Kristen
Hey y’all, I am so excited about today’s special guest episode because it is something that I know I need to do better with personally. If you are anything like me, you have way too many things going on in your Google Drive and your Gmail account. Lucky for all of us, my friend Dara is here today to help us tackle our Google workspace and Gmail organization. Dara helps small businesses like ours get organized and stay organized. And let’s face it, staying organized is probably the hardest part for most of us.
Kristen
Dara is here to help us run our businesses more efficiently using all of those Google tools that we already know love, and you’re probably already paying for. She is that friend that you can call for tech help. I am so excited to jump in and show you all of the time saving tips and tricks and hacks that you wish you had known all along. We are talking all about how to get your Google Drive and your Gmail account organized and help them stay this way. And I cannot wait for you to hear what she has to share. I walked away with so many actionable tips that I could put into practice right away as soon as we hopped off of our recording call. So let’s dive straight in to the show.
Kristen
Hey, TPT sellers ready to seek growth in your business? You’re in the right place. Welcome to the savvy teacher seller. I’m Kristin Doyle. And I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen
Hi, Dara, thank you so much for being here today. I would love for you to introduce yourself to my audience. And tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got started with productivity and Google Drive.
Dara
Okay, I’m Dara Sklar. And I have actually just been a like in love with Gmail and the Google suite of tools like Google Calendar, all of those things have run my life for so many years. And I’ve also always been an entrepreneur, and I have this whole full fledged business that has nothing to do with productivity. But Google runs my personal life and that business. I’ve used it in collaboration with contractors and employees and teams, and we’re all remote from each other. And when I got into the online space, in teaching, like trying to find a topic that people needed my expertise in, the topics that I was most proficient at were technical.
Dara
I realized what a huge demand there was, and what a huge pain point it was that people’s inboxes and Google Drive, and all of those, like storage facilities were overflowing. And I thought, oh that’s never been a problem for me. And I started digging deeper and realized that I just kind of was very naturally organized and had this real knack for understanding those programs in a very deep way, but in a way where I could easily break it down for other people. And as soon as I started talking about that, people’s ears started picking up. And it was one of those kind of synergistic situations where I was looking for a topic that would be an easy yes, for people to sign up for something with me. And this was it. And it just kind of I want to say it, like flew off the shelves, the moment that I started teaching this topic. So I’ve found my niche and I’ve been doing it for over two years. And I just love it.
Kristen
Yeah, I think because it’s something that a lot of us struggle with. I know, I definitely do. I take a lot of steps to try to get my email and my Google workspace really to get it all under control, but then it falls apart. And it just can be so hard for small business owners like me to keep everything organized. Why do you think that is?
Dara
I think it’s because I mean, there’s got to be a variety of things. What I often find is people who are very organized in their like day to day homes and personal lives, tend to be the people who suffer the most, when they can’t seem to keep up digitally. And sometimes that has to do with just not really understanding like the easiest way to do it, or feel like you’ve been doing it wrong, even though doing anything is still better than doing nothing. So I think there’s like the category of people who just kind of don’t know where to start and what the tech is involved. And then there’s the other people who just kind of fall off the bandwagon they tried to be too perfect with it.
Dara
I often picture a staged home you know, when you see photos of these like beautiful staged living rooms and the only thing that ever goes through my mind when I see that is who lives like that. Nobody lives like that. But the reality is, who lives like that?
Kristen
Zero people!
Dara
Exactly zero people, not even the photographer, my husband’s a real estate photographer, we talked about this kind of thing all the time. Nobody ever lives in a staged home. But there are people out there who feel like if they’re not perfect, they’re a hot mess. And there is a sweet spot in between. And so I think the second category are people who are trying to make everything perfect to the moment that they aren’t doing exactly what they think they should be doing. They do nothing. And I mean, I’m going to talk about this, I’m sure during this conversation, but like, I’m here to say that there is a middle ground and the best thing you could possibly do is find something that you’re willing to stick with.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. I know, for me, I’m really good at getting frustrated with what a mess it is, and then getting it all under control. And then a week later, it’s a mess again, or I feel like it is. And so being able to find that sweet spot, I think, is something I’m hoping I can do. I can’t wait to hear everything you have to say just for me, personally, because I need it all. And I know my audience does too.
Dara
Awesome. Where do you want to start?
Kristen
Let’s start with the two most common things that we as TPT sellers are using are Gmail and Google Drive. So let’s start with Gmail.
Dara
Okay, let’s start with Gmail. So the first thing is I want to explain, and I’m explaining this, because it’s something that I hear so often that people don’t quite grasp, when you have an email, and you archive it, that email does not disappear. It just doesn’t live in your inbox anymore and what I most often find is that people have like 1000s of messages in their inbox, when all they should be doing is archiving the email. And then the email lives in the all Mail tab.
Dara
But also, there’s a search bar. And we use Google for as we use Google for searching, so the same advice applies for Google Drive and for Gmail, which is learn to use the advanced search, because if you can find an email, then you never have to file it. So if you can use that search bar to find what you’re looking for, it doesn’t matter where it is. And so what you could start by doing would be to take a look at your inbox. I have a free tutorial on my websites like Inbox Zero in 10 minutes. Now, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to stay there. So we’re gonna have a conversation after I explained this little exercise.
