How I Organise My Digital Documents & Computer Files In 6 Steps

declutter your desktop & organise your google drive

You’ve been growing your business for the last few years, and in that time you’ve created courses, lead magnets, podcasts, blog posts, videos, worksheets, images and graphics… and it all sort of ends up on a bit of a disorganised mess.

Perhaps your desktop is a virtual dumping ground, maybe the collection of never ending files and folders on your google drive are in dire need of some organisation.

Don’t worry - you’re not alone!

I see behind the scenes of nearly-6-figure businesses, right up to 7-figure businesses and let me tell you - regardless, the digital files are almost always a never-ending maze of folders and documents.

You might think that the bigger businesses I work with have got this stuff organised, but let me tell you - the bigger a business, and the longer a business has been around - the more documents, files and folders there are to organise!

I get it, you’re busy, and let’s be honest, the idea of organising all of your files and folders is… well, overwhelming.

But imagine the assets you’ve created that you’ve forgotten about - that you could be using.

Imagine the minutes and HOURS you could reclaim by being able to easily navigate to what you’re looking for within a few clicks.

Let’s get your digital files, folders and documents organised. Let me help you sort out your google drive and laptop desktop in x-painless steps.

STEP 1: The key areas of your business

Write down the key areas of your business. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Brand

• Marketing

• Products & Services

• Suppliers

• Images

• Finance

• Learning

• Systems & Processes

• Clients/ Customers

STEP 2: Get granular with your business segments

Look at those key areas and decide what smaller areas fit inside each one. You can get as granular and detailed as you like.

• Brand

  • Style guide

  • Logos

  • Ideal audience document

  • Headshots

  • Fonts

• Marketing

  • Marketing strategy & plan

    • Content calendar

  • Podcast

    • Intro & outro audio files

    • Individual episode folders

  • Blog

    • Individual blog posts

  • YouTube

    • Individual videos

  • Outreach

    • Bio & Headshots pack

    • Individual outreach pieces

• Products & Services

  • Products & Services overview

  • Individual product/ services

• Suppliers

  • Supplier costs

  • Individual suppliers

• Images

  • Headshots

  • Workshop

  • Events

  • Brand images

• Finance

  • Income planning

  • Tax

  • Invoices

  • Accounting details

• Learning

  • Individual course/ programmes

• Systems & Processes

  • SOPs

  • Templates

• Clients/ Customers

  • On-boarding

  • Off-boarding

  • Individual clients

STEP 3: Start afresh with your digital folders

Now, start completely fresh. Create a folder on your computer, or in your Gdrive and name it your business name.

Inside this folder make a folder for all of the key areas of your business you listed above.

Inside those folders create the sub-folders also listed above and so on until you have a folder for each item in your list.

STEP 4: Drag and drop your digital files

Start dragging all of your documents and files from your desktop, Google drive or rabbit warren of folders, into your new folders.

Make sure you clear your desktop or Google drive, and any other folders or files you have floating around on your computer.

Drag, drop, repeat! You’ll need a cuppa and your favourite music or podcast for this bit. 

STEP 5: Folders within folders

Once you’ve sorted all of your floating files into your new folders go into each one.

Do they still look really busy and messy? Ask yourself what folders you need within the folders that are looking messy to get things organised.

STEP 6: Back it up!

Back-It-up! I can’t stress this enough.

I would back your files up twice. This might sound completely ridiculous but I once had a situation where my laptop and external hard drive both failed on me at the same time, the-same-time. I cried! 

Back up your files to the icloud, google docs, and an external hard drive too if you want to be extra safe!

My biggest hope right now is that you’re feeling seriously smug!

You should - you’re about to save HOURS of your time (and your team’s time) that you were spending finding files and documents.

I will say that it’s going to take a bit of getting used to.

It will take a while to get your head around your new filing system, but before long, as long as you stick to it, you’ll be navigating around it on auto pilot.

Wanna back-pocket this post? Pin it for later.