Digital Organization with Lisa McH podcast
Tasha and Lisa talk about how digital clutter feels harder than physical clutter. Lisa explains that, with something like a kitchen drawer, you generally know where things go. But with digital stuff, like your downloads folder, it’s not so obvious. It’s harder to make decisions because digital files are often a mix of everything.
Links in Episode:
THE OPPOSITE OF PHYSICAL DECLUTTERING
Lisa shares that, unlike physical organizing where you declutter first, digital organizing works better when you set up the system first. Think of it like containers. You wouldn’t dump out a whole drawer if you didn’t have anything to organize it into.
It’s the same for digital files. It’s easier to declutter once you know where things are supposed to go.
If you start decluttering first, you’ll constantly be wondering, “Where should I put this?” or “Should I keep this?” and it can become overwhelming. So, having your structure or general folders set up first will help.
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT
Lisa encourages us to just start with some folders and see how it goes. Unlike physical systems, digital systems are easy to change. We can rename folders and move things around.
You don’t need to get it perfect from the beginning. Sometimes you don’t even know what type of system will work for you until you try something.
Lisa emphasizes that there is no one right way to organize things. If it works for you, and it’s not stealing time or energy then it’s the right system.
MAKING DECISIONS
Tasha brings up how people often want someone to just tell them what tool to use. Should they use Google Drive, Dropbox, etc? It really doesn’t matter because they are basically the same. The important part is choosing something and moving forward.
An example is trying to organize recipes. Even if you dump them all into one big “Recipes” folder, that’s still better than having them scattered in 100 different places. You can always come back and add subfolders later.
MAKE IT WORK FOR YOUR BRAIN
It took Lisa several years to come up with a folder system that really clicked for her. She loves using subfolders, but knows that’s not for everyone.
Some people would never want to click through lots of folders. So for them, just dumping things in a few folders works better.
It’s like a dresser drawer. One drawer may have all socks in it. Another may hold all your pajamas. At least you know which drawer to look in to find what you need.
JUST SAVE THINGS IN ONE PLACE
One of Lisa’s best tips is to get in the habit of consolidating. If you find a recipe you like, copy and paste it into a Google Doc and save it there. Or make it a PDF and save it in a folder.
Then you can just go to that folder and you know it’s in there somewhere.
RECAP OF LISA’S GET ORGANIZED HQ SESSION
Lisa shares that in her GOHQ Virtual session, she answered the questions most frequently asked such as where to start, what platform to use, and how to organize files.
She gives both answers and action steps so people can take action while they’re actually watching.
LESS STRESS, MORE PEACE
Lisa says take a bit of a hiatus from social media has given her more peace. She is doing less doom scrolling and filling her time with other things she enjoys such as reading and baking.
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