I've had one of those weeks where clients have been asking me to update old projects for them. I don't know about you, but there's always an element of dread when you pull stuff out the archive and hope it's all going to work the first time.

I'm a stickler for back-ups, so I'm never worried about finding a project and if heaven forbid a drive has failed I have several back-ups. When it comes to a rock-solid back-up strategy, most of us have to lose something vital before we come to our senses and implement one.

However, it's not getting an old project to open, but what I'll find when I open it. What makes matters worse is it's not because I'm going to open a project created by someone else but by me, let me tell you why.

Perhaps you are like me when you are creating new content; I like to work fast and one terrible habit, let me rephrase that, utterly dumb-as-shit habit I have is to name stuff randomly and not always pay attention to where I put things. Working in a DAW is less problematic, but if you are one of the idiots who has a folder full of audio files called 'audio_01' ascending for several thousand iterations, then keep reading. I also work in video, so I'll have mixed media, audio, video, stills and they can end up on the Desktop, have names not even the FBI could decode and make me look like a data housekeeping slob.

I do it because I want to work at speed, but when I come to open the project later, I have to waste time trying to either identify what the f*ck I meant when I named something BP7iK, or find a file that was born on my Desktop but died in my trash months ago.

This issue is what I want to talk about today - we may save time in the short term, but the cost of not taking care of how we name and store content can cost us dearly later on. So when a client calls and asks me to open an old project make some changes and send over the new version, depending on which way the wind was blowing when I created the project means it's either a 5-minute job or a 5-hour job.

I don’t think I’m the only one am I? We all think we are saving time but it’s a short term strategy and the fastest way to saving time later.

So in an effort to perhaps knock some sense into me here are a few tips for making sure you future-proof your projects that may help you... and me!

How To Future Proof Projects

1. Think about a consistent naming convention for projects, tracks and audio files then you won't have to keep reinventing the wheel every time you start a new project. Also consider colour conventions for tracks and folders.

2. Consider using templates. They may seem restrictive but not having to create a load of tracks each time, assign names, and all the other tasks one has to do before kicking off a new project is going to save time.

3. Consider printing all your tracks so you have a hard copy for future reference, complete with any effects sends. Then save that version as an alternative copy so you have both a print version and one you can edit completely.

4. House-keep a project during and at the end of each day, so your memory doesn't let you down. Make sure you have everything labelled, whilst it is fresh in your mind, and also stored in the right place, that's the place you expect to find it later on. Consolidate all media into one place that is easy to find and back-up.

5. Ensure you have an excellent back-up strategy in place. At the very least that should be two copies on-site and one off-site, that covers drive failures, fire, flood and theft... it does happen.

This article was inspired by to things; me having to deal with an old project I found suffered from my poor attention to detail in the naming department. I also received a news email from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits; the email contained this question from him;

“A simple question to run your daily decisions through:

Will this cost me time in the future or save me time in the future?”

I think someone is trying to tell me something and hopefully, you can also learn from this too.

Perhaps you have some ideas for ensuring projects are kept in good shape if so I’d love to hear them!

In conclusion, we live in an era where we are encouraged to do things faster with shortcuts, hacks, faster software and of course the holy grail of them all, faster computers. However, perhaps we need to take a step back and reflect on the old adage ‘More haste, less speed’ and consider the long term cost of working faster. Some time a short cut might just be the long way around.

Discuss.