Tried two different ways to organize my studio files and one was way better

I spent last month comparing a system I built in Notion against a simple folder structure on my drive for managing client assets and project timelines. The Notion setup looked cool but it took forever to load and I kept losing track of files, while the basic folders just worked without any lag. Has anyone else had better luck with a specific method for keeping studio projects straight?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_shah5d ago

The part where you said "the Notion setup looked cool but it took forever to load" is exactly the trap I see people fall into all the time. Everyone gets obsessed with making their system look pretty instead of just making it work fast and simple. Here is a different angle for you: have you thought about just using a text file with dates and file paths? That is what I do, one plain .txt file I update every time I save something, no loading screens, no fancy formatting, just a list I can search in two seconds. I bet if you timed yourself finding a file in your folder system vs clicking through Notion you would be shocked how much time the pretty stuff wastes.

jake_mason305d ago

Ha! Man, my first Notion setup was basically a digital fever dream - I spent three hours color coding folders and adding cover images for projects that never even launched. Ended up with this gorgeous database that took 45 seconds to load a single client file. Meanwhile my buddy just uses a folder called "STUFF" with everything dumped in there and somehow he finds things faster than me with my pretty but useless system. That plain text file idea is honestly tempting, might save my next project from my own over-engineering.