The same way I organize my whole life, everything is either new and unprocessed, being processed, or done.

- unprocessed, unsorted, new information: /Downloads

- currently being processed or worked on, otherwise empty, synced to NAS: /Documents /projects

- processed / finished / rarely accessed: /archive on NAS, indexed, backed up to backblaze

/archive also contains all media in a neat folder structure, but indexed (by the NAS) and searchable through Finder.

This way my work folders stay clutter-free except for current projects/work