Spring Cleaning!
A good friend of mine says, “Well, you know what Feng Shui means, don’t you? It means 'Throw it away.'” I love that. During the first quarter of every year I purge records, files, etc. in accordance with statue of limitation requirements for my state (Georgia silly – not confusion as in “state of”…). Over the years I’ve realized how important a process this is. We also take “current” files and move them to “GC warrantee,” and roll the older ones from there into “archives.” Archives are then the files that get purged (minus statue of limitation).
What I like about this process is that it is a temporary “time out” to look at work over the past 12 months and another time frame of 6-8 years. Building processes have changed, new materials – new concepts, etc. And our method of filing has changed. Now, when a file moves from “active” to “GC warrantee period,” the files are smaller, in part because the entire shop drawing process is handled electronically.
I also like that during this process, some of the “pending” stuff that tends to collect in the corners gets put away or “feng-shui-ed.”
--Lisa Stacholy, AIA
Comments (2)
Hey! I have external (removable) hard drive that backs up my server daily (actually, it backs up files that changed nightly, and the entire catalog weekly). I have two drives that I trade out on a weekly basis (the day after the full back up occurs). It was a little costly to set up ($1700+/-) a few years ago but the restful sleep it has provided has been priceless!
I've just started to near the 75% point, so I've takes some of the more ancient files off two 2 places. An external harddrive that sits on my desk and cd's of each project that go to the safety box. but these days and the cost of memory chips (not to mention the space limitations of the safety box) I might wait for a good sale and purchase some thumb drives to use in lieu of cd roms. Does any one know shelf life of data on thumb drives ?
Posted by lisa stacholy | April 28, 2010 1:06 PM
Posted on April 28, 2010 13:06
Thanks for the motivating thoughts. I hate to go through this process but when I do I Use
tax prep time to do it.
How do you archive your electronic files? I used to put them on CDs, but got concerned with shelf life issues. Now I keep them on thumb drives, as well as an external hard drive. Do you have any other ideas that might be better?
Posted by Denis Dunderdale | April 20, 2010 11:02 PM
Posted on April 20, 2010 23:02