Productivity – Document Management
Productivity – Document Management
Here is the transcript of the last podcast episode with Oliver. Enjoy!
Christine
Let’s see what you have today for us for notes and document management.
Oliver
I’m really glad that I can share, share it with you. So normally the people come to me and say, hey, the productivity is really nice. So it’s, it’s interesting to talk about path management, calendar management, and goats. But why should we take care of documents and notes? Right? And, in my opinion, what’s the theme? So normally, when I started to, to looking through all the stuff, I focus on my calendar and my to do list, but there’s so much magic inside notes, and real good document management.
Let’s start first with the document management because when I’m working to with my clients ever, who are developed to flow, they know I will share with you. So when you’re ready, you have the most amazing document management system as you can think. Okay, so the problems that normally I see is people storing tons of documents on their desk. Or quickly if I asked you, how many documents do you have in a desktop? Can you see your picture on the desktop? Or is it full of stuff?
Christine
I can see some. But usually, I’m much better, because at some point, I get like a little breakdown and my desktop is too untidy, and then everything goes away. But you know, the main thing that people do, and I was also was guilty of this, you create a folder, only that desktop that you sought out. And then you create another one you never sorted out, of course, and then you create another folder within that folder to sort out his folder number two, and put in all the next stuff. At the moment, my desktop looks horrible. I have to say, a lot of screenshots a lot of this and that and yeah, yeah, yeah. Guilty of that at the moment.
Oliver
So let’s be effective in this. So in my opinion, normally, if we are thinking about how or why should you manage your documents, it’s really easy, because you want to have quick access to all the documents that you need for work and you want to correctly Yes, put them right in the folders or something like this. So now, if we’re talking about document judgment, I want to I’m really fan of 8080 20 method. So I will give you the 20% that will boost 80% of your document management system. The first one is the structure. The second one is the designation so how to how to name your documents. And the third one is inbox 00. Yeah, and then I will give you the Marie Kondo flow that I talked in the last episode. Yeah, so in my opinion, you should only have documents on your device that you need for working. So if you have from your, from his 10 years ago, you have pictures on your, on your laptop, maybe you don’t need them anymore. So first tip that I can give you only have things that you need on your desktop, or on your laptop.
Christine
Yes, and I can I can extend that to everything in your life. Not just Yes, just stuff but because the digital stuff is not visible as much. Yeah, if we tend to, to keep everything, everything, and then we are so afraid of losing a file or losing an image. When you think in the end, I didn’t look at this for 10 years, I had when I left Germany, I had five boxes in my mom’s basement. And I left 10 years in the UK and I never looked at these boxes. So or nine years, after nine years, I said to my mom, you know what, we throw away everything that’s in these boxes. And I reduced it to like one mini shoe box because there was sentimental birthday cards from my dad from when I was four years old or something. But it is like this also with the digital stuff. I agree.
Oliver
Yeah. And this is the first thing that or hint I will give you, it depends on everything, right? If you’re talking about email management, I will compare it with normal letters, and hear the same thinking about your digital life as your normal life. And for example, I totally agree on the stuff you said before minimalism is important every time I moved out, and I tried to throw away or sell or give it to other people 50% of all my belongings, because you will not need them anymore. Right. And it’s the same for the digital structure. Okay, moving on to Archer, I would highly recommend you or the best case would be a start after that you will find everything that you’re searching for and can put everything in that you’re neat doing pen to 20 seconds, not more. So if you’re not able to for example, if I say to you, I don’t know search document XYZ that for me, you should be able to find it during the next 10 seconds if not you should work on your structure out this lecture. So obviously there’s no right or wrong you but the thing is you have to have your own structure if I will give you my structure maybe it will not future so the structure is really personal. And what I recommend my clients is start with all your roles in life that you need documents for or notes for example private business I don’t know health relationships, I don’t know can be everything. So, first step with this. So you have like the first the first or you call it the first order hierarchy and then I would recommend you to start with projects which can be completely different for example in if your business you have different departments like back office, you have marketing and sales you have I don’t know something or if you have for example in private life and holiday in I don’t know England Wales something. So, this is like the first thing that I can like a little highlight how you could manage start with your roles and then the next hierarchy would be with your products and I will give you how to how to build the structure I will give you later okay, this is just we have to understand the structure is nothing we should talk about for one hour. It’s just It should help you and there and I talked to old Secretary it was an old lady and she gave me an amazing tip. She organized for her boss, all the folders not digital ones. Physical one, get a seven folder rule. So which means he only had seven folders like code colors, your opinion here haven’t project right. And then the next hierarchy inside this seven folders you have seven more detailed folders and inside the detailed folders Having more recall detailed detailed folders. So you have only three hierarchies of folders, right? The first one, the second one, and the third one, which leads that you could click, or you find everything doing four clicks, right? And your structure will not get crazy big because this is the most common problem I see in most companies especially right, like in startup fractures with iron of 5000 different folders, which are completely wild, and you won’t find anything just with your search. Right? So this is like, can it help you if some rule, only use three times seven folders to organize all your documents?
