[PODCAST 282]: Four Keys to Stress-Free Digital Filing

Are you excited to learn how to make digital filing feel simple?

The audio version of this resource is above–just click the “play” button in the header!

The written version is here on this page, and the video version is on YouTube. Click here or on the image below to watch!

All right…let’s dive in!

If your digital world were a paper world, would it look like a desk piled crazy high with stuff everywhere? Or would it be neat and organized, where you could find anything you needed within seconds?

I used to just throw my digital files anywhere because I was busy and wanted to move on.

But today I’m sharing 4 rules to get your digital world feeling AMAZING:

Create Purposeful Locations
Create Purposeful Categories
Create Purposeful Names
Create Purposeful Processes

They work together like pieces to a puzzle. Here’s an image I drew on my white board with the basic principles outlined:

I’m outlining the process so you can implement this quickly, but I recommend you take just a few minutes to actually pay attention and take notes (paper or digital)! And at the end, I’ll show you where to PUT your notes so you can find them again and actually take action. It’s going to be so fun!

The best thing about this process is that even when technology changes, the principles will remain generally the same. So no matter what kinds of digital resources you use, you can create peace and order.

Create Purposeful Locations

I like to have just a few spots where I keep my digital files, but they are specific to the file-type. (I’m not talking about things like a jpeg or a PDF. I’m talking about how large they are, who needs to have access to them, whether I want them available from my phone or not, etc.

I invite you to make a quick list of the 3-5 most common types of files you’re currently managing and where it makes the most sense to put them. (Then you’ll want to be consistent so you can rely on your system as you move forward.)

Here are my most common types of files and locations:

Google Drive (one personal, one for business): This is where I store shareable documents, spreadsheets, and images for personal and professional work.
Dropbox (one account with a personal folder and a business folder): This holds large files for our YouTube channel, podcast, and business–things we need to store and occasionally share.
Evernote (one personal account): I use Evernote multiple times per day for personal notes, private business work, screen shots, journal items, brainstorms, family and home management details, etc. that are rarely shared and I want to access easily from my phone or computer.
External Hard Drive (two copies, so there’s always a backup): This is our private backup storage of all the family photos and videos, key business files, etc. Because these are not online or in a shareable format, if there is anything I want to make shareable, I put them in one of the other 3 locations before deleting them from my computer, phone, camera, etc.

Create Purposeful Categories

Once you know which types of files you put in which locations, you’ll want some general categories that are relatively the same across all of them. Mine generally follow this framework:

Personal
Family
Church
LearnDoBecome
Any other large/important category I choose to add

If you look at my Google Drive, Evernote, and paper cubbies, for example, you’ll see that they all follow this same general pattern.

Then just as my paper cubbies have folders, there are unique digital subfolders in each one of my locations.

For example, I keep general brainstorms, scribbles, and audio ideas for the YouTube channel inside Evernote in a LearnDoBecome general folder with a “YouTube Ideas” sub-folder.

But I put my actual video outlines into Google Drive–in a LearnDoBecome folder with a “YouTube Outlines” subfolder.

It’s because I use them differently. Evernote can hold audios, photos, and text really well in one note, and I like to keep it private. But my Google Drive folder is always shared with my daughter, Grace, who records with me and doesn’t use Evernote as much, so I like her to have access to the polished outlines, which work better inside Google Drive.

Our daughter, Alia, uses Google Drive for most things, and she has them beautifully color-coded.

The idea is to make the categories incredibly simple, with as many subfolders as are NECESSARY so you can easily locate what you need!

Create Purposeful Names

Digital searching is becoming better and better, so it may be tempting not to label files at all, but even some basic keywords and specifications are helpful.

Because I keep things in categorized folders, I can generally find what I need in just a few seconds, but I do love to give the title as many keywords as makes sense. I ask, “What words would I type to find this in the future?” It often takes just a moment to add in a few key words that will aid your search later. For example, we use Christian Healthcare Ministries for our health coverage. But if I’m filing something related to that, I might add CHM as well, so I can find it with the whole name or the acronym.

Whenever I have similar files that are repeated month after month, year after year, I START the naming convention with the year.month.date. This works for Family Photos and my YouTube outlines, for example.
For podcast episodes, they all start with LDBRadio### – TITLE AND TOPIC. I don’t have a perfect system, but this makes it so much easier to create order.

Create Purposeful Processes

Some digital files can just sit until it’s time to find them (for example, a tree trimmer’s business card…doesn’t need to go in Incubation or Someday…just capture it, label it, file it, and know you can search “tree trimmer” when/if you need it).

If files are related to a project, LINK them where you keep your project information.

If it’s a piece of information you want to review at a certain time or on a certain date, create a calendar reminder (again, with the link to that item). That way you won’t worry if it’s “out of sight, out of mind.”

Clear your computer desktop daily and put things where they belong. I try to clear it as I go along. For example, if I take a screen shot, I’ll immediately text it to my friend or add it to a digital file with the appropriate labels, then delete the screen shot off my desktop). Or when I finish recording a podcast, I’ll put the audio file in Dropbox and in a folder for my Hard Drive that I transfer once a month or so.

This might seem really easy/basic, but how many people have files all over the place?

We also have an entire system for keeping emails at zero, if you want to go even further, so I’ll link that below!

Did You Take Notes On This? Wonder Where to Put Them?

If you have no idea when you will work on this–or if you even want to do so, I would take a photo (if you wrote on paper) and file your notes in something like a Google Drive, Evernote, One Note, Notion, etc. Remember to title it with as many keywords as would be needed to help you find it. (LearnDoBecome, Digital Filing, April Perry, etc.)

If you think you actually want to organize your digital files in the foreseeable future, that’s going to be a project.

Write the project, “Set up digital filing system” on your Projects List–Current (no more than 7-8), Next in Line, or Someday.

Then you’re going to keep the link to this podcast and/or your notes from what we covered WITH that project. If it’s inside a digital Project Manager, like Asana, Monday, Trello, Bootcamp, etc., you can paste the link and your notes right into the project description or include a photo of your notes, if they’re on paper. You could also put all your notes into a Digital Filing System and link to THAT inside your project manager.

If you use PAPER for everything, you create a paper folder for the project, put your notes in there, and perhaps include the written link to this podcast in the folder so you could come back and listen again later. CURRENT paper project resources go into your Support Materials. If they’re Next in Line or Someday, they can go into your long-term filing.

I know this probably seems a little tedious, but it becomes SO simple to manage once you have the steps in place!

I hope this brings you joy, digital peace, and lots of energy in the future as you realize you have a system to support all the wonderful things you will do!