Files a stranger could navigate
The test of a drive is not whether you can find things. It is whether someone who joined last week can.
LoDrive stores the files that belong to your projects. Storage is the easy part; the hard part is that a drive gets worse over time unless two or three conventions hold.
Organise by project, not by file type
Folders called Images, Documents and PDFs feel tidy and are useless, because nobody ever looks for "a PDF". They look for the Acme contract, and it could be in any of the three.
Group by the thing the work is about, then by stage inside it if you need to. The rule of thumb: someone who knows the project but not your filing habits should find a file in two clicks. If they need to guess a category, the categories are wrong.
Names that sort themselves
Start dated files with the date, written year-month-day: 2026-03-14-acme-quote. Written that way it sorts chronologically on its own, in every list, forever. Written as 14-03-2026 it sorts by day of the month, which is meaningless.
Put the identifying word early — the client, the project — because the ends of file names get cut off in narrow columns and that is exactly where people put the useful part.
Share a link, do not send a copy
The moment you attach a file to a message, there are two of them, and one is now permanently out of date. Everyone who received the copy is working from a document that will never get the correction you make tomorrow.
Send the link. It costs the same and means there is one true version. The exception is anything going outside the organisation where you specifically want a frozen snapshot — a signed contract, a proposal as it stood on the day — in which case the copy is the point.
Deleting is maintenance, not loss
Drives fill with drafts, exports made once for a meeting, and screenshots taken to explain something in a conversation that ended two years ago. None of it is dangerous, all of it makes search worse.
Once a project closes, go through it once: keep what someone might reasonably ask for, remove the rest. Ten minutes at the end of a project saves the next person twenty minutes every time they search.
Questions people actually ask
How should folders be organised?
By project, not by file type. Nobody looks for “a PDF” — they look for the Acme contract. Someone who knows the project but not your filing habits should reach a file in two clicks.
How should files be named?
Start dated files with year-month-day (2026-03-14-acme-quote) so they sort chronologically on their own, and put the identifying word early — narrow columns cut off the ends of names.
Should I attach files or share links?
Share the link. An attachment creates a second copy that is permanently out of date. Send a copy only when you want a frozen snapshot, such as a signed contract or a proposal as it stood that day.
