wrong save dates, high sierra

This is driving me nuts. I actually have two issues that might be related:

1) mac OS X is not updating save dates to some files, mainly .psd (for example a file I worked on today, and saved, is still dated March 24, 2017. Files exported from this file are dated correctly. I've saved, resaved over, and moved it from internal to external and still no good. This creates havoc when I'm trying to find a file I created 3 days ago and it does not appear until I scroll down forever (imagine having 4,751 files that begin with "FWI ad" and you have 15 minutes to find and edit and email corrected copy).

2) mac OS X refuses to find many many many files on my external drive (no matter how many times I add/delete from external from spotlight, copy/delete, backup, restart, run Disk Repair, copy to new external etc). I can search for a file i just created an hour a ago, which is clearly sitting on my external or desktop, and is invisible.

Clues (maybe) Mac OS 10.13, Mac Pro tower (2011) with OS on SSD and a 2tb internal (rarely used). I have excluded the SSD drive from spotlight (which may or may not exclude files left on desktop from search, just depends on its mood).

BUT please, please, do not tell me that I need to get away from putting files on an external or to never save files to desktop. At the pace I work, 12-14 hours a day, I have no time to always save every project to a folder in the cloud or into macHD>users>documents etc. and then copy to external every time I need to go offsite. I have to work very fast, often eject the external and speed to one of three agencies I work for then speed back (I juggle about 30 clients). Search used to work great in Maverick and prior (approx) .