Dara
So the exercise is this, you look at your email, and you probably have like 50 emails per page, and you’re gonna check off all the ones that still need you to do something, the upcoming events or something you need to reply to, or something you need to take action on. You’re gonna go down this list, probably for 2-10 pages of emails, and on every single page, anything that still requires action, you’re going to label it, and the label that I tell people use clean inbox. So you’re gonna label it clean inbox, and you’re gonna go to the next screen, find the emails that still require action and go as far back as you need to. Usually, it’s a few weeks, you can go as far back as you want, within 10 minutes, it’s a quick exercise. Label all of those emails as clean inbox, and then go to the very top left, check the box that selects everything on the page, and then there’s going to be a little line and it says, Do you want to select the other 17,000 emails in your inbox and you’re gonna and you’re gonna click that line, it’s just a hyperlinked line, and it’s going to select everything, and then you’re going to hit archive.
Dara
Never fear, the emails are not going away, you’re still gonna be able to find them. I mean, were you ever even able to find them in the inbox, when there are 17,000 of them? Probably not. Anyway, I’m going to archive all of them. And then you’re gonna go into the label that says clean inbox. And you can just drag them right back into your inbox, there’s a little button, I think it’s under more and it says moved inbox, you’re gonna take those dozen or two dozen emails, maybe it’s 100, I don’t know, you’re gonna put them back in the inbox. And then that’s all that’s going to be there is just the emails that require action that you still have to deal with.
Dara
And instead of being mixed in with 17,000 emails that you don’t have to deal with, that you were done with that the communication was over, you’ve acknowledged you’ve moved on whatever it is. So that’s your first step is just getting that clean slate because the nicest thing about a clean space, is there’s motivation to keep it clean. Next step, after you’ve got this beautiful clean slate, is to start thinking what are the emails that are coming in, that I can really unsubscribe from or that I can maybe automate and archive into a folder that I’ll look at when I’m ready, as opposed to being constantly pinged whenever something new lands in the inbox.
Dara
But here’s the epiphany that I had, when I was putting things into a to read later folder. I realized that I was never going to that folder, and I was never reading it later. But my epiphany was I wasn’t being honest with myself. And so what I’m going to challenge you and your audience to do is just be brutally honest with yourself. Are you ever going to get to this? And if you’re not, that is a-okay, that is better for your sanity, your bandwidth and your productivity. And you’re just going to acknowledge that No, even though I may want to stay on this person’s newsletter, I’m actually not interested in having it sit in the inbox and nag me and make me feel like I’m not doing enough. And so you can set up filters.
Dara
So you can do three things. One is you can leave it in the inbox, and you can manually archive it. That’s the lazy man’s way. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you use the Gmail app on your phone, you just swipe it, and it archives it. So it’s a very easy thing to just easily archive emails, but you can also automate it. And you could do one of two things, you could unsubscribe, no harm, and that if it’s not something that you’re actually reading, or opening or taking action on, and you’re not having FOMO by not being on someone’s newsletter, you can unsubscribe.
Dara
The other thing you can do. And I actually really liked this tactic, especially because of that whole FOMO. I’m a bit of a data hoarder where I just, I love to be able to search through my emails and find things and read. There’s like a part of me that even if I never do it, I still want to be able to do it. So what you can do is you open up an email on your desktop application of Gmail. And in the upper right, there’s three little dots and you click three dots, it says filter messages like this, and you click on filter messages like this. And the advanced search box will pop up and you’re going to click on create filter. And on the second screen, you’re going to check the top box and it says, skip the inbox. And you can do a secondary thing, which is to add a label to it. So if there was like a grouping of newsletters, or you could categorize them in some way that’s like, lower bandwidth, or like, you know, stay focused or more productive or whatever, like name it something funny, and you can shove them all into that label, but it skips your inbox.
Dara
The nice thing about taking that step, over time as emails come in, you’re going to keep doing that and you’re just gonna keep chipping away, you can still go looking for them, they’re just not landing in your inbox. Because for me, I believe the inbox is something that should be for action, it shouldn’t be for dread. The inbox isn’t supposed to be just a dumping ground, it’s actually supposed to be things that you need to do. So basically, between my inbox zero exercise and chipping away at the stuff that you don’t need, and being honest with yourself, you can probably reduce 80% of the noise in your inbox over the course of a couple of weeks.
Dara
And the relief that you can feel from that. Like I say, this is somebody who has had more than almost 4000 people go through my get productive with G Suite course, where I take you through this exercise, and I teach you all the bells and whistles about Gmail. But like I have so many people who have gone through this exercise and said, Oh, I’ve had no I’ve had no regrets. You know, years later, they’re coming to me and saying, Oh, that was brilliant. I’m still using those tactics. So I say this from a place of experience, that that basically the kind of the secret to taming that Gmail inbox.
Kristen
Yeah, I will tell you mine often looks like a dumpster fire with so many things in it. And one suggestion I will share for TPT sellers, specifically I know a lot of us are on 45, other TPT, sellers, email lists. And some of that is because we like to see what everyone else is doing. Because it sometimes gives us ideas and things. But for me personally unsubscribing from other TPT sellers newsletters, who I am not ever going to purchase anything from because I’m not in the classroom anymore, has been really good for me in terms of cutting down on the comparison game of they’re doing this and I should be doing more. All of that comparison stuff just kind of goes out the window when I don’t see those. So whether you unsubscribe or send them straight to an archive, so you can look at them later. Those are some of I think the best things for us as TPT sellers to look at getting out of our inbox.
