Organizing your content in the cloud + my drive instructions

In my last article, I introduced my Employee Onboarding process. One of the steps of that process is to give my employees a Google Drive quiz (or if you’re using another cloud storage platform, a quiz for that). I organize my Drive (or any internal documental filing system) to mirror my team structure, and I use the same nomenclature for all of my documents and folders and teams everywhere, e.g. if I have an Asana, I’ll name my teams and projects the same way I name my files and folders. If I use slack, I’ll use the same process.

With a standardized process, employees are empowered to find the information they need to do their jobs. They don’t need to waste time waiting for a colleague to share a doc that may or may not exist. They don’t need to waste time recreating documents they couldnt find.

I can’t express enough how important it is to have a standardized process. I once had an employee who thought naming and filing documents a specific way was a tedious, unnecessary step. When he rewrote the same document for the third time because he forgot he had done it the first time and couldn’t find it the second time, he finally understood the value.

My home partner is a product manager, and he initially thought the process was “great for operations but not necessary for product”. When I asked him about how he would find a PRD that may or may not have been created already by someone else who may or may not still be with the company, he sheepishly agreed that it would, indeed, be a difficult, if not impossible, task (and admitted that it was a definite frustration of his in real life).

Google Drive Instructions Link

These are the Google Drive instructions I use. If you don’t have access to the full folder, simply request access, and I will add the requesting email to my (free!) Entrepreneurs group. It will then unlock access to the folders.

Google Drive Instructions

Our Google Drive is organized to mirror our internal team structure. Any shared document or any document that other team members should be able to view MUST be saved to the our Main Folder.

• Folders

• Archive

• Company_Executive

• Company_Team Name

• Company_Team Name

• Company_Team Name

• zz_Miscellaneous

• zz_Unsorted

Folders and documents should be filed under their respective team folders, miscellaneous, or archive folder. The following are just example folders:

• Archive: Out-of-date files that we’re not using but you’re unsure of whether or not to delete should be stored in the archive folder. For example, I’ve archived the document ‘Contact List.gsheet’. I cannot currently open the document (.gsheet sucks) and to my knowledge, Insightly is already up to date with this specific information, but I left it in the archive folder JUST IN CASE. As a team, we should try to clear out the archive folder as much as we can.

• Company_Executive: This folder contains all of the team-wide executive updates. This will have our company overview, weekly all hands decks, quarterly town hall decks, yearly presentations, and our strategic project briefs.

• Company_Team Name: Explanation

• zz_Miscellaneous: There will be documents that will not fall under any of these team categories. This should be filed under the Miscellaneous folder. I’m guessing most of these documents will be useful papers articles and reports we’d like to reference in the future. I still haven’t sorted through these, but I’ll try to organize them in such a way they are more easily identifiable.

• zz_Unsorted: If, for some strange reason, you are unable to identify where to save a folder/ document, please ask me (NAME@COMPANY.com) for assistance. In the interim, place it in the Unsorted - USE SPARINGLY folder. This should be a last resort. If you abuse this folder, it will be removed, and you will be stuck with a floating file.

Folder and Document Nomenclature

Rule of Thumb: When naming folders and documents, start with the highest level of organization and work your way down the hierarchy

The purpose of this naming convention is to:

• Allow users to deduce the contents of each folder/ document without having to open it

• Show relationships between documents

• Ensure that each unique folder or document has a unique name

• Allow users to understand which documents are the most recent iterations

Folders and documents should contain the name of the directory immediately above it followed by an underscore (‘_’) and new folder name. If there are multiple iterations or instances of a similar folder, include defining characteristics, such as dates (yyyymmdd), versions, etc. Mimic the names of other folders or documents in the most relevant directory.

Directory > Directory_Subdirectory 1 > Subdirectory 1_Subdirectory 2 > Subdirectory 2_Document 1

For example:

Folder: EB > EB_Business Operations > Business Operations_Compliace > Compliance_Insurance

Example of what is in the Compliance_Insurance folder:

• Insurance_00 Insurance Summary (document)

• Insurance_Auto Insurance (sub-folder)

• Auto Insurance_Policy YYYYMMDD (document)

• Auto Insurance_Policy YYYYMMDD (document)

• Insurance_Cyber Insurance (sub-folder)

• Cyber Insurance_Policy YYYYMMDD

• Cyber Insurance_Policy YYYYMMDD

Note: There may be a few scenarios when folders and documents do not follow this specific naming convention. When in doubt, ask me (NAME@COMPANY.com)

Other Notes

All documents need to live in the cloud, and relevant team members need to have access to them - access and transparency is important. That being said, you *must* be cognizant of how documents are shared both internally and externally. There is confidential and private information that cannot be shared outside of relevant stakeholders.

As a rule of thumb, all employee personal information must remain private and confidential. Customer personally-identifying information and client payment info must remain private and confidential. Trade secrets must remain private and confidential. When in doubt, keep the information private and confidential, and ask your manager who can have access to a document before sharing it.

💡TLDR: Employee onboarding is the first major interaction you will have with your new employee, and it will impact their future opinion of and impact at your company. Create a seamless onboarding process that empowers your employees to be successful.

📖 Exercise: Take a look at your onboarding process and identify ways you can make it more efficient or more robust. If you don’t have one, start creating it!

📎 Download: Google Drive Instructions. If you don’t have access to the full folder, simply request access here.

🚀 Group Access: Request access to my Entrepreneurs Group to receive more helpful content, special offers, and free access to my Founder Toolkit (including my Google Drive template!).