- In this video, I'm gonna show you the best way to organize
all of your digital business files.
Hey, everyone.
Megan here from meganminns.com,
where I help busy entrepreneurs like you
save time while running their business.
As business owners, it can be very easy
to let all of your digital and electronic files pile up.
But by taking a few minutes to set up
a filing structure that works for you,
it will not only be easy to maintain,
but you'll know where to find everything
the moment you need it.
So let's get started.
I use Google Drive to store and organize all of my files.
And if you haven't signed up for Google Drive yet,
I do have a link below this video
that you can go ahead and sign up right now.
You get 15 gigabytes for free to start off,
if you sign up for the Google Apps for Work,
which is now called G Suite.
You can actually get unlimited storage,
which is what I have, and you can see I definitely need it.
In my Google Drive, I have five folders.
Archived, which is where I store outdated files
and folders that are no longer relevant.
Education, which is where I save e-books, PDFs,
and any resources that I am using
to continue to learn and educate myself.
Megan Minns, this is my home base for my business files,
so I'll dig a little bit more into this in a minute.
Personal, which is where I store all of my personal files.
And Website in a Box.
Now, Website in a Box has its own folder
because it is a separate co-created product
between Mariah Coz and I,
so that's why it's not underneath my business folder.
Since we're going to be talking
about how to organize your business files,
I'm gonna focus on this business folder.
So, if we open it up you can see
that I have six folders within here
and I have found that this arrangement works really well.
I actually got the foundation for this structure
from a blog post from a friend of mine named Maya Elias
so I'll link to her original blog post beneath this video
so you can check it out
and you'll also see how I have customized it
and modified it to work for me.
So the first folder is called Brand Elements,
then we have Content and Products,
Finances and Accounting, Internal Communication,
Legal Documents, and Miscellaneous.
So, if you open up the Brand Elements folder
you'll see that I have all the different
types of brand elements you might need,
whether that's b-roll, so background video,
background footage for videos, my bio,
my business cards, fonts, headshots,
intro videos, music, styled stock photos,
photos for my website and all that good stuff.
This is really helpful because I'm not only
keeping files organized, but when I added a VA
and a video editor to my team
it was so easy to share the exact brand elements
that they needed to use to help me run my business,
plus it's so nice to always know where these things are.
The Content and Products folder
is definitely the biggest folder
and this is every type of content or product
that might exist in my business,
so that can go from affiliate promotions
to challenges or courses, e-books, free downloads I offer,
my newsletter, any random tech tutorials,
webinars, and, of course, my YouTube videos
so whatever kind of content
and products that you're creating in your business,
it would be great to go ahead
and create a folder for each of them
and some of these folders, just as a little tip,
are actually empty, but they're great reminders for me
that I want to do these things
so I don't have an e-book or an email course yet,
but I want to so just by having the folder there,
it really motivates me and reminds me
that this is something I do want to create for my business.
Next is the Finances and Accounting folder.
I am actually not going to go into that in detail,
but you can see at a high level that I have
a place for budget, invoices, goals, income trackers,
and receipts, so whatever kind of financial
and accounting documentation you need for your business,
go ahead and give it its own folder.
Again, this is also great to keep separate
because when you do start to grow a team,
there's gonna be certain folders you want to share
with your team and other folders that you won't,
so it kinda helps keep the separation there.
Internal Communication, for me this means anything
that's just about the actual team
and things that the team needs,
but don't really see the light of day
outside of our business.
So maybe this is some strategy,
customer service templates, goals and planning,
meeting notes, interviews, operations is a general folder
that I share with my virtual assistant
so we can share processes and time sheets
and all that good stuff,
so internal communication will continue to grow
as I expand my team and get better
about documenting things that we do as a team.
Now, Legal Documents.
This is where I store all of my templates,
so any legal templates I have
as well as signed contracts,
any licenses and website policies.
So, again, highly recommend that you have
a legal documents folder.
It just really helps things stay where they need to be
and you know where to find the important stuff
when you need it.
Now, the Miscellaneous folder is kind of a catch all
so when I was rebranding, I had a folder for it in here
where I kept all of that, you know, the questionnaire,
inspiration, I could actually probably go ahead
and archive this now that I have rebranded,
but for now it's still sitting in Miscellaneous.
Research and inspiration is a big catch all folder
for all those screen grabs that I capture
when I see an inspiring sales page
or a great thank you page
or I love how someone did a welcome sequence.
I'll capture all of that inspiration
and store it all here
so I can always go back and see it
and I don't have to dig around in my computer.
Then I recently added this catch all folder called To File.
This is not an ideal system,
but if you want to just be realistic,
sometimes you need to go ahead and upload things
to Google Drive so they're off your computer,
but maybe you don't have time
to necessarily organize them
so I created this little catch all To File folder
that is just at temporary placeholder
when I want to go ahead and backup something,
but I don't have time to actually go ahead and organize it.
So, hopefully this'll be something I eliminate
but for now it's there and it does work to ensure
that everything is still backed up.
So, that is the inside of my business folder.
I have found this structure to be really successful.
I have used it on a team of one
up to a team of six or more
and it's very, very effective,
easy to use, easy to stay organized,
and something that I hope you
will implement in your business.
Now you know how to organize your files,
but I understand if you didn't have a few minutes
to work through this alongside me,
so that's why I created a free file organizing cheat sheet
when you do have a few minutes to tackle this project.
You can download this free cheat sheet right now
by clicking the link in the corner of this video
or below this video.
After you've finished organizing your files,
I want you to come back and leave a comment below
this video and let me know.
If you thought this video was helpful,
please subscribe, share it with your friends,
and hit the Like button below
so I know to make more videos like this.
I'll see you in the next one.
It's so easy to let all of our files pile up
and get organized.
Oh no, unorganized.
Disorganized? Unorganized?
It's so easy to let all of our electron--
Oh, why do I keep ...
Digital or electronic?
It's so easy to let all of our (gibberish).
One of those should be okay.