Here’s the golden rule. Keep all the pieces of footage, music, photos, graphics, or anything else you need all in one place together. Have a standard naming convention and process that you follow every time. 

This is good for you (so that you can find things in the future) and it’s also really good for when you’re working with other people (so they can figure out what you’re doing). 

Here’s my method.

Every client has a folder. Inside that folder is…

• Folders for each unique project I do for the client

• Inside a project folder, there’s the Premiere Pro file and then more folders… Audio, Footage, Assets, and Adobe (for the save files). These folders can be further broken down if necessary (inside audio I could have a Music folder if I’m working with a lot of audio files. Footage could have folders for A Cam and B Cam etc).

The actual Premiere Pro projects have bins broken down with Audio, Footage, and Assets (sequences live in the main folder).

You can do the same thing with any editing software. With Final Cut Pro X, the library lives in the master folder. There’s no bins for footage but I use keywords to organize my footage and audio in FCP.