Martin Wickens

1. Why Practice Discipline in the Digital World?

Discipline with your digital files may not sound exciting, but it saves you time, space, and money. It could also save you untold amounts of frustration.

Time – Have you ever known you had something but couldn’t find it? You looked in various folders, checked some oddly name file called Doc52, but nothing showed up. So, you started over but later found the original file you were looking for? You wasted time searching and then wasting time re-inventing the wheel. Sometimes the file crashes and the autosave hides the file in some weird remote belly of your computer. With proper discipline and a system that all could have been avoided.

Space – Hard drive space is far cheaper than it used to be, but it is not free not infinite. Without proper discipline you can soon run of space and find your computer is not working. Like most dad’s at Thanksgiving, they get full and stop working.

Money – No space? Then buy more storage. If it’s not needed, then it’s money wasted. Or, you pay a few dollars for Google Drive, forget you have it, and then buy some space with Dropbox, and so on. Being disorganized can waste money.

Frustration – When your computer fails, when you can’t find that sermon from three years ago, or when you realize you’ve lost hours of work, you’ll wish you had practiced digital discipline earlier. I’ve had friends punch their laptop because they choose anger as a response to frustration. Spoiler alert: the problem wasn’t the computer.

2. Good Practices for Digital Order

I can’t tell you what system is best for you, but I can share what works for me.

Use Both Online and Offline Storage

I use Google Drive, but there are many similar services, Dropbox, OneDrive, and others. My files are stored both locally (on my computer) and online.

That means:

• If my computer fails, I can access everything from another device.
• If the internet goes down, I still have everything locally.

Many of us have too much at stake to risk losing digital materials, so backups are essential. Most storage services automatically synchronize your files, ensuring that the latest version exists both online and offline.

Name Your Files Logically

File names don’t need to be long, but they do need to make sense. Opening a folder full of “Doc1,” “Doc2,” and “Doc3” helps no one.

For example, my sermon files follow this pattern:
Number.Title_Chapter.Verse–Verse

So a recent sermon looks like this:
18.Rediscovering God’s Rest_6.1–11

This makes searching and sorting easy and keeps everything in logical order.

Create a Logical Folder Structure

If I dumped all my sermons into one folder, I’d be lost. My current “Sermons” folder contains over 2,300 files and hundreds of subfolders.

Here’s how my structure works:

My Drive → Sermons → Complete Sermons → NT_03_Luke → 18.Rediscovering God’s Rest_6.1–11

Inside “Complete Sermons,” I have subfolders such as:

• Apologetics
• Christmas Sermons (with subfolders by year)
• NT_02_Mark, NT_03_Luke, etc.
• OT_01_Genesis, OT_25_Lamentations, and so on.

I’ll add some screenshots at the end to demonstrate what it looks like.

Each folder starts with OT or NT, followed by the book’s order number and name. This keeps everything sortable and sequential.

Individual messages not part of a series are titled simply by text and title, such as:
1 Peter 1.18_Behold the Lamb or Acts 1.1–11_Kingdom Principles.

Track Your Sermons

Every Monday and Thursday, I get a reminder from Google Calendar to complete a short Google Form. It records the sermon title, text, date, location, and more, it takes me only 20 seconds.

The form automatically fills a spreadsheet, giving me a complete record of what I’ve preached, when, and where.

This prevents awkward moments like realizing mid-sermon that you’ve preached the same message at that church before!

It also helps analyze your preaching patterns, seeing which books or topics you’ve emphasized (or neglected).

As to whether sermons should ever be repeated, there’s a classic disagreement: one preacher said the Bible is so rich you never need preach the same sermon twice; another said if a sermon was worth preaching once, it’s worth preaching again. Both have a point, just keep track.

Separate Personal and Shared Folders

I also maintain a folder for Bedford Bible Church, containing all church-related materials but nothing personal.

If something happened to me, that folder could be easily shared or copied to a thumb drive, and the church would have everything it needed—organized and accessible.

Inside that main folder are subfolders for youth, outreach, members’ meetings, staff, and more.

Learn How to Search (But Don’t Rely on It)

Google Drive and Microsoft offer excellent search functions, but sometimes sorting through their results takes longer than simply navigating your folders. A logical structure beats guesswork every time.

Choose Reliable Programs and Stick with Them

I’ve experienced the frustration of using software that later became unsupported or discontinued, leaving me unable to open old files. Thankfully, the digital world is more stable today—but the principle remains:

Use reputable, established software and avoid constantly switching tools.

Once you find what works, stick with it. Consistency is key to digital discipline. Also, keep in mind what industry standards are. Having the newest and shiniest file format is fun, but if no one else can open it then you might have a problem.

Final Thoughts

There’s much more that could be said, but I hope these ideas help you bring order to your digital life. A little discipline now will save you a lot of time, and trouble, later.