Kristen
I agree. And I the reason I’m an email hoarder is the marketer in me, I love to watch how other people do things. I want to be able to go back and read through someone’s launch emails. I mean, at least I say that to myself in the moment, but do I ever actually do it? Maybe not.
Kristen
I do sometimes I think when I need to write similar emails, then I’ll start looking to see how other people are addressing things. And of course not to copy them by any means. But just to get a little inspiration and kind of kick off the writing so that I’m not just staring at that cursor on the blank screen in ConvertKit.
Dara
Yeah, well, and I think you know, just on the on the topic of marketing and the topic of inspiration. What I also like is I like to do what appeals to me. So if something appeals to me, that means I want to appeal to others who appeal to me. There’s that reciprocity, f you’re yourself, then you attract other people who are like you, and so I want to make sure that I’m showing the most of my personality. So that the people who do who are drawn to me and who buy for me and To interact with me or my people. And so when I look at the marketing that lands in my inbox, what I’m really looking for is what did they do that got my attention. And I think that’s the thing that I like to kind of hang on to. So a little sidebar on that marketing topic.
Kristen
And I know one of my fears with skipping the inbox a lot of times is that I am going to miss out on that like one day window to get the 50% discount on that course I’ve been eyeing for six months. So do you have any tips for that sort of situation, or those ones where you just want to leave that person in your inbox?
Dara
Well, I mean, a couple of ways you could do it. One is that you could create a label for a couple of precious people. And on the sidebar, when you’re looking at your list of labels that show up on the side of your Gmail, you can click on the three dots and you can say show if unread. And so that what actually will happen is that label will show up on the left hand side in dark, if there’s new messages in the label. So you can keep an eye on that. That’s one way.
Dara
The other thing is, when you create a filter, you could actually add layers to that filter. So you could filter like if I wanted to see anything from Kristen, I want everything from Kristen to skip my inbox, except if the word TPT shows up in it. So if she doesn’t mention TPT, she can skip the inbox, or like what’s the name of your signature program, like if I have my eye on your program, what’s the name of your program?
Kristen
SEO for teacher authors.
Dara
So that I would have a minus and a bracket and SEO for teacher authors in brackets. And so basically, it would take the action on anything that has that’s from you, but doesn’t have this. So if it did have it, it would stay in the inbox. So you can actually get more complicated and you can layer those searches. A filter is just taking a set of criteria and taking action when a new email lands in your inbox with that criteria. You can even forward emails based on a filter.
Dara
So I’m just gonna throw this out there because I think it’s a really convenient feature of filter. But like my husband and I share an Amazon Prime account. And so when a n email from Amazon about any orders that we’ve placed, come into my inbox and forwards it to him automatically. So we both get a copy of it, as opposed to like him having to wait for me to get the email and forwarded to him. So it’s just like there’s a convenience factor when you’re automating those sorts of things. But anyways, your filter can be all kinds of complicated if you want it to be. And so if there’s something specific that you’re looking for, you can have it like, dance and jiggle in front of you know, you can even label it like, here’s the thing you’ve been waiting for, and turn that label red. And yeah, so there’s definitely ways around the skipping of the inbox, because it doesn’t have to be 100% of the emails.
Kristen
So you could even create extra layers in your label for things like if you want to see emails when someone is opening up registration for programs, but you don’t know the name of the program, or you want to know when they have a new program, you could always add a label for words like register or sign up or join those kinds of words that we always use when those new things are out.
Dara
Yeah, I think you kind of have to weigh the the benefits of the automation and like what you may or may not find. So if it’s important, if you’re waiting for something, then let it come to your inbox. So as I said, you can just toss it, you can archive it really easily. And in the automation, the layering of the search comes into the filter, because the filter is basically a search plus an action. So you’re gonna change the filter, which is that search criteria. So if you wanted to exclude, like you don’t want to be guessing. So I think that the example of a program you’ve been waiting for is the perfect one because you know the name of the program. But if it’s like you don’t know what’s coming, there’s that FOMO. So maybe that’s the person whose stuff you want to leave in the inbox. But it’s such a personal choice. Like every every gmail account out there is a snowflake, there are no two, two that are alike.
Kristen
They are all very different. One piece of advice, I’ve heard that I find myself thinking it’s great advice and not being able to follow is to only touch your emails once. So when you open it, deal with it and move on instead of leaving it in your inbox.
Dara
I like that concept. But again, as long as it doesn’t make you feel like a failure if you’re not doing it, you know, so I think it’s a great concept. Especially if you’re not a very like decisive person. If you tend to waffle and agonize, then that might be the right thing to work towards. But I don’t know like there’s a time and a place sometimes I like to see that there’s an email and come back to it later. Like I think touch twice is probably a little bit more realistic for most of us.
Kristen
Yeah, I think so too. Twice is I feel like if I only touch it twice I’m doing pretty good. I am trying very hard to get in the habit of hitting archive. Good not just skimming through an email and then leaving it in my inbox because that’s what I had been doing. And that’s how I ended up with 7000 emails in my inbox. And I feel overwhelmed.
Dara
Again, just be brutally honest with yourself, am I going to look at this again later. And if you’re not, then you just deal with it, you just archive it. Don’t lie to yourself about, about what’s really going to happen in the future. Because the reality is, and this is why somebody’s got 17,000 emails, and they’re only really going to look at the last few weeks of emails, there’s a concept called the broken window theory. I can’t remember how to describe why it’s a theory. But basically, it’s like if you have a building and like a derelict building in a crappy neighborhood, and the building has broken windows, what’s one more broken window.
