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Cracking Magic (4) – Tools

Now that we have the little notebook or whatever ready for use, it is time to get some structure onto it. Here is the system I have been using for years and it proved to function perfectly.

The whole thing is to make the amount of subfolders as small as possible. In the beginning, I made the mistake of making one subfolder after the other, thinking this would make a “perfect” arrangement. I discovered that this led into a complete mess, giving me troubles to find what I was looking for, because I forgot in which subfolder I put it. So everything had to be simplified.

Here is the structure: there are seven main folders. In each one is a alphabetically sorted array of subfolders. In these, I keep the actual files. Here are my main (top order) folders:

01 – books
02 – tricks
03 – video
04 – performers
05 – scripting
06 – ideas
07 – construction area

A short explanation might be necessary. I use only seven main folders, because I read that the human brain cannot absorb more than seven pieces of information at a time. So I stuck to the mystical number seven.

The titles of the folders are self-explanatory. The 01 – books has a subfolder structure of folders named after the alphabet. So it will look like

01 – books
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z

The same holds true with the folders 02, 03 and 04 (of, course, you are free to change as much as you want). So when I have something for the archive, let’s say an ebook with a routine by Tamariz, it will go into 01 – books -> T. At the same time, I put it a copy into 01 – tricks. OR it could go to folder 04 – performers -> T. You decide which way you want to pick.

You could make some subfolders into the 02 – tricks folder by adding the categories cards, coins, rope, silks, kid show, mentalism if you want to. So it would look something like this

02 – tricks
cards
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z
coins
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z
mentalism
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z
stand-up
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z
comedy
A –
B –
C –
D –
and so on until Z

I use this very simple structure to be able to arrive at any given entry wth a maximum of three clicks. So when I search the Tamariz trick, I either go to 01 – tricks -> cards or (better) I go 04 – performers -> T and then I should be able to get the thing. Here is how it looks like:

screenshot_archive

Naming the files

Even more important than the actual folder structure is the way I name the files. At the beginning, I wasn’t too good at this, because I didn’t think this was important. Now I better and learned that a proper naming can be of real help in organization.

That ebook of Tamariz would be named like this:

Tamariz, Juan – ebook – name_of_the_publication.pdf

When you decide to use a certain system in naming the files, you will be able to very quickly scan what you have and find it in no time. The naming gives a real structure to your archive. Also, it is very easy to find something with the computer’s built-in search function.

Tamariz, Juan – ebook – name_of_the_publication.pdf
Tamariz, Juan – ebook – name_of_the_publication.pdf
Tamariz, Juan – DVD – name_of_the_publication.mp4
Tamariz, Juan – DVD – name_of_the_publication.mp4
Tamariz, Juan – trick – name_of_the_publication.pdf

The best thing is to start with this renaming of your existing data right from the beginning, or everytime you move a new file to your archive. For me, it has become a habit when I purchase something new for the archive. I change the filename right when I download it into the appropiate folder.

Because I know that you want to start right away and are probably too lazy to create the folder structure, I have made up all that for you and you can download the zip-file with all the folders already set-up for use. Download it, extract it to your hard drive and start putting some stuff into it!

Download the structure here: filesystem.zip

Have fun!

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