BONUS: Brittany Dixon's Training on Digital Organization as a Freelancer
Transcript
[00:00:00] Brittany Dixon: Hey there, my name is Brittany Dixon. I am the c e o of Britney and Co. And I'm here today to do a training all about digital organization as a freelancer. This is probably one of the biggest challenges I see in the online space, in the freelance space, business owners, is really staying organized with all of your digital assets, digital clutter, email information.
[00:00:28] Brittany Dixon: All the thanks, right? I really am here to help entrepreneurs create a four day work week, work smarter, not harder be able to get more done in less time. And I feel the organization is the key to that. So I wanna walk through a few things with you here. I'm gonna talk about my B c O method, which is how I organize everything.
[00:00:48] Brittany Dixon: And yes, it happens to also be my branding but that's how I organize my entire business, my clients' businesses and my students' businesses. I'm also gonna walk through our digital workspace and how to organize [00:01:00] your digital workspace, including your email, your files, your bookmarks and really allow you to be productive across the board, wherever you're at, because most freelancers of bounce from laptop to desk shop to working coffee shops, working at home, and we wanna make sure that we're able to be productive in all of those places.
[00:01:20] Brittany Dixon: I will share a little bit about how you could work with me if you are interested in learning more. First things first, I wanna dive into the B c O methods. B, c o all stand for something. And again, this is how I organize everything. I organize my email folders, my Google Drive folders, my Asana for task management my tags, my color code on my calendar, like everything is organized into these three buckets.
[00:01:47] Brittany Dixon: Because I only have to think about one of three places to put it. Okay. And you'll see more. I'm gonna show some behind the scenes, all of that good stuff. But so the b stands for business development. [00:02:00] All businesses have to do business development, to have clients to have customers, to have people paying them.
[00:02:06] Brittany Dixon: They have to do some sort of sales, marketing, growing the business, advertising, whatever that might look like, right? So as a freelancer, your business development can be your sales and prospecting. This could also be networking with people, going to networking events, going to conferences. This could also be anything like being on podcast or doing guest expert trainings.
[00:02:30] Brittany Dixon: Really anything that's gonna help grow visibility and grow the business ends up being in the B bucket. Okay? So B is business development. You're gonna see everything as like green for business development stands for money. So B is business. Then you dive into the C. Everyone also has c I call it client services, but this could also be customer services or patient services, whatever kind of person that you support.
[00:02:58] Brittany Dixon: But it's really the people that are paying [00:03:00] you. So if you are service based, most likely you're gonna call them clients. If you're product based, you're gonna probably call them customers, right? But it's the people that are paying you for the service. Products that you offer. So underneath the CB bucket, this is gonna be anything client related.
[00:03:14] Brittany Dixon: So client calls customer service, help desk, sending emails to clients for like anniversaries and birthdays and celebrations, customer appreciation. Really anything having to do with a client. So client calls, meetings with clients, if you do in-person stuff product development type of stuff for specific clients that could fall under.
[00:03:39] Brittany Dixon: And then you dive into the o and that is operations. So this is everything that business owners don't wanna do, but have to do to keep the wheels running here. So it's gonna be all of your backend stuff, so your accounting, finance type of stuff, bookkeeping if you bring on team members, like HR type of things or all of that kind backend [00:04:00] creating processes and setting up systems and setting up tools.
[00:04:04] Brittany Dixon: So it's gonna be all of that. That keeps the wheels turning in the business, but not the fun stuff that we wanna do. Most of us wanna work and do the client type of stuff. A lot of us like doing the sales type of stuff to get more clients. But there has to of be a balance between three because if you don't have operations, you don't really have a business.
[00:04:22] Brittany Dixon: That's what those stand for. Business Development client Services operations. I started with that because it's really important with how I'm organizing everything in my digital workspace and how I want you to organize your digital workspace. Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen here. Just one moment and I'm gonna open up a new window and share my screen.
[00:04:45] Brittany Dixon: Here we go. . Okay, so I just have a browser open at the moment cause I don't wanna distract you with the other things before we dive into those. First things first, what is a digital workspace? Okay, so I consider a digital [00:05:00] workspace, your Google Chrome browser with all of your bookmarks, your passwords, your tools.
[00:05:09] Brittany Dixon: Your Google Drive. Basically what happens is that if I were to like follow my devices were to die right now. If I lost my laptop, if I broke my desktop, if my iPad stopped working, if my iPhone stopped working, all the things stopped working. and I went to someone else's computer and logged into my Google Chrome profile.
[00:05:30] Brittany Dixon: I have access to literally everything I need to be productive, so I'm not losing productivity, okay? Because if I log into this, I'm gonna have all of my bookmarks, which is gonna have all of my different tools that I use. It's gonna have my passwords because I use a password manager. It's gonna have my digital storage, it's gonna have my email, my calendar, my task management.
