Effective Downloading Part 2 - Incorporating Organization

Now that you have a ton of sites to download from, the best advice I can give you is to incorporate organizing into the download process. It's very simple and will keep you up to date and able to find your kits when you want to use them.

The best way I can think of to do this is to just walk you through my process of downloading step by step.

Let's say I go to IkeaGoddess's blog to see what daily downloads she has found. I pull up her site, and then I hold down Ctrl while clicking on the links she provides so that each link will pull up its own tab on my browser (you might think it's silly for me to explain this, but I didn't used to do this and I would go to the link and then have to wait until I had the download going and then hit the back button, etc. It took a lot longer). Before I even start to download anything, I also pull up ACDSee so that it is ready to go. If you are using a different program, open that up now.

I have read of some people who have a "downloads" folder set up on their computer and they download everything to that folder and then during the week, when they have time, they move everything from the downloads folder and put it where it belongs, etc. This process doesn't work very well for me. Since I already have all of my folders and organization system set up on my computer, I want to do it all in one step. Kind of like the principle of touching things as little as possible (i.e., if I take off my clothes and put them straight in the laundry of hang them up, I only have to touch them once. But if I drop them on the floor, then scoot them around, then have to keep moving them out of the way before I finally take care of them, I have to touch them 2 or more times and it is a waste of effort. Or like putting dishes directing into the dishwasher instead of setting them on the cupboard, then finally making it to the sink, and then having crusted on food to deal with before finally making it into the dishwasher). Same principle applies to my digi-scrapping downloads. Once I hit "download", I will immediately put it into the correct folder it belongs in.

Folder Already In Place:
If I am downloading a kit from a designer that I already have a folder set up for, then I unzip the kit straight into that folder. Then, in ACDSee, I go to the kit subfolder and clean up. If things are separated into multiple subfolders (papers, elements, etc.) then I move them all into the main folder for that kit and delete the extra folders. The only subfolder I leave is for alphas that have separate files for each letter. Note: if you are using ACDSee, it is very important that you move everything from within the program or it could give you problems. Originally I was doing all the moving and organizing from internet explorer, then found out that this can cause trauma. ACDSee functions exactly like explorer anyway, so just do everything from within the program. Once everything is in the main kit folder, I rename the kit if necessary, so that it has the designer's name. Example: I downloaded a kit called Botanicals by L Howell, but the file itself was only labeled Botanicals. I would rename the file this: LHowell_Botanicals This is for consistency and also as a safeguard in case folders accidentally got moved around somehow, I would know where they belong.

Once I rename the folder, I then go through the kit and tag each item. Usually I start by using the Ctrl key and highlighting every piece of the kit that is a certain color and then tagging it. After I tag all the colors, I then go through and tag by the type, tagging all papers, all fasteners, etc. I also tag any pieces that fit with a theme. For example, if there are ever any heart embellishments or papers in a kit, I always tag them with "Valentine's" tag in addition to any other tags I give them. Make sure to also tag your preview with all colors and themes. That's it - then I'm done! It only takes an extra minute or two to get it tagged and cleaned up, and I never have to worry about coming back and doing it again.

New Designer - No Folder:
Say I download a kit from a person that is new to me. I go to ACDSee, create a new folder with that designer's name on it. I also keep the webpage up where I downloaded the kit from so that I can immediately add the internet shortcut to their site in that folder. Then I go through the same process as above to get everything cleaned up and tagged. This is an area where I think it is especially helpful to do everything in one step instead of doing it later. What if the new person I downloaded from didn't include a correct TOU and you couldn't remember their name or where you found it. Then you have to do research to find it again later, whereas if you do it all in one step, you already have the website open to find the information you need and get it labeled correctly the first time. I think it's a lot easier to do everything while it is still fresh in my mind than later on when I have no clue where I got it.

Sometimes when you extract files they don't come in a folder, so make sure you create the folder BEFORE you move it so that you don't have a bunch of individual files floating around somewhere within your folders that you have to figure out where they go. Example, I just downloaded a kit called "Soda Shop Sensations Add-On" from Pamela Gibson (who is new to me, so I just created a Pamela Gibson folder). I can see when I hit open that they are separate files and not in a folder, so before I tell it where to extract the files to, I go to my Pamela Gibson folder and create a new subfolder called: PamelaGibson_SodaShopSensationsAdd-On And that's where I extract the files to, then tag, etc.

As another note, in my cleaning up of the folder, I also delete the Thumbs files. You don't need them and they just waste space on your computer, so I just delete them right away when I download a kit.

I have also found in my organizing that occasionally I have a kit that I only like a couple pieces of, so instead of keeping the whole thing and taking up loads of space on my computer, I just keep those couple of pieces and delete the rest. If I like a specific piece of paper, I make sure to change the file name for that paper to include the designer's name and the kit it was from, and then I move the paper into my 0_Digi-Scrapping/Background Papers/ folder that has my individual pieces of paper that don't belong with certain kits. I make sure it is tagged already as well. I move all individual pieces from a kit that I am not going to keep in this way, and then I delete the remains of the kit from the digital kits section. Does that make sense? I just figure it's not worth keeping stuff around that I will never use, so I only keep what I will use. And I will be able to find that one piece when I need it, because it is tagged and ready to use.

For a last piece of advice on downloading effectively...be selective!!! No kidding. In the beginning, I just downloaded everything simply because it was free. I can't tell you how much stuff I have deleted now because in going through it I didn't like it and realized I would never use it. And trust me, if you're going to make the effort to organize and tag everything, you want to make sure it is something you will use so that you're not wasting your valuable time in downloading it and tagging it. Have fun!