Okay, now we’re talking about the next thing designation, how to name your documents. Most people underestimate how powerful the search functions are. Right. So if your picture is not working, normally, you can find things because of the name and hear more of the people which download stuff. Normally, if you download for example, I don’t know some information, it names xy, that something so completely, completely random number of or of letters and numbers. And they will just put it inside a phone. But I would highly recommend you everything which goes in your structure should be named correctly. And here the best practice that I can give you is use. For example for today, if I would have like documents regarding to our this episode, I would name it 2021 Euro 526. Right? Because this is the date when we just recorded the episode and now would name it. Episode podcast episode, Productivity series, Christine, Michelle. So in every case, I would want to search it, I was thinking about okay, maybe it was in the date, like in May some somewhere or it was because it was episode or stuff like this, or maybe I link it to your name, but I have some things that I can focus on and find it. And the good thing is, if you’re using the dates, normally, the freshest one would be on the top right, or you have a nice structure inside your folders. So first thought about the structure is yourself a really nice small structure where you only storing your most important documents, right? One thumb rule is just using your life rules, roads, and projects to first buy the structure. And then some food because we don’t want to have like a big crazy big structures of folders. Thinking about the seven old rule, seven big folders inside one of these seven big folders, maximum seven detailed folders. And then in the seven detailed folders have more quotes. But because of this, if you if you use using this system, you have not crazy horizontal or vertical big structure, you have a really compact structure that you have that you can use and you will find everything for clicks. Right? Yes. And then when it comes to the designation file to name every document, if you for example have a temporary folder, it’s okay. But when you decide that you need to document longer names right to make a habit out of it everything which goes to your structure named and you will find it this the fun part, you will find it in your structure or in your search. If you have a good structure and you have probably designation you will find every document, right. Okay. And the third tip is and this is like one really crucial one that you can add to anything in box zero, which when I will make it really hard is finding an Xbox in your system. Right in my case, it’s my download folder, not my desktop because I like my desktop clean. It’s my download folder, new documents that I will simply download will directly go to the download folder. If I have to shortly or temporarily store something, it will go to my download folder. I just use one inbox, right. So this is really important. Thinking about above. If you have one inbox where all your documents go in for somebody you don’t afford Write, nothing will get lost. And now if you implement a routine that on regular base, you will completely delete your inbox.
Then it stays you staying updated all the time. So everything goes to my Inbox on Friday, I will just look at my dollar folder, everything that I need goes to my structure, everything that I don’t need, I throw away. So this will lead you to every document that you will get you 100% You will not mess up with it, it will be there in your inbox, right? You name it, putting it to your structure, and you clean your inbox. If you’re calling this three routes, the structure, the designated and your inbox, you will not lose one document. So what I normally highly recommend, because it’s normal that people have torn off stuff that they don’t need inside the digital structure, and how to tidy up your digital structure. And when it comes to tidying up, the best thing I could recommend you is Marie Kondo. If you don’t know Marie Kondo, she’s an expert in tidying his neck put in tidying up work, like living room rooms, like your closing and stuff like this. But I really like her method. Because what she does is everything that she owns, she will put in her hands, think about do I need it? Does it make me happy? And if yes, he will put it in a new structure. And if not, he will throw it away. And I would highly recommend the same for you. If you want to build a really nice document. Building the first hierarchy folders? Like I told you before, just thinking about how would you structure them? And then transferring everything from your old structure to the new structure? Right? So every folder, every document thinking about do we need it? Or do I don’t need it, if you needed new structure, if you don’t need it, delete it, or putting it on an expert. Artist, something like this, right? So anything doing it, right, you will constantly bring in new stuff to your new structure. And you have to think about if everything is attaching new structure, and you’re following the seven folder rule, from time to time, you have to think about how can I arrange them that it makes sense. So normally, it takes between three and four hours, to be honest. But after it, you have a structure, which is completely organic grown inside your head, because you’ve thought about it and everything is crystal clear. So if you’re following this little flow, we’re thinking about a new structure, the first hierarchy, then putting everything from your old structure that you need into the new structure and throw everything that you don’t need away or stored somewhere. Then after Why do you have the perfect structure for you with where you can work, which is really smart, which is compact. And because of the Inbox Zero system, you will not lose any document. This, in my opinion, is absolutely amazing. So I highly recommend you to read the book magic cleaning, it was amazing. To know notes, yes. And I will really I will just I will just try to keep it short. I love notes. In my opinion, it’s the most underestimated tool in your productivities. Everybody’s focusing on calendar, everybody’s focused on your task management. But the notes are really important. And here the same, same things that I talked to you before. It’s the same, if you’re storing notes, or if you’re storing documents, you can apply the structure, you can play the designation and you can apply the system of inboxing. For my opinion, normally I’m thinking about what is it? Is it a document? Or can I double click on it, or somebody else externally want to have something for me, for example, a Word document or PDF or stuff like this is a document. But all the other things, things. For example, information that I want to keep, I will store inside my notes. Why is that? Because if I’m traveling if I’m in a plane or in a train or stumbling stuff like this, I have access full access to all my notes to all the knowledge that I have everything which is written on the notes from my mobile device and it’s way faster and less data consuming if you just know the using notes and not documents.