[00:05:52] Brittany Dixon: I'm gonna have access to everything. Okay? So I really want you to create a digital workspace. So really to do this, you [00:06:00] just set up Chrome, you sign in as your main email account, and then we start building bookmarks. Now, caveat to this, if you already have lots of bookmarks, you may wanna declare bookmark bankruptcy and delete them because most likely you don't need them all, most likely.
[00:06:16] Brittany Dixon: We've bookmarked a lot of things just to, just in case and we're gonna Google it anyway. So I. First start with walking through how to set up your bookmark. Okay, so coming into this update section where it says Update it's just this menu here. You're gonna click on bookmarks and bookmark manager.
[00:06:36] Brittany Dixon: Okay? So this is gonna show you everything that you have in your bookmarks. Now, a lot of people don't know that you can create folders, so I actually created a folder for person. Business development, client services and operations. And that's why I went through that b c O method first because that's how I organized my bookmark bar.
[00:06:57] Brittany Dixon: So I created these folders essentially by [00:07:00] clicking on this three dots and clicking add new folder. Now, I want you to only have business development, client services, operations, and personal. Don't create folders within folders. Within folders, and do too many. Okay, keep it super simple. Now, I do have some additional subfolders within this for me, from an organization standpoint, because I do have a team.
[00:07:21] Brittany Dixon: I've got additional people coming into it, and this is how it works for me. But I would keep it as simple as possible. Don't go too many subfolders deep. Okay, so you can create folders. And then another hack a lot of people don't know about is that you can actually remove the word from this actual icon.
[00:07:40] Brittany Dixon: So if you right click on it and you click on edit and you delete the name from it and click on save, it's actually just gonna save the icon. So typically what this would say is it would say, Asana. And it takes up a lot of space right here and then you do a lot of those and it takes up a lot. So if you come in here and edit this, and [00:08:00] actually just delete where it says Asana.
[00:08:02] Brittany Dixon: Or whatever you're using, you're gonna just click save and it's gonna save the icon. Okay? So these are the tools that I use on a pretty daily basis, right? So I'm in Asana, calendar, mail drive, my C R m, like I'm in these things all the time. So I keep them on this like bar right here. and because a lot of 'em have overlap into which system that they go into.
[00:08:25] Brittany Dixon: So really you wanna make sure you've got like your task manager, your calendar, your email, so it's super easy to click and access them. I can click right here and it takes me straight into my project management tool. I can click here and go into my crm. It's just really fast. That's what makes this beneficial to actually have things at your fingertips within your digital workspace.
[00:08:50] Brittany Dixon: Your task management tool, your email, your calendar, your Google Drive, your crm, if you have a Facebook group or a community if you've got a tool for [00:09:00] your SOPs, which are standard operating procedures if you have a scheduler, like whatever those things are you use super, super often, keep them.
[00:09:10] Brittany Dixon: and then you wanna start breaking things down into the business development, client services and operations. Okay, so I'll start with business development. So I, we have our podcast, the Productivity podcast, and those are all the tools that we use for the podcast. Then we have social media, which, here's all the platforms we're on for social media.
[00:09:28] Brittany Dixon: Then we have PR, invisibility. So these are gonna be like podcast pitching magazine pitching, different groups, co-working spaces, workshops, things like. and we just bookmark them. So if you don't know how to bookmark, it's actually just this little star right here. So if you click on the star, it's gonna ask you where you want it to go.
[00:09:50] Brittany Dixon: So right now it's just in our bookmark bar, which leaves it here. Or you could say that you want it to go into your personal business development, [00:10:00] client services or operations. Okay, so let's tell you book. But you wanna make sure that you're bookmarking pretty much everything you use within the business and continue to add things to your bookmark so that you can save everything in one spot.
[00:10:13] Brittany Dixon: Okay? Then you have access to it from anywhere. So client services, we've got the Productivity pod community. We also have the Productivity pod shop coming soon. Hustle to flow our group coaching program different client tools, things like that. So it's all basically client related. And then we have operations, which is like our website and design tools and financial tools and all of our banking and credit card processing.
[00:10:40] Brittany Dixon: We have a call list of calling links in here to send. So it's all that backend operations stuff. So I bookmarked everything that we're using so that I can quickly access it. So my brain has to go to one spot and say, oh, I needed that financial thing. That falls into operations. Now we can click in here.
[00:10:58] Brittany Dixon: Oh yeah, let me go log into Stripe, right? [00:11:00] So organizing your bookmark bar that way. Make sure you add bookmarks this way. You rename them so that they can be shorter names. You can click on edit so that there's no name. It's just the icon. And then coming in here and rearranging them how you want. You can also rearrange them on the actual bar itself.
[00:11:18] Brittany Dixon: But really organizing and saving all the different websites that you access so that you have quick access to them at your fingertips. So that's the first part of your digital workspace. Second part of your digital workspace is your extensions. I don't know if anyone has used extensions before. If you click on the three dots here, click on more tools and click on extensions.
[00:11:41] Brittany Dixon: It'll actually take you to your extension screen and show you all the extensions that you have. Then if you click on this little puzzle piece here, you can actually pin your extensions, so the face show up right here. So as you can see, I have a sauna, this eyedropper font finder. All of these different ones that are [00:12:00] pinned.
