More Awesome Than You!

I recently started my game over with a new install, and I'm downloading different things this time, and trying to keep them organized.  I'm having a hard time doing so, though.  If I organized by designer, I wind up with multiple copies of a mesh multiple designers have used.  If I organize by room type, I wind up with duplicate objects (for example, the same end table in both living room and bedroom folders.  Is this harmful to my game? 

Well, the more downloads you have, the longer wait you're going to have during loading.

May I suggest.....keeping the original files organized by designer and on your desktop / on a CD / somewhere not your Downloads folder. Then you can organize your download folder by the nature of the content...one sub-folder for clothing, one for hair, etc.
This way, the files are easy to find and you don't end up with duplicates. It's worked well for me.

You should try to avoid having multiple copies of the same object.  There are several tools which detect duplicates.  You may want to try Delphy's Download Organizer (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=227925). 

I sorted a downloads folder with over 7000 files in about 30 minutes using DDO, and it also scans for duplicates.

Besides keeping copies of the original downloads, get any duplicates scanning tool of your liking and let it search your downloads folder.

I'm using NoClone, which is unfortunately not free, but pretty neat with its smartmarker function as well as the "Keep one copy" option.

For hair and clothes, I have separate folders "hair meshes" and "clothing meshes", and drop there the corresponding files, in this way I almost never have duplicated meshes, and can quickly check if I already have a required mesh or not, when I'm downloading stuff.

Thanks for the replies, all.  Here's what I've decided on.  Download source files go into folders by site\designer or mimic how the site is laid out.  Files I put in my game go into buckets according to what type of file they are.