Organize the Chaos - How to Streamline Your Efforts

If you’ve ever wasted too much time searching, redownloading, or recreating files because you couldn’t find them, join the club! Women entrepreneurs need an organized business, but saving files isn’t the same as effectively organizing them. 

When things get out of control, they slow you down, add unnecessary stress, and make running your business harder. Disorganization is one of the biggest time wasters in business. 

One minute, you’re saving a client workbook or a new brand template; the next, you’re scrolling through a sea of random file names and duplicates, trying to figure out where you put that perfect thumbnail.

Plus, our digital spaces can work against us. Common ones like Google Drive and Canva quickly become messy without a good system. 

Focusing on these spaces is one of my best organization tips.

In this article, I’ll show you how to start taming Drive and Canva by auditing your files.

I’ll go over:

• The costs of disorganized files
• The method and steps I use to get organized
• A tutorial for taking the first step: auditing your files

What Happens When You Don’t Have an Organized Business? 

There was a time when I had hundreds of Canva designs—lead magnets, social media templates, client presentations—floating around in a mess of untitled files. 

My Google Drive wasn’t any better. I had old, duplicated files saved across multiple places, and I could never remember which version was the most up-to-date. It was overwhelming, frustrating, and a massive time suck. 

The worst part? 

I had no idea how much time I’d lost until I finally fixed it. I also didn’t realize how much stress it had caused. Needless to say, it was eye-opening. These realizations strengthened my determination to ensure I stayed organized moving forward. 

3 Major Ways Disorganization Harms You and Your Business

1. You Waste Time

Constant micro-delays—little interruptions that chip away at your focus and productivity - derail productivity and effectiveness.

Each time you stop what you’re doing to dig through Google Drive or Canva, you lose valuable time. Instead of quickly grabbing a template, you’re scrolling endlessly through poorly labeled files. Or, you spin your wheels re-downloading or recreating a file. Hours you’ve put aside for work are quickly derailed, and wasted time adds up. Imagine how much time you lose over, say, a year.

You need this time to focus on what matters: high-impact tasks that increase profitability or quality of life. 

2. You End Up Recreating More Work

When you can’t find what you need, you waste time redoing things that already exist. 

For example, if you can’t locate a go-to social media template, you design a new one from scratch. Perhaps you lose track of your brand colors and manually input them repeatedly instead of pulling them from a saved brand kit.

I can’t tell you how many times I remade graphics or workbooks before I realized the problem wasn’t Canva or Google Drive—it was my inability to find what I needed.

3. Digital Clutter Increases Stress

Even if you don’t think about it constantly, messy files and wasted time create a lot of low-level stress in the background of your workday. The nagging feeling that your files are out of control creates frustration and mental clutter, draining your energy. 

You’re more likely to double-check everything, wasting even more time. And the more decisions you have to make (like “Where should I save this?” or “Is this the right version?”), the faster you hit decision fatigue and lose focus.

Once I cleaned up my files, I felt an instant mental shift. I wasn’t constantly stressed about losing things and trusted my system to work for me. Taking control of your digital space can be empowering, and it's a feeling you can experience too.

How to Organize Your Business Files in Canva or Google Drive 

While organizing your business takes time on the front end, it doesn’t have to be hard. My method streamlines the process for women entrepreneurs who work in these digital spaces.

Step 1: Audit your files -- No organization yet. Reviewing files in Canva or Drive, decide what to organize first.

Step 2: Organize your files -- Categorizing, subfolders, effective file naming practices, leveraging a platform’s features for organizing (less work for you!) 

Step 3: Figuring out how to maintain your organizational system

Let’s look at a tutorial for the first step (auditing) so you can get started now. We do all the steps together in my 30-minute Organize the Chaos Workshop.

Check Out the Organize the Chaos Workshop

Tutorial: How to Audit Your Digital Files

File auditing is about taking inventory so you know what the issues are and where to start. 

Set a timer and get the lay of the land >> Scan Google Drive and Canva. Ask yourself questions like:

• Are the main folders organized, or is everything dumped into "My Drive" or "Untitled Designs"? 

• How many old, duplicate, or unnecessary files or folders are floating around? 
• Jot down some notes
  

Identify the Biggest Problem Area

Now, it’s time to focus on what must be fixed the most.

• What’s causing the most pain? (Can’t find client work? Too many duplicate Canva designs?) 
• Where are you wasting the most time? (Searching, renaming, or re-downloading files constantly?) 
• Is the clutter generally impeding or demoralizing you? (Outdated freebies, old brand assets you don’t use anymore, everything everywhere?)

If 80% of your headaches come from unorganized client files, that’s your starting point.

Next Steps for Organizing Your Files

After auditing, you’ll be ready for the organization step. However, don’t start yet, as you might overwhelm yourself! 

When you’re ready to organize, get that timer out and decide how much time to spend (pace yourself and plan for multiple sessions).

You’ll want to look at file structures and get them to reflect how you work. Main folder headings and subfolders are a part of this. How are they arranged? Do they make sense for how you work? What could be improved?

Then, focus on renaming files and/or documents. Try to be consistent with how you name files so you’ll always know what you’re looking at or where it should live. Try to make things so streamlined and consistent that everything is super easy to scan.

Maximize the platform’s organization features. In Google Drive, you can STAR the most important files, set up shared folders for teams, and use shortcuts instead of duplicating files across multiple folders. Canva has handy tags.

Finally, you should declutter and maintain your file system regularly.

Make Organizing Your Business Easier

For busy womenpreneurs, an organized business is a huge time saver and relief. But organizing files can be one of those things you put off, don’t finish, or forget about. 

If you want more guidance, my Organize the Chaos Workshop will walk you through exactly how to organize Drive and Canva so that they work best for you. I keep things super straightforward and easy to implement. And because we’re all about saving time, the workshop only takes 30 minutes.