On the 15th, I wrote a post about trying to keep my desktop clean of all files (link). I have been able to keep most of the icons off my desktop and I’m doing well at sorting the files into a folder that correctly identifies them. The problem that I have run into is that I have been dumping files into different folders when I’m too lazy to put them in the correct location. There are very specific folders where I keep dumping things and I keeping thinking that if I really want to stay organized I need something that bugs me when I don’t keep specific folders clean. I think that I’m going to write something quickly in the next week that will run as a scheduled job every couple hours to check specific folders for files. I’m working on a list of places where I seem to dump files I’m too lazy to deal with and this is what I have so far:

• Desktop – this one if obvious
• My Document – this one is a bit of a pain because some programs save their files directly to the My Documents folder (*cough* Microsoft Money *cough*) and I’m not sure if I can move them. This makes me think I will need to have an exception list.
• My (Videos|Pictures|Music) – I have been dumping stuff into this folders and while they are technically in the correct folder I think they should be sorted out better based on date or something.
• The root of the drive – I have been doing better at this but occasionally I save something to the root of the drive for quick access. This is another folder that will need to have an exclude list.

I guess I will have to think about this more while I walk between classes. Let me know if you have seen a program that will do something like this.