If you don’t spend some time organizing your Google Drive it is very easy for it to become a mess. A messy Drive can lead to extra time being wasted trying to find important files. Below are 3 of my favorite tips for organizing your Google Drive.
Organize your folders by school year and have an organizational documents folder
One of the easiest ways to organize your Google Drive is to create a folder for the school year. At the beginning of ever school year I create a folder for that year and label it with the school year (e.g. 18-19, 19-20, etc.) Everything that I create during that year is placed into that folder. Even if you do not create sub folders this will help with making sure everything is organized by school year.
For your documents that do not change year to year you can create an Organizational Documents folder.
Create an archive folder
If the sidebar of your Google Drive is starting to feel crowded consider creating an 🗄️ Archive folder. Place any files or folders in your Archive that you still need but do not need to see on a daily basis. For example, at the end of every school year or big project, I move my school year folder to the Archive. Since the Archive folder is a regular folder in your Google Drive you can still view everything in it by navigating with the sidebar.
Use a common naming convention
Like most Google products the search feature in Drive is super powerful. One way I have found to make it even better is to use a naming convention for your files. Naming conventions allow us to quickly see important information about a file before we even open it.
For example, if I just called a Google Sheet Bell Schedule there would be no quick way to identify what year it is for or if I work at multiple sites what site it is for. Instead, consider naming your file 19-20 My School Bell Schedule. By only looking at the file name you can quickly identify what the file is about, who it is for, and when it is for.