Dara
So once the building already looks like crap, and the neighborhood’s already crap, you know, What’s one more broken window in this derelict building? And so the idea is, if you have a mess, what’s one more email, what’s one more thing on the pile? That applies to all of the concepts around organization. So the idea with my Inbox Zero exercise is now you have something you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And so the motivation to keep it that way exists. And that’s when the motivation is high, to be more honest with yourself archive more aggressively, and set up those filters.
Kristen
Yeah, we will definitely link to that page on your site in the show notes. So everybody can head over and get that and go through that process. Because I think we probably all need it, even though my inbox was down to about 20. Last week, and it is not there anymore.
Dara
Well, it was Black Friday, so you’re forgiven.
Kristen
Oh, it was! Yes, lots of emails. And I think what I’m going to do, as soon as we hop off this call is change my delete button on my app on my phone to the archive button. Because we do have a choice, whether the default button is delete or archive, I think I’m gonna make it archive so that it’s easier for me to just archive and move on.
Dara
There is also something that you can change in the settings. So if you go to the gear, and you click see all settings, and you on the general tab, you scroll down a little ways, you can actually activate a Send and Archive button. So when you reply to an email, and you click Send, instead of having to click Send, and then archive, there’s a button that does send an archive all at once. So that can help that.
Kristen
I will be doing that when we get off this call too, I love it. Well, let’s talk a little bit about Google Drives. So many of us as TPT sellers, we are keeping tons of files in Google Drive. Because it’s such a good way to share important files and resources with VAs that we might be working with, for us to access them in multiple places. And a lot of us are actually even selling Google Slides or Google Forms activities that teachers use in their classrooms, too. So what tips can you give us to keep that organized?
Dara
There’s so many things to say. One thing that jumped to mind that I want to make sure that everybody knows because you said the word VA is that even if you create a folder inside of your Google Drive, if someone else contributes to it. So if someone creates a file and puts that file into your folder, even if you are the folder owner, you do not own that file. So I just want to be really careful here because I have definitely seen situations where people have had a VA who disappeared or who deleted their Google account or something, sually not malicious, just oblivious. And the years go by, and suddenly you realize that, oh, there are files in here that I need, that I don’t own. And if they disappeared, I’d be in trouble. And so I just want to caution everyone. And it actually ties into the biggest topic that will lead us to a better organization and Google Drive, which is the advanced search. So at the very top of your Google Drive, you have a search bar. And on the right hand side of it, it looks like a little tuner and you hit that little tuner and a drop down comes and then you get all kinds of options.
Kristen
So I’m glad you brought this up. Because I actually had a very similar situation where years ago, I was letting people create things and just put them into a shared folder. Then I had to let a VA go and it was not a malicious situation. But we had some issues, and I had to let this VA go. And all of a sudden I realized I just essentially fired someone and now she owns all of these files. So definitely want to help other people avoid that situation.
Dara
Yeah, so there’s a couple of things that you’re going do. First of all, the solution is, and I’m gonna put a little asterix on this. So let’s say you have a folder, I drop a file into that folder from my Google account, it will tell you in your folder in the properties of that folder, you can see from the list who’s the owner, and if you click on that file, you can also see who the owner is. So as long as that file isn’t something that you have shared out publicly, and what I mean by that is, you know how you were saying that some people sell Google Slides or forms or whatever as part of their TPT business. So as long as the file itself is not the thing that’s been shared, like the file that I own that I dropped in your folder is not the thing that you’re selling.
Dara
As long as that’s not the case, all you have to do is actually make a copy for yourself. So and I’ll use as an example, when I was getting videos edited for my course, I gave my video editor access to the Google Drive folder, and he would give me back my video files, and he would drop them into the Google Drive folder. But he owned those files. And when I realized that all I had to do was, you know, Right Click Make a copy. And then I could just toss his because I have a copy. And that copy belongs to me, the simple answer is every one of those files that belongs to someone else, that is something you don’t want to ever chance losing access to, you’re going to make a copy of.
Dara
Now how are you going to find them? You’re going to find them by going into the Google Drive Advanced Search. So you’re going to click on that little filter in the address bar. And in there, you can choose I think it’s like the second line, and it says, like, owned by, or the owner is, and you could say not me, or as you had, in your case where you fired a specific VA, you could go and see files owned by and you can search for that person’s email address. So I would do both things. And I would basically take some time to audit what files exist in your Google Drive, that don’t belong to you.
Dara
And I’m not talking about things that were shared, I’m talking about, if I give you a link, and you click the link, that link shows up in shared with me. And that’s a whole other conversation, what I’m talking about is specifically files that are inside of your drive, that were contributed by someone else. So you want to do an audit and you want to make sure you’re going to cover your own ass in this situation, you’re going to make sure that the files that are there belong to you, or that you’ve made a copy of the ones that don’t. And that’s how you’re going to start with is using that advancer.
Dara
So, I started with the scary topic. But I think it’s just one of those things that honestly, until I started teaching the course about Google Drive, that was a nuance that even I hadn’t realized. It was this whole situation with the video editor. And even it was my sister who was working for me at the time. And she said, suddenly, my Google Drive is full. And what had happened was, she was downloading the file from him and uploading it to Vimeo. And she was loading it into my Google Drive as like an mp4 because he was giving me a zip file. She was loading in an mp4, but because she was signed in as her and not as me, it was taking up her storage space. And when we realized that was happening, she went through, signed in as me, made copies and cleared up her storage space.
