Best way to organise files on Windows without it becoming a mess?

[Teal Sparrow]

Been down the usual rabbit holes and wanted real world experience.

Most machines slow down for software reasons not hardware ones.

Practical experience from people here is always worth more to me than what comes up on a search.

What I really want to know is what someone would do if they were starting from scratch knowing what they know now.

Interested in real answers rather than the obvious ones.

[Andy89]

That is recency bias talking if I am honest. Cannot wait for the game to settle it.

[Ellie22]

That is actually one of the clearer explanations I have seen. That is genuinely useful.

One or two sensible changes often make more difference than people expect.