Organizing Google Drive

Sophomore year of high school in my BC Precalc class, I was talking to the student sitting next to me while we were doing an in-class assignment. Part of the assignment required uploading pictures of our work to Google Drive. As they opened their drive and nonchalantly plopped the file in their “My Drive” folder, I was astounded.

“You’re going to put that in your math folder after, right?” I asked, with tentative hope.

“Math folder? I haven’t made one since sixth grade.”

I shuddered. Four years' worth of unorganized files just sitting in their monstrous soup of a “My Drive” folder. I looked over at my own drive, with color-coded folders for middle school and high school, then for each grade, then for each class, synced to the correct google classroom folders. I thought to myself, “why would anyone neglect their Drive this way?”

It makes it impossible to find your files, let alone know which ones to delete or clean out. It slows down your computer’s performance to load years worth of school assignments every time you open the one folder you keep them all in.

The plague of a disorganized Google Drive also drags down your productivity. Every time you want to open your English homework, you have to play detective. “What was it called again?” “Is it a copy?” “Is my name on it?” “Why can’t I find it?!!”

If you have asked yourself any of these questions before, but you’re too overwhelmed with the sheer amount of files you need to wade through to organize them, continue reading this blog post to hear my tips and tricks to organize your Google Drive and streamline your productivity and your computer’s performance.

Tip Number 1:

Start now. The longer you wait, the worse it will get, and the harder it will be to motivate yourself to organize it. If you have to, stick the mess in a separate folder and start with organizing every new assignment. To make a new folder in Drive, click on the plus icon and select 'new folder'. then select multiple files by pressing the control button and then clicking. If you want to select multiple files in a row, click the first file, press shift, and click on the last file. Finally, drag and drop your files into a 'to be organized' folder.

Tip Number 2:

Start chronologically. Make folders for every year of school you have had your Google drive, and any file created or last accessed that same year can be dragged and dropped into that folder.

Tip Number 3:

The most important organization you need to be as productive as possible is to sort by subject or class. At the beginning of the year, make folders for every subject and get into the habit of moving files for each class into their proper folders. My teachers use Google classroom so I set it up so that my documents and assignments on Google Classroom go to the same folder. However, I was taught how to do this properly in class. Do not mess with Google Classroom folders without proper instruction because you can irrevocably delete or change settings.

Tip Number 4:

Colors!! You can right-click on any drive folder and customize the color. Some people like all of their folders in one year to be the same color. I use the sidebar often, so I prefer my colors to be an ombre. Remember, organization is about bringing joy and motivation to your workspace. If you smile every time you see the blue folders fading seamlessly to greens in your sidebar, you’re already in a better mood to do your homework!

I hope these four tips help you go from an overwhelming messy Drive where you have to search for everything to a google drive you love looking at and can navigate with ease. Happy organizing!