Dara
But it hadn’t even occurred to me until we were doing a big project like that, that was what was happening. So I like to just make sure I like to educate people on this like little facet as much as I can. And I know I get very excited when I talk about these sorts of things. But let’s go back to that search bar. Okay, because how to organize your Google Drive. I said it before with email, and I’m gonna repeat it because it’s the exact same thing when it comes to files is you don’t actually have to file it, you just have to be able to find it.
Dara
Now, that doesn’t mean everything goes in a giant pile and you have no folders. I’m not saying that. But I am saying that the more important thing to do is to name a file, than it is to put it in the exact right file folder structure. So where I was saying before that some people have like this perfectionist that feels like everything needs to be exactly filed in the exact right spot. I’m here to say, hey, sometimes we’re in a hurry. Sometimes I’m like, oop, I don’t know if you knew this, you probably do know this. But I’m going to tell your audience anyway, if you go into the address bar, and you type in doc dot new or sheet dot new in the address bar, it creates a new document or a new sheet. So suddenly, I’m in the bathroom, I’m struck with inspiration, and I want to immediately compose something, I come to my computer, I open a new tab, I type doc dot new and I start writing.
Kristen
That’s amazing. I actually did not know.
Dara
Oh, you did not know? Well, it’s amazing. But my point is, is that I didn’t start by filing it somewhere. I started by just like doing the thing. And before I leave that file, I’m going to make sure that I put in the file name, something that is descriptive enough, that will help me find it in future. And that means that if I am then lazy, and I then don’t file it, I can still find it. So there’s always going to be levels to how well you can be organized. And I will say that one of my resistances to using Google Drive for a long time had to do the with the web interface. I didn’t like that it was like the single dimension like to move things around, to clean things up, to rename files was very onerous because I was used to working with my computer. Where when I’m on a PC, I could hit f2 and then type in a new file name. Well on Google Drive, I have to like right click and look down this long list and choose Rename or edit or whatever they call it. And then I have to wait for it to pop like it was the rhythm of it was more onerous, and I hated doing that.
Dara
Now here’s the next thing. And this is actually going to answer one of the questions that you got from Instagram yesterday, because one of your questions was around how to organize your files more easily? Or do I have to download to my computer and then upload it to Drive? I think was the question. Well, there is a Google Drive app. So if you go and you Google, download Google Drive, Google those words, you can download and you can install Google Drive as a program on your computer, just like Dropbox, or just like OneDrive, like it operates the same way. And what it does is it creates a spot in your finder or in your file explorer, depending on your Mac or PC. And then you can actually navigate to the folders and you can move files around. And you can rename them with the computer interface, you can open up two windows side by side or to find your side by side and move files throughout your google drive without having to use that flat two dimensional web based Google Drive.
Dara
So all of that preamble is to say that my best practice for cleaning up your Google Drive is not to clean up the past, it’s to plan for the future. So that you stop for a moment, and you’re like, Okay, I’ve been in business for X number of years or months. And probably what you thought your business needed in terms of structure and organization, when you started is not what it is today. You’re gonna say, Okay, well, based on today, what structure should I set up if I was starting from scratch with everything that I know, but I have like this beautiful clean slate? And you go and you create those folders, and then you pull in anything you actively need. And everything else can stay archived, you don’t have to organize the past to move forward.
Dara
The nice thing about starting fresh from today with whatever you think you need today, I’m just pulling in kind of like the Inbox Zero exercise where you’re just keeping a few things that are still active and current. You just pull in like, Oh, I’m actively working on this, these products or these programs, or whatever, and you pull in just the stuff that’s current, and you leave everything else, like just a couple of clicks away, you can make a big folder called archive. And the nice thing about doing that is you also get to practice using your new system, like you get to practice it, and then you get to adjust it over time. And on a rainy day, or maybe you have a big glass of wine and some friends reruns on the background. And you can sit there and you can refile your archives to your heart’s content. But don’t let the archives, don’t let the past stop you from moving forward.
Dara
And in advance when you were sending me some thoughts about what we were talking about, one thing that you said to me really made what I’m about to say, stand out to me as like an important thing. The biggest barrier to getting started is people thinking they need to deal with the past. And if I give you permission to leave the past behind, and to just move forward with a new system. If I give you that permission, how much lighter and easier does it feel? How much more excited are you about it ? It’s like if you moved into a new house, and the new house had all of the custom closets you’ve ever wanted, and you only have to come and put away the things that you actually use and not your 20 years of accumulation?
Dara
Like how nice and clean would that house be. So that’s my giant Spiel all about Google Drive is use the search bar. So the name your file, with searching for them in mind. And then create a folder structure or an organization system for who you are and who your business is today moving forward. And then don’t worry about the archives. You can do it if that’s in your in your nature. And you’re like, I definitely want to do that someday. Do that someday. But don’t let that be the barrier that stops you from moving forward.
Kristen
Right. And one trick that I have used, I haven’t done it in Google Drive. But I’m going to today now that you mentioned it, I created an archive file in Canva. Because it was also a hot mess. Canva was one of those it’s easy to make a mess out of. And what I did archive starts with a which of course means it’s at the top and it’s the thing you’re seeing constantly. I put a Z instead, so my archive is called zarchiver. So now it’s at the bottom and you don’t have to think about it. And I told myself with my Canva archive, when I have to go in there to get something, then I’ll put it where it belongs. If I need it, then I’ll put it where it goes.
