Versioning

A couple of people liked the 'inbox zero' post, so, here is my next red-hot productivity tip: Versioning!

I work on specs all day, so I need to know which one is the most up-to-date (and which one is likely to be out-of-date). But sometimes I get things Terribly Wrong, and I need to go back to an earlier version (the 'previous saved game' manoeuvre). To achieve both these things, I use a single naming protocol in every filename I ever write:

yyyy-mm-dd human readable file name.xxx

Or, as an example in a more human form,

2010-05-05 Versioning blog post.doc

The advantage of this approach is simple: You can keep all versions of the file in the same folder, irrespective of operating system, and they can always be displayed in the exact order in which they were written.