Organizing Digital Photos

Here is what I did to organize my photos:

Step 1

I created a folder for every year.

[2000]
[2001]
[2002]
...
[2010]
[2011]

Step 2

Within each folder I created a folder for every month, and I added a number so it would sort in a monthly order.

[01-Jan]
[02-Feb]
[03-Mar]
...
[11-Nov]
[12-Dec]

Step 3

I renamed all the files so they made sense. Each file name now consists of date_description_photonumber

I used 8 digits for the date yyyymmdd

• Maximum of 50 characters for the description
• 5 numbers for the photo number. Each photo series started with 00001 and ended with the last number 00016 or 00278. I chose to use the 5 number series because I should be able to easily import with this format, and I could easily see the number order with this system. 
• The file name will never be large than 65 characters, which I understand means it can be used easily in all programs. I don't know for sure about that, but I'm sticking with that theory.
• Some examples:
  20081225_ChristmasDay_00001.jpg
  20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000214.jpg
  20080114_CrossCountrySkiing_00035.jpg

My folder structure looks like this:

[2008]
    [01-Jan]
        20080114_CrossCountrySkiing_00035.jpg
    [08-Aug]
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000214.jpg
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000215.jpg
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000216.jpg
    [12-Dec]
        20081225_ChristmasDay_00001.jpg
        20081225_ChristmasDay_00002.jpg