Digital Declutter of Google Drive

by Michele | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Let’s jump into decluttering Google Drive. I'm going to walk you through some of the tasks that I do when I’m working on a digital declutter. This is something that I like to do yearly, as with everything the more often you do this the easier it is.

Review Your Digital Files

Let’s take a look through the folders that you currently have on your Google Drive. Are the folder in your Google Drive actually folders that you use and you know what is in them?

Do they need to be renamed or reorganized to align with your growing business?

Setting Up Folders for Teams

Setting up folders for your teams can be done in a couple of ways for ease of sharing digital files.

Google Workspace

Does your business have Google Workspace formerly G Suite? Great, then all the folders for the team should be inside your shared team drive.

It is my recommendation that you add team members to the main root folder and allow them access to everything in those folders.

When you share individual folders and files it takes far too long to remove team members should they no longer be a part of the team.

This can be done by one folder name team, with all the folders under that. If you feel a little uneasy like you’re giving the keys to the kingdom, you may set up department folders such as Marketing/Sales, Finance, Operations, and grant access that way.

Personal Google Drive

Setting up a team on Google Drive that comes when you create a Gmail email account.

My recommendation is for two folders. A folder for your business files name Business or the business name and a folder name Team to be shared with all team members

Why One Team Folder

By only have one main folder for the team it is easy to onboard and offboard team members.

It all you to go into one share spot in your team folder, and add or remove shared access to the folder and all the content verse having to figure out what they were given access to.

Friend, that is an extremely time-consuming process. Trust me, it is. One folder, it's quick and easy one spot, one-stop.

Simple and Speedy

A super speedy way to give access is by creating one generic sign-in for the team such as team@yourbusiness.com. One drawback to this is if you look at change history you may not know who it was that made the changes. Then when a team member joins part of the onboarding process is getting them set up with the team account. For team members, the off-boarding process is changing the password for the team login.

How To Organize Your Shared Files

Having an organized filing system is key to eliminating stress and overwhelm when searching for files. Think of it this way if you would just randomly throw papers in a file cabinet draw without folders and labels it would be a cluttered disorganized mess. The same principle applies to your Google Drive.

Folder Names

These are the exact folder names that I have in my Google Drive

Team
Clients
Sales/Marketing
Operations
Knowledge
Content Bank
Templates
Michele Duwe Personal

Every single folder I have has an archive subfolder. I can either have one archive folder or you can have several archive folders. It is totally up to you. Me personally, I like to have it in one container. That is my personal preference. It is simple to move files around in Google Drive. However, it works best in your mind.

Megan Minns has a fantastic YouTube video on her shared file organization if you would like to check it out. She also offers a free file organization cheatsheet for download. This is an excellent system and what I use when organizing my clients’ Google Drive.

Link to Megan Minns File Organization Video

File Naming Conventions

How's your naming convention? Do you struggle with keeping a consistent naming convention? Or do you have random names for files and folders?

Here is an example of how I name a client file: MT Client-first name last name-What It Is-Optional Year

Or a file that's inside my finance folder, if it is a receipt I name it: Who/What-yyyy-mm here is two examples:

G Suite-2021-01
Amazon-Office Supply-2021-01

Be consistent with naming conventions and have standard practice when you're saving files. Nothing's worse than having to open 25 documents because you can't find the one you're looking for. Because you didn't name them right, that really sucks.

First Place

One of the things that I tried to remember to do, and it does shift if I'm looking for a file, where's the first place I’d look for it?

That's where I want to save it. At times, I’ve moved files around.

Because when I first started, that was the first place I looked.

But now as I've grown, and I've expanded, that's not the first place I look. In that case, I simply move those files around.

Are you able to find files that need to be moved around to a better location? This is a step to not save for declutter time, this is an everyday thing.

How To Declutter Your Digital Files

Looking for a quick way to declutter your digital files? The easiest way I’ve found to do a digital declutter of files is to sort by Last opened by me and reverse sort order. This puts the files that you haven’t opened recently on top. Now quickly run through the files you haven’t open in more than 6 months. Do you need to keep them all? Can some be put in the archive folder?

