It's very important to note that this
Dotfilesdirecotry must be in your $HOME directory. Otherwise stow will just not do anything.
I use GNU Stow to manage my dotfiles.
If you don't have it already, install it. I use Arch, BTW.
sudo pacman -Sy stow
Once it is installed, it's as simple as running this inside the Dotfiles directory.
stow .
This tells stow to move any of the conflicting files into the Dotfiles directory, allowing it to create conflicting symbolic links. Be CAREFUL though, this OVERRIDES.
stow --adopt .
It's important to NOTE that the structure in this Dotfiles directory MUST be layed out as your HOME directory would ahve been layed out.
Obviously I also use git to store my files. If you don't already have it installed, run this:
sudo pacman -Sy git