So this case, and I would highly recommend you to start using notes and doesn’t matter if you’re using OneNote Evernote notion or I don’t know, Google Keep good, in my opinion, having notes really nice. So why what should you do with it? The possibilities are we, we, I saw so many good ideas what to do with notes, but in my opinion, do things that are there will give you just really nice thing is, first all my goal planning all my goals, how what to do in the week, what to do in the next month, I will do there. And there’s a really nice tool which is called Web Clipper, it’s available for Evernote, it’s available for one off, and there, if you find really nice articles that you want to read, you can throw them directly inside your nose. So one click, everything is saved. And the good part is, if you if you have this kind of article saved, that matter if it gets delayed, because all the you have all the information inside you notice them. And if you thinking a bit more long term, after a few after a few years, for example, we have a wide base of notes that you that you can use, which obviously my case I really loved ends. Now talking about the last this was like this a bit of inspiration, how to use it for and now talking about the three things structural resignation Inbox Zero, just applying it one to one, you know, if you have the same structure for your notes, right? Same sort of notes like in your documents, it’s really easy for you to be know, where did I put the note for X Y Z and the same about how to name the search function in notes is so amazing. So it’s really interesting or in my opinion, I really enjoying the good designation for my notes because I will send everything back. So to sum it up, and to really stress it out notes are my second brain, I have a huge knowledge base or knowledge management system for all the things I learned through the different kinds of years. And with I can access everywhere. I have all my goals there. I have all the things now I for example, when I just separated myself for this podcast episode, I wrote everything down in notes. So it’s really highly underestimate it topic, the notes and I would recommend you to use it.
Christine
So which program do you use for that?
Oliver
In my opinion, I love Evernote. I’m a really big Evernote fan, which has all the things I need. But also I worked with one hour which was good notion and depends a bit on a normally I think it’s important what kind of structure you have and what kind of things you use it. And the next thing is what kind of problems
Christine
perfect Yes, that’s like with every tool I guess you use, you need to find the one that’s right for you. But I was just interested. Amazing mind blowing, as usual. Any other things that you wanted to say that I knew notes that you haven’t mentioned yet, before we wrap up this episode.
Oliver
Yes, one little thing, because then I will just keep or close the loop to the beginning and thinking about your notes digitally, like you know, physically. So all the things I talked about, for example, the most important thing on my desk work this is an inbox, I have like an old inbox that you can find on the key or stuff like this, where I put my physical notes in. And then I am playing the same system. All the notes that I wrote down all the posts that say are going to one inbox to one in and then the end of the week or the end of the day. I will be reviewing all the kinds of notes on posts that I that I just wrote, throw them away or they go into my digital system. But you see this the most important part that I just wanted to give you in this kind of episode is applying an inbox zero system for your notes and documents. Really thinking about how to name your notes and documents and filing yourself a nice feature that you can use doesn’t matter if it’s digitally your notes or documents or physically thing notes documents. Yeah.
Christine
Amazing. Good. Yes, it’s a good tip. It’s like the calendar management that we mentioned. Obviously, with the digital calendar, you have more possibilities. But it’s also important to do that with your physical calendar had to have some kind of system and the same with notes can be, that can be a mess, just looking at a folder on my desk at the moment. Different kinds of little folders in there with the sorted by topic, at least, but some not, I have to say this just squeezed in the front. Anyway, thank God, this is not with a camera. Otherwise, you would see it. But I’m usually a more organized person, but here and there. I just don’t get in the habit. And that’s I think the main thing to do it immediately. And then there’s a big thing. And then you have to get this feeling, okay, I need to sort this out now. And then you do and then voted, at least for me, then that gives me inner peace. And stuff is sorted. But if you really get into doing it immediately, I think it really, really helps. And that’s with everything. But just as a final tip with everything that you heard in this podcast, which was obviously amazing in the last four in these four episodes for the productivity, make sure you do one thing at a time, and see how you can implement things, find the right tools for you. Because if you try to do it all at once, it will drive you mad and you probably don’t do it properly. So that would be my last tip for all the tips that we gave you mainly that to do it one at a time, and just get used to it and make it a habit and make it easy. And then okay, now I’m ready for implementing the next thing. And then bit by bit you going to be a productivity nerd, like us and a productivity machine. Okay, amazing.
Oliver
Yeah. Oh, my God, Christine was really important that you mentioned it. Because normally for listening to it, we have, I don’t know, six to 10 years of focusing on productivity, and more about like, I am really a fan of the compound effect. So you’re just if you’re just bettering yourself 1% Each day, you will, after a few weeks or years, you have like amazing.
Additional resources