Keep in mind that once you delete them they will be permanently deleted, so if you remotely think you may want it in the future, put it in your archive folder.

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Little Side Note

Do you use Chrome as your internet browser? If so, this is a great time to declutter all those Chrome Extensions that you added and do not actually use. If you tried it once and didn’t think it was awesome that’s not likely going to change. Remove it.

✁ Just a Snippet

Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

A digital declutter is something that I like to do yearly, as with everything the more often you do this the easier it is.
By only have one main folder for the team it is easy to onboard and offboard team members.
Digital file organization is just as important as those physical files in the drawer. It takes a long time to search through paper, if you’ve not done a digital declutter before this will take time so plan for it.
Be consistent with naming conventions and have standard practice when you're saving files to speed up the digital declutter process.
Tired of searching for files? Once you find it move it to the first place you just looked for it and didn’t find it.
The easiest way I’ve found to do a digital declutter of files is to sort by Last opened by me and reverse sort order.

← Tapping into success (EFT) Digital Declutter Of Your Inbox →

Feel like giving up on your goal?

by Michele | Online Business, Planning-Organization-Productivity

Do you feel like giving up on your goal? What do we do in those times when feeling like giving up is a better solution than actually trying to push through and reach your goal?

Friend, you are not alone we all have times like those. We all have days like that, heck I just had a week like that.

Embrace how your feeling

Everything your doing feels hard and not easy. If you’re feeling that way right now, it's okay to embrace the feeling. It's not gonna last forever, you’ll come out better on the other side.

The next time those feelings start to creep in on your momentum, here are a few ideas on how you can resist that feeling of wanting to give up and not continue to move forward towards your goal.

Look for the easy

When your days or weeks feel hard and you’re uncertain of the next best action or move take a step back and look at it from a different angle.

Right now at this moment, reaching my goal feels hard. So the opposite of hard, obviously, is easy.

What are you working on the feels hard? Or are you not working on anything at all, are you just looking at your goal as unattainable?

The question to ask is how can I move it from feeling hard to over to feeling easy.

Do I need to break it down a bit more into a few simpler action steps?

Let me give you an example. You’re creating an online course. You have record module one as your first task.

Ugh. Of course, that feels hard, that one action has a LOT of little actions that need to take place before you can record module one.

For example here are some of the small actions you can break this action item down into.

Draft an outline of the main points
Add sub-points to the main points on the outline
Pick a slide template – Canva has a ton by the way
Create three slides

Break it down

Breaking the big lofty goals into smaller action steps and breaking them down again is a fantastic way to make it feel easier and prevents you from throwing in the towel on your goal.

What’s the story?

Friends, lean in for this one. Does it feel really hard or is that just the story that you’re telling yourself, in your own mind?

Is your mind, telling you it has to be done this way or that way, or stop doing it that way. Or maybe it worse. Maybe your mind is telling you a negative enough story. They are the worst, You’re not smart enough, know enough. Blah, blah, blah.

Stop that storytelling, it’s only hard because that is the story your telling yourself. And that, Friend, is what makes it feel hard.

Sometimes we just need to step back, and really identify that it’s our own self that is causing us to get in our own way to self-sabotage.

You know what, sometimes things feel, quick and easy and other times the struggle is real.

To get out of that mindset, it's just a matter of how to shift that struggle into something that's, well not a struggle anymore.

How do you get out of the struggle mindset?

One of the best ways, if you’ve followed me for any amount of time I'm sure this is gonna be a shocker 😂, take pen to paper and write it out. Mind sweep all the particular points that feel like a struggle, next write down specifically what feels hard.

Now, ask what is the next thing. One small action to move forward.

Today, if this one little thing was done, it would give momentum towards the goal.

Friend, do you know what?

Sometimes, that one thing is just making the decision to make a decision. 🤯mind-blowing I know.

Step into the action with a decision, this one decision may be what is need to get into the flow and excitement to figure out the next small action. Causing a snowball effect to get that progressive movement towards your goal.

