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DOI: 10.1201/9781003214335-6

The Organizer

Build Your Own Virtual

Filing Cabinet

Organizing is a core skill. When computers were not so prevalent and most businesses

relied on paper documents, it became important to organize the paperwork so that one

can retrieve it when needed. A filing system remains the central record-​keeping system

for any organization. However, we do not find large filing cabinets anymore because

files have become electronic. But the ability to find the records when needed is still as

important.

Modern office productivity systems have made it quite easy to store a file in the

“right” place soon after one creates the file. But once created, it is not always easy

to find it. The mnemonic principle of associative memory is pulled into use and is

dependent on the answer to the question—​where is the logical place one would keep

such a document? For example, if it is an invoice, one would look under “Customer

Invoices” in the folder structure, and then search it alphabetically to find the right

file name. There is some amount of faith involved in this exercise—​that the person

who created it remembered to name the file with the customer’s name in front and

remembered to put it in the “Customer Invoices” folder. If the file was not named in

the expected format, it might be hard to retrieve it.

One way to resolve this issue is to have a list of all files. And, if we have this list in

a spreadsheet, it will be easy to search for the file.

This chapter describes how this can be done quite simply, with a macro. One additional

skill you can pick up is how to create a progress message when this program takes longer

than expected. This is important since the human mind gets tired of waiting if it does not

know how long one has to wait (the proverbial “are we there yet” syndrome!).

The algorithm works in six steps:

5.1  THE ALGORITHM

Step 1: Set up a worksheet with the appropriate headings and tab names to display

the files

Step 2: Get the user to select the starting point from which the search must begin

Step 3: Get a count for all files and folders in the chosen path and prepare status bar

Step 4: Monitor time elapsed and give user a chance to exit if it is taking too long

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