The Value of Reviewing Your Folders

This weekend while I was working on an article, a concept I was contemplating seemed connected to something I remembered working on previously so I decided to rummage through my documents on my computer. I keep my documents on my computer in a fairly organized manner with separate folders for articles and secondary sources, teaching documents and resources, reference letters I have written, etc. So it was really nice to find and open a document that I had forgotten about and not opened in more than 5 years. What a hidden gem!

I’m sure this happens a lot, especially in academe, that one forgets that you had written an article or a blog post. Or maybe you stumble across a resource that you had used previously on your classes with much success but you changed up the course you were teaching and stopped using it in favour of something else. I’m here to argue for the value of taking a deep dive into your documents on your computer every once in a while and reflect on all you have done.

Sometimes life gets really busy to the point that we become myopic in our self-analysis. You only remember the more recent projects or files and the rest fall into archived folders, where they become a remainder and a reminder of past work. There’s a real sense of accomplishment to be found in giving your document file on your computer a nice long (re)view. The same can be said for revisiting your résumé where you can remember conference papers you have delivered or research that you did as part of a research cluster. Taking that time really puts things in perspective- and having that perspective actually makes you more productive because it allows you to pull from past experiences that simply needed recall.

This is somewhat similar to the “if you don’t use it you lose it” paradigm. So take a look in your folders you’ll be surprised what you find!