Organization is a big time saver. And for busy teachers, spare time is a rare commodity.

One place where you can gain greater efficiencies may be in how you maintain your filing system. Computers are great when it comes to searching for, analyzing, and storing information. But, if you don't understand how best to organize that information on your computer hard disk or your network, the value of this power is lost.

Understanding how to use your computer's My Documents folder can be a big help. Within this folder, you can create subfolders that are organized according to unit plan, class level, and so on. You can also create shortcuts on your desktop to any folder, subfolder, or location on the network that you frequently visit. And if there's a folder that you often access when working in Microsoft Office System programs, add a shortcut to the folder on the My Places bar in the Open and Save dialog boxes of your Office programs.

Use the following tools and tips to better organize your electronic files — and to spend less time searching for or recreating documents.

• Organize your "electronic filing cabinet" (Article)
  Learn about tips for creating an easy-to-navigate filing system, for titling files, for clearing away unused files, and for your other tasks.
• Organize and simplify access to the My Documents folder (Article)
  Learn how to organize folders and subfolders, save files where you can find them again, create shortcuts to files, and do other file management tasks.
• About places to save files (Article)
  Understand where and how you can save files.
• About finding files (Article)
  Learn about two methods to find files easily.
• Find a file (Article)
  Search for Office files, Outlook items, and Web pages by title, content, or properties.
• Converting and migrating Office files (Article)
  Learn how you can convert, migrate, and view files created in earlier versions of Office.