Dara
I completely agree. And the other thing that I do is kind of the opposite of the archive, which is I create an inbox. And I put an underscore, so it’s like underscore inbox. But at some point in my past, it used to be zero inbox, just so that alphabetically it sits at the top. And what I put in there is stuff that I’m actively working on, but that I’m not going to be bothered to file right now. And sometimes that Inbox folder has other folders in it. So it’d be like, oh, let’s say I bought your course. And I’m going to create a folder for your course. And I’m not going to like store it away with all of the hundreds of courses I’ve already got in my courses folder, because I’m actively working on it, so I’m gonna create the folder for your course and I’m gonna put it in the inbox and then I’m gonna put stuff in there that relates to me taking your course.
Dara
So it’s like an active project or you could even call it like q4, you know, like, you can name it whatever you want. But the reason I thought of it was because of you You in the Z-archive. But the underscore inbox and that sits at the top. And I have that everywhere I have that in my email, I have it in my OneDrive, and I have it in Google Drive. And it’s just like, things that are important that I will file, but I’m not filing right now. But they’re gonna be like, kind of easy to find.
Kristen
I love that strategy. That also like you said, makes it easy to find things you’re actively working on, without having to click through two or three or four levels of folders to get to them in their nice organized home that they will eventually maybe go to.
Dara
Or if you have already organized them, but you’re actively working on them, you can also create shortcuts in Google Drive. So you can right click on anything, and you can say Create Shortcut. And all that does is just create a shortcut to the deeper folder. And I like that as well.
Kristen
And I do create shortcuts. And I love that one thing I love about shortcuts is when I’m working with someone else who has created a folder, I can create a shortcut to that folder they shared so that it lives right in my Drive, instead of me having to go to things that were shared with me. And then try to remember where they put it and can create those right in my own drive. In fact, I have probably five folders that are called Kristin Doyle where I worked with someone on some project and they made a folder with my name on it. And I put whatever that project is in parentheses at the end. So I can tell them apart and create shortcuts on my Google Drive so I can find things.
Dara
Yeah, so And two things come up when you say that one is you can rename shortcuts. So exactly the scenario you’re describing your work with someone, your Kristen Doyle folder makes sense in their computer, but it doesn’t make sense on yours, because it doesn’t tell you what it is. And then you can actually rename that shortcut on your end. The other thing that you can do is you can bookmark folders and files. So in your bookmarks bar inside of Google Chrome, I do this all the time, I will start a bookmarks folder for courses that I’m taking. Because there’s often links and I mean, there’s a link to the Facebook group a link to the community a link to the course material, a link to the resources that are provided. I would also include a link to the Google Drive folder, I use that bookmarks bar. Also, I actually probably bookmark more Google Drive folders and files than I ever go to directly to Google Drive and use the search bar. Because if I know if I’m going to use it, my drafts of my blog posts, it’s a bookmark in my bookmarks bar, I don’t ever go to Google Drive and search for it or whatever. It’s a bookmark.
Kristen
Yeah, I love that, especially for those things we use frequently. I should be bookmarking my podcast folder so that I don’t have to go through and find it. I can just get right to my show notes.
Dara
Yeah, saving all this little time, because it’s not just about the time that you save. It’s also about the bandwidth. Because how many times are we like, what time is it? And the next thing, you know, five minutes has gone by and you’ve been looking at your phone, and going down some rabbit hole of answering some Facebook comment, you’re like, I came here to find out what time it is, I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve been looking at my phone. I find that the same thing happens when I open up my email to find something specific. And then I get distracted by new messages or I open up Google Drive and the faster you can get to the thing, when you think of it, if you can make it only one or two clicks away, it just means that you stay on task. So it’s not always about saving the 60 seconds of search time. It’s really the bandwidth that I believe is the more important time saver is like not being not getting distracted by other things and staying on the path towards whatever you are working on.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you are thinking about this from a mental load standpoint to not just keeping our inboxes clean and keeping our Google Drive organized. But what that does for us, just from that mental workload.
Dara
The human perspective. Yeah, totally.
Kristen
Absolutely. This has been so good. I’ve learned a lot. And I’m super excited to put some things into practice. Right after we get off this call. How would you suggest that we prioritize where to start and what to focus on?
Dara
I would say try not to do everything all at once. So pick one thing what’s the one thing that’s irritating you now? And what can you do a little bit by little bit that makes tomorrow easier? That makes the tomorrow version of you appreciative of yesterday you so inside of my course I actually have a bit from Jerry Seinfeld, where he talks about morning guy and night guy and he’s like morning guy hates night guy. Night guy forgets to shave and he doesn’t iron his tie, like whatever it is that night guy does because he’s lazy and he stays up till three in the morning and morning guy wakes up and he’s cursing night guy. And there’s just constantly these little things that we can do in our everyday lives, whether it’s like business related, whether it’s your email or your Google Drive, or like filling up your car with gas on the way home so you don’t have to do it in the morning when you’re running out the door.
