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.
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.