if you're here from my first video on
how I organize my email in my inbox
welcome back it's minimalism crush time
level 2 if you're not though this is
part two in a series that I'm doing on
like I said digital minimalism where I
talk about all the different areas of my
digital life and how I have simplified
and streamlined things to get more done
to be more focused less distracted and
to not lose stuff so today I'm talking
about file structure and organization on
my desktop and on Google Drive this is
my desktop it has absolutely no files on
it it's just really nice when you're
turning on your computer in the morning
to not have anything jump out at you
it's a clean slate however I'm a normal
human being I obviously have files like
anybody else so where do I store them
well the short answer is Google Drive
but there's a longer answer to that
because I don't like being fully reliant
on the internet you know you don't
always have a connection so let's just
jump into Google Drive really quick okay
so let's talk about my organization in
the drive as you can see here there's
one folder that I very originally called
folders this is the same as in my email
in my gmail accounts it's just a nice
way for me to tuck everything away has a
very nice clean look and it's welcoming
I even picked the color intentionally if
I open that up you will find I have four
major categories that correspond exactly
once again with my email categories so I
have Daniel Drew which is my presence
online and might work with YouTube work
which is freelance jobs that I do as a
filmmaker and photographer
once again I'm trying to transition from
here to here personal so anything that
doesn't fit into these two and then
money
the numbering and organization matches
my email as well as the colors and that
just helps me to maintain consistency
across my life and across platforms over
time you start to associate a certain
color like blue in this case to a
certain category or part of your life
which for me in this case is the tangled
room I might work on YouTube so this is
a really cool pared down way to organize
things
make it inviting if I go further in and
you can also navigate on the side here
so I can show you my folder structure
I have many levels of organization it
goes pretty deep and some people have an
issue doing this they're afraid of
creating too many folders and over
complicating their organization I find
that as long as you're being very
specific with your labeling of your
folders it's very easy to find whatever
it is that you're looking for it's also
helpful once again to color code the
different parts of my life and also to
number folders so that I see them in the
order that I want to see them some of
these details might seem I don't know a
little excessive or a little bit strict
and unnecessary but I find that these
little details help make the process
more seamless and I don't even think
about it now you know I just go straight
to what I need to get I gave a warning
about this in my previous video but it's
really important to not label folders
vaguely because you're not gonna
remember what's in them so bad labels
are random miscellaneous other that just
doesn't work so just to share really
quickly some of the folders that I use
to break things down within Nathaniel
Drew they might work on YouTube I've
split things up into video and
photography work is organized very
similarly I break it down into current
projects finances what I do as an entity
write business documents and archives a
lot of the labels overlap with Gmail
once again and that helps me stay really
organized alright so here's where things
get really cool so if I come up here
into the top right corner and press the
Settings button you can see you can get
back up in sync for in this case it's
the Mac but you can also get it for PC I
have a PC and it works great on there
and this is basically software that
Google has created so that you can sync
up everything that you have on your
Google Drive onto your computer so what
this ended up doing was creating this
little button up here on the top that
backs things up automatically and if I
hit this button it opens up this Google
Drive folder that I have on my computer
local
that has the exact same folder structure
and all the same documents within it
I would definitely still recommend
creating a further back up on an
external hard drive and leave it
somewhere separate but this is a cool
way to have access to things both online
and locally if you need another cool
thing that this software does is if I'm
back here in Google Drive and I click
over here on the left you'll see under
computers I have my connected computers
if you will I can access certain folders
I set it so that if I ever leave
anything any folders on my desktop it'll
automatically sync that to the drive so
if I were to create something and store
a few files you're on the desktop
because that's convenient for me and
that's something I like to do I can set
it up so that Google Drive has access to
that and everything stays in one place
it just simplifies things you're not
having to worry about syncing everything
up and you have consistency no matter
where you go so that pretty much covers
my system with organizing files it's as
simple as possible intentionally I
really just like simplicity in general
and if something isn't really simple and
easy for me to follow
I usually don't follow through with it
so once again this requires some upfront
work but once you have a system in place
that you are committed to it just it's
amazing how much easier it is to find
what you're looking for to not get
pulled away by distractions it's just
wonderful it makes working a lot more
enjoyable for me and of course if you're
interested in seeing more content like
this on digital minimalism hit that
subscribe button if you haven't already
and I have more episodes coming in the
next few weeks that I'm really excited
to share ok awesome I think I have said
everything that I need to say I'll see
you guys soon
you