Dara
What are the things? You should start start thinking about, What can I do that will make tomorrow me appreciate yesterday me? There’s all kinds of things the moment I started looking at the world that way. I was like, How many times do I kind of suffer through doing something that I know if I took a few minutes now would make things faster for me or easier for me later. And I just started doing them. And then every time I do that thing again, every time I create that bookmark, instead of doing that search, I’m like, Oh, I’m so happy I did this. So what are the little things? What are the things that you can chip away at? Because I think the other problem that we encounter, or the resistance that we encounter is like making sweeping changes is scary, and time consuming. But if we make one little change, and then another little change, then this snowball effect comes into play. And the next thing you know, you look back, and you’re like, who was that person three months ago, I’m a better version. And I’m so grateful to all of the little changes that I’ve made over time.
Kristen
Yeah, I love that. And I know my audience is always looking for what their action step is at the end of an episode, and this is it. Find that one thing that you can do today, and then start taking some baby steps? Definitely is the action step. Well, I want to before we hop off here, hit some, can we do some rapid fire? Quick answer questions?
Dara
Definitely.
Kristen
Is it proper to download a file to my computer and add it to Google Drive, then a erase it? Or is there a better way?
Dara
So this is the question that I was answering about downloading the application like the Google Drive app, because instead of downloading it to your computer, you just download it directly where it belongs inside of Google Drive. And one key step that might be required is to change the setting inside of Chrome. So if you hit the three dots in the upper right, and you go to settings, and in the search bar, you type in the word down or start to type the word downloads, there’s a little toggle. And if you turn that toggle on, and it says, ask me where to save downloaded files. What happens is, instead of it downloading it to your desktop, or your downloads folder, which becomes just a dumping ground. Instead, you get a pop up window that says, Where do you want to save this? And even though a minute ago, I was like, do everything you can to save time, this is exactly one of those things where even though it’s an extra couple of clicks, you are doing the tomorrow version of you a favor, by saving it in the right place in the first place. So this solves the problem of downloading, uploading and having to delete, this turns it into a single step of downloading it directly to Google Drive. So then there’s no deleting, and it is already stored where it needs to go
Kristen
Love that, I have a whole list of things to do when we get off here, but they’re all gonna take, like 12 seconds. So I love it. Let’s see, what do you think is the most helpful Google tool that is under utilized?
Dara
It’s either Google Tasks, or Google Keep. Google Keep us like this really versatile application, it’s basically notes. And within it, you can also have some tasks in there. And it will integrate with your calendar, as will Google Tasks. So I think both of those things are underutilized. And even though I believe in using like full on project management tools for certain things, when I’m using something like Asana, a third party app for a project, what gets lost in there is everything.
Dara
So like, if I have to pay a bill or follow up or send an email, like a very specific, very time sensitive thing, I want that in my calendar. And I find that if it’s mixed in with other bigger, longer to do lists, that it’s easy for me to just be late on those, and then therefore miss the really important stuff. So personally, I bring in Google Tasks for like those super important things. I don’t use it for project management. But if it’s like oh, send out that reminder, email, or whatever it is, like pay your assistant or whatever, like the prompts that I need. I put it in Google Tasks, because I first of all, like the validation of checking the boxes, it’s complete, but I also really liked that it shows in my calendar, because then I’m so much less likely to miss it. Because right there, my calendar runs my life like it.
Kristen
That sounds like a great way if you’re looking to transition from planning out your work week on a paper calendar, to keeping more of that stuff digitally. That sounds like a really good tool for just planning out what I need to get done this week even.
Dara
Yeah, I agree with that, for sure.
Kristen
I live by my calendar, too. Here’s a good one. How can I move all my pictures from one Google account to another? And I’ll add, I don’t know if this makes it any more complicated. But I know just for perspective, a lot of us started our businesses with free account. So it’s at gmail.com. And we then bought Google workspace and we have domain accounts now. So we’re trying to move sometimes from that old free one into the one we’re using for everything.
Dara
Okay, so there’s two different ways to answer this question. And it depends on where those photos are stored. So if the photos are inside of Google Photos like photos.google.com, not inside of Google Drive as files, the photos are in Google Photos, there is a way to move your photos from one Google account to another by creating an album and sharing the album with another user. And then on the other user end, and you make sure and I don’t remember off the top of my head exactly what the steps are. But it’s basically, it’s not just view access. It’s like edit access or something, I’m using the wrong terminology. But basically, what happens is, then you can delete that photo folder, like you can delete the whole album, and the photo stay on the on the new account.
Dara
So I would test that out, create an album, share it put like three photos in there that you don’t care about. And then test it, make sure that if you delete it, it stays on the other side. If that works, then you can do the same thing with everything. So that’s if it’s Google Photos.
Dara
If it’s Google Drive, this is an interesting one, because moving Google Drive files is unfortunately, not an easy task from moving it to from one account to another. And the reason is, because Docs and Sheets and Slides and forms are for file types that are native to a web browser and to Google. And especially if you’ve shared those with anyone else or made them public. If you download it, it downloads it as a Word doc, an Excel sheet, a PowerPoint presentation, and forms don’t download all the downloads as the data from the forms. So what happens is, if you try to download those files and upload them, those four file types only, then you basically lose a lot of functionality. However, photos don’t have that problem. So anything that’s like a video file, or a PDF, or an image file, can 100% be downloaded to your computer and uploaded to another user.
Dara
So what I would do is I would use that search bar, I guess it kind of depends on how things are organized. Hopefully, they’re all in a similar folder. But basically, you would group them all together very intentionally as something that you want to download together. So you would find those photos, and maybe put them all in a folder, or multiple folders. But there’s a program that most people don’t know about, and it’s called takeout.google.com. And it’s basically Google’s way of saying you can have your data anytime and you can download it anytime.
