Geologists collect data from samples with many different techniques, such as optical and electron microscopy, and in many different forms, such as images and spot analysis. This makes the storage, processing and sharing of these datasets in a unified way extremely challenging. In this short course, we want to demonstrate with examples from structural geology, petrology and paleontology, how a GIS (and specifically QGIS) can be used to organize and analyze your data. This will include a very basic introduction into the different data formats and then focus on real world examples, to give a glimpse into the vast capabilities of QGIS on the microscale. We will also have plenty of time for the discussion of other software solutions and give advice on your data sets.