Give yourself grace

Make sure to give yourself grace, when things feel hard when you’re not wanting to do something, and your stuck feeling that struggle.

It's truly taking the time to evaluate why you feel that way. Why you’re thinking this way.

Step back and get out of your own mind. Because the problem is, and I speak from experience, we get so much into our own minds.

It becomes really difficult for us to step away and see that there is a different route.

If you're struggling on your own to gain a different perspective, chat with somebody, find a business bestie or accountability partner.

Find somebody to talk through your roadblocks when it becomes hard, someone that has your back when it becomes hard.

I think I've mentioned before that I do have a group called the Clarity Muse Mentorship, and if you need a cheerleader, or you need help working through these or you need help with setting up your goals or moving past all of these mindset things. Join. We'd love to have you in there. And as always, if you have any questions, go ahead and leave me a comment. I appreciate you and have a wonderful day.

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Little Side Note

If you are constantly getting in your own way. Check out this article from Yes Supply on Self-Sabotaging.

✁ Just a Snippet

Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

When giving up feels like a better solution than trying to push through and achieve your goals.
Everything your doing feels hard and not easy.
The question to ask is how can I move it from feeling hard to over to feeling easy.
Do I need to break it down a bit more into a few simpler action steps?
Is your mind, telling you it has to be done this way or that way, or stop doing it that way.
Step back and get out of your own mind.

Check out these other posts for inspiration if you feel like giving up on your goal?

Simple Action to Mapping Your Next Project

← Whoa, What Are You Committed To? What happens if you remove the not? →

Work Smarter Not Harder with Canned Responses

by Michele | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Work Smarter Not Harder by creating canned responses in Gmail to efficiently manage your inbox.

Work Smarter not harder by creating canned responses in Gmail to effectively manage your inbox and to easily delegate to a virtual executive assistant.

You know those questions that you receive repeatedly from prospects, clients and general inquires. It’s time to start working smarter my Friend by using a response you’ve already drafted and saving that in your canned responses in Gmail.

To get you started

Ideas on responses that you can write once and use again and again.

A list of your favorite books
A list of your favorite podcasts
A waiting list response for your group or program
A no to opportunities that you do not have time for or are not in alignment with your business
Your best advice
Affiliate or Joint Venture Information

Here is another pro-tip, create forms in Google Forms or Typeform for your waitlist, joint ventures, guest posting, podcast interviews. Anything that you’d want to gather information create the Google Form so that information can be added directly into a Google Sheet. By asking the same questions you’ll be able to compare data.

Create in a Google Document First

Copy and paste emails you’ve already written into a Canned Responses Google Document. Once you have your responses they can be saved inside of Google. The reason I suggest that you create it in a google document is that you can easily see what you’ve already done. It’s easy to share if you’d like to send them to a team member.

Walk Through

Watch the video below as I walk you through how to set up your very own canned responses in Gmail.

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Little Side Note

Quick Recap

Create canned responses to quickly and efficiently respond to repeat emails
Write them and update them in a Google Document
Watch the video for a walkthrough on how to set up your own canned responses

Ready to get Clear?

I wanted to personally invite you to join the Clarity Muse Mentorship. You know how it’s can be a struggle to read the label from inside the bottle?

When you’re in the day-to-day of your business you can face the struggle to get a clear vision of where you want our business and personal life to be in 90-Days, One Year, and Three Years. You.

The Clarity Muse Mentorship will transform the way that you approach clarifying your vision and empower you to take messy imperfection action every step of the way.

By joining this mentorship, you will:

The mentorship will allow you to get clear on your vision and how you want to FEEL as the CEO of your business
The mentorship will have weekly goal setting, accountability, and Q&A sessions
Plus, you’ll be connected with a community of like-minded businesswomen on a new and upcoming platform.

This mentorship is hosted on Marco Polo Channels! This is an awesome video chat platform. It is super new and so very cool. I’ve been using Marco Polo with my clients now for over three years. This is such a great way to connect.

Join Today!

← What is perfect anyway? Write Your Way To Clarity →