Dara
Now, some of it works really well and some of some of the doesn’t. If you tried to use Google Takeout for your emails, well it gives you a JSON file. And I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with that, like, it definitely definitely doesn’t make it so that you can read your emails. But what will happen if you go to takeout.google.com, it shows you like the 50 plus different apps that all potentially have your data in them. And you’re going to unselect all and you’re going to go just down to Google Drive. And from there, you should be able to download just a folder. So if you’ve created a folder with all your photos in them, if the photos are stored stored in Google Drive, in this scenario for this person who asked this question. Then you should be able to download that entire folder using Google Takeout. Or you may be able to just do it directly from Google Drive, and you right click on that folder and you say download.
Dara
You’re going to bring it to your computer, it’s going to come in as a zipped file. And then you’re going to want to unzip it, and then re upload it to the other account. I definitely recommend using the Google application to do this. And I’ll tell you why. Let’s say you have 1000 photo files, while dragging and dropping onto the two dimensional web version, it takes up a lot of time. And you have to do it in chunks. Because if you tried to do 1000 at once, and something stopped or hiccups in the middle of it, you wouldn’t know what hadn’t been done. So you really want to take it like 100 files at a time or something like that. And if you were doing it in the computer application version, you take all those files, you drop them in, and they’re there. And even though they might take a while to upload to the cloud, they will synchronize until they’re uploaded. Whereas if you drag and drop onto the web version of Google Drive, you never know what didn’t upload. So it’s just a much more foolproof way to do it if you’re doing it through the application. So and that was a long answer. But it’s a great question that one that I get all the time. And I think it’s important to understand the distinction between the file types with Google Drive, if you’re moving files, and then of course, Google Photos is its own thing.
Kristen
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here and giving us all these tips are welcome. Get ourselves organized on Google and stay that way, you have a ton of things available. As far as courses and resources to help us get organized. Tell us just a little bit about a couple of those maybe, and where my listeners can find you.
Dara
For sure. So the best thing to do would be to start with my like very highly reviewed freebie, which is called the top 40 time saving Google hacks you’ll wish you’d been using all along. And it’s a 40 page PDF that basically takes you through a bunch of different applications. So it’s not just about Gmail or Drive, it actually touches on all the different apps, calendar and Docs and all of this, and it just gives you a bunch of little bite sized hacks. basically that you can use and that’s a freebie. And if you go to withdara.com/top 40, you’ll find it. And Kristen will probably link to that in the show notes. And the other thing that I have is a course that at the time of this recording is only $37. But it’s actually really comprehensive. There’s a module on each of the major Google products, Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Keep, Contacts, and Chrome, those are the primary ones. And then there’s a bunch of other bonuses. It’s quite a comprehensive course. But it’s highly, highly reviewed. I have almost 4000 students in there at this stage. And that is definitely, if you are a user of Google products, and you want to just kind of level up your productivity within those products. That’s exactly why I built the course! I’ll let you link to that in the show notes. Because you’ve probably got a an affiliate link that will make sure that people are using to make that purchase.
Kristen
Yes, absolutely. And I will say I have that freebie. And I probably need to go revisit it because I’ve had it for I don’t know a while now, maybe as long as I’ve known you. So I should probably go back and revisit that freebie. But I remember flipping through it the first time and thinking, wow, I had no idea I’ve been using Google for, I don’t know, 15-20 years now probably, how old is Google?
Dara
Yeah, it’s at least 15 years old. And you know, the interesting thing about that PDF was, I think it’s just about a year since I released it. And it took me months to put it together. Like I wasn’t obviously working on it full time. But like I conceived of the title, like in July, and I think I released it in December or something, it was kind of crazy how long it took me to put it together. But I looked the other day, I’ve had like 1200 people download it, I was like, totally floored. And I get people constantly showing up on my email list from this freebie. And like I couldn’t be happier just because I know it’s so value packed. And each one of the pages links to so it’s like a little recipe card that’s like do this, this, this this. And then it actually has a little link in the lower left every single one of those 40 tips, links to a blog post that gives you like more wordy explanation of how things work. So yeah, very value packed.
Kristen
Awesome. And we will link to that as well as your social in the show notes so that people can find you and get connected and learn all the Google things. Because I know we all desperately need it. Thank you so much for being here today.
Dara
And thanks for inviting me. This is awesome. I think this is such a topical topic for New Year, new fresh starts and everybody’s in that mood. So excited to have your gang of listeners getting more productive.
Kristen
Absolutely. And with it being the new year. I love that you talked about just starting fresh and letting the old stuff just be archived and we’ll deal with it later or not. And starting fresh where we are.
Dara
Yeah, I heard a statistic and it was like you don’t touch 80% of the files that are on your computer like ever again. Like oh, that’s a great reason not to have to worry about it.
Kristen
Awesome. Well, thank you.
Kristen
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it and you got a lot out of what you heard, make sure that you go and follow Dara on Instagram and download her freebie that we just talked about. There are so many things I learned from that freebie when I downloaded it and just amazing things I never knew I could do. So go grab that freebie for sure and follow her on Instagram you’ll find all of her information for the freebies that she talked about, as well as her social media links and the link to her course in this show notes for this episode will be at Kristen doyle.co/episode27. Talk to you soon.
Kristen
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to Kristendoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.
