic’? No reason, just sounded like a thing.
First step, the big cleanup. Man, this took forever. I basically grabbed every single file I thought might be important from all over the place – desktop, downloads, documents, random folders I forgot I even made. Shoved them all into one massive folder I called ‘ToSort’. Felt good, but also kinda scary seeing it all in one pile.
Then, I set up the actual ‘kisic’ structure. Super simple, that was the goal. I didn’t want complicated rules I wouldn’t follow. I made these main folders:
- NOW: Stuff I absolutely had to deal with, like, right away or this week. Active projects, bills to pay, things needing immediate action.
- LATER: Things I wanted to do or look at, but not urgent. Ideas, articles to read, maybe software to check out sometime. The ‘someday’ pile.
- DONE: A temporary holding spot. Stuff I just finished working on. Helped me see what I’d actually accomplished.
- ARCHIVE: The deep freeze. Everything that was finished, dealt with, and I probably wouldn’t need again soon, but didn’t want to delete just yet. I started putting dated folders in here eventually.
Getting it going…
Putting things into these folders was the next step. I went through that giant ‘ToSort’ beast, file by file, deciding where it belonged. NOW, LATER, DONE (though not much went straight to DONE), or ARCHIVE. A lot went straight into ARCHIVE, stuff I realised I hadn’t touched in years.
Then came the hard part: actually using it every day. Downloading a file? Don’t just leave it in Downloads, move it. Finishing a task? Move the files from NOW to DONE. Had an idea? Drop a note in LATER. I tried to build the habit.
I set aside maybe 20-30 minutes every Friday afternoon. The goal was to clear out the DONE folder, moving things to ARCHIVE. Also, quickly scan the NOW folder to make sure it was current, and peek into LATER to see if anything needed moving up to NOW. This weekly tidy-up was key, otherwise, the system just fell apart again.
So, how did ‘kisic’ turn out?
Honestly? It was okay. Better than the mess I had before, for sure. I could generally find active stuff faster because the NOW folder wasn’t cluttered. Having the LATER folder stopped me from keeping dozens of tabs open with articles I’d ‘read later’.
But it wasn’t a magic bullet. Sometimes I’d slack off for a few days, and things would pile up outside the system again. The biggest challenge wasn’t the folders, it was me. Making myself stick to it. Also, sometimes deciding between NOW and LATER was tricky for tasks that were kinda important but not super urgent.
The ARCHIVE also got pretty huge over time. Finding stuff in there still required searching, so it wasn’t perfect. But hey, at least it wasn’t cluttering up my main workspace.
Overall, I’d say trying to implement ‘kisic’ was useful. It forced me to actually think about my files and workflow. The system itself was basic, maybe too basic, but the process of trying to stick to a system was the real takeaway. I still use a modified version of it now, adapted a bit more to how I actually work day-to-day. It’s less about the specific folders and more about the habit of sorting things regularly. That’s what stuck.
