By Katy Culver on Poynter.org, June 20 – A few semesters ago, a student stopped by my office with her laptop because she had broken the links between a slideshow file and the images in it.

Easy fix, I thought. Locate the folder of images and relink it. I asked where she kept the files and she replied, “On my desktop.”

She handed me her MacBook, so I could look at the desktop. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the desktop because it was entirely covered with overlapping files and folders.

“You, kiddo, need to organize your digital life,” I said. “Structure is your friend.”

In this fast-paced and ever-morphing world we’re sending our journalism students into, organization is critical. Instead of just telling my students that it’s important to be organized, I try to show them tools that will help them develop organizational skills. Read full article