[00:12:00] Brittany Dixon: Okay? So that's what's gonna show up here. Now, what extensions do depends on which extensions you're using but of 'em do different things. So this one for Asana will actually allow me to add tasks from anywhere on the internet. Last pass. If you don't have last pass as a freelancer, go get it right the second it's completely free.
[00:12:19] Brittany Dixon: It stands for last password. You have to have a master password, and then it's a password vault that saves all of your passwords into it. Once you've done that, you can either launch and it automatically logs you in or you can share with people without actually sharing your passwords. So if you're in the online space, if you're a freelancer, if you share passwords with a virtual assistant, you must go get last pass and download the extension.
[00:12:46] Brittany Dixon: Then we have Loom. This is also extremely important for freelancers. This is how you can show people, you can do screen shares, what I'm doing. Turns it into a video link, and you can send it via email. You can send it via text. It's super, [00:13:00] super easy. This eyedropper is really fun and it's super helpful.
[00:13:05] Brittany Dixon: You can actually pick a color from the page and it will tell you the color code. I've run into that a lot that I need to pull color code. So I picked up this extension, this go full page. It actually, if you've ever seen those websites, that it screenshots the entire website. , that's actually what that does.
[00:13:23] Brittany Dixon: So I've used that in many cases. We've got gifts because I'm a big gift person. PDF candy is really fun. This actually turns different types of documents into different types of documents. So you could do a PDF document to a word. Et cetera. Font finder. You can actually, when you click on that, it'll find the font and tell you what kind of font it is.
[00:13:46] Brittany Dixon: And then we've got Zoom. So last pass, loom and Zoom are probably the top three I would recommend. And then some of those other ones are fun to have as well, but we wanna make sure that is super organized in our digital workspace. Okay, so we've got our [00:14:00] bookmark bar, we've got our extensions. Now we wanna talk about.
[00:14:05] Brittany Dixon: Okay, now I could do an entire class about email . I, have actually done inbox detox classes before, but I wanna give you the super basics of how to organize your email. Okay? So first things first, I want you to delete as much as possible. Then I want you to go unsubscribe from as many things as you can, put a filter on.
[00:14:27] Brittany Dixon: Make sure you get rid of things and unsubscribe, because that'll help you keep your email inbox. . Okay. Once we've done that, we need a way to file things and a way to organize things that we're keeping. So again, I am very top level. Is it business or is it personal? Okay. That's your first decision that you have to make if you decide it's personal.
[00:14:49] Brittany Dixon: We have a few categories under here, family and friends, kids, personal and personal development. Those are really the only categories I have as far as folders go. Do not create [00:15:00] folder within folder within folder. You're never gonna use. You have to make way too many decisions, and then you're not gonna file the email away and your inbox is gonna get very messy very, quickly.
[00:15:10] Brittany Dixon: Okay? So the least amount of folders possible is what we wanna do. So we've got personal with a few things underneath of it, or we say, Hey, this is business. Cool. Would you look at that? Business development, client services, or operations, right? Only have to make another decision at that point. So we're like, oh, it's business development podcast.
[00:15:30] Brittany Dixon: Really. Podcast for me is the biggest thing. Underneath of that, if it's just general business development or networking, it just goes into this main one. But I only have one subcategory underneath of that. Clicking on clients, we've got hustle to flow and market research. Anything else for one-on-one clients all gets dropped into one file.
[00:15:50] Brittany Dixon: Do not create folders for every single client of yours, because you have to put that in your onboarding process. You've gotta remember to do it. You have to remember to archive it. Just put 'em all in one inbox. Save it [00:16:00] inside of here because you're gonna search for it anyways. So let me have operations, which I have financial.
[00:16:07] Brittany Dixon: This is an old email I had, so this folder has to live here. I actually don't like it here, but it has to team and potential team travel. And then I actually created this. Excuse me, unsubscribe from folder so that I can put things in there and have my assistant actually go and unsubscribe from things for me.
[00:16:26] Brittany Dixon: So again, I have very few things, and then if it goes into this core folder, it gets strapped into this core folder, right? So clients is the biggest one that's got just like a bunch of stuff dropped into it. Because again, it's just clients that I'm gonna search for it if I need something specific.
[00:16:41] Brittany Dixon: So that's really how I organize my email. This is my actual email. This is not like a test email. This is my account that I use. There's actually four emails filtering in here, and this is really what it looks like on most of the given days. So I have a couple here that I keep for updates. This promotion [00:17:00] section, I actually save for orders that I have.
[00:17:03] Brittany Dixon: Purchased, and then as soon as I get them, I actually delete this. So I actually got that already so I can go ahead and delete it. But I keep track of that social, I don't really have anything in. And then this is my primary inbox. So I've only got three emails in this inbox right now. So the way that I do this is I check the email, file it away, check the email, file it away.
[00:17:22] Brittany Dixon: So as soon as I'm done with it, it gets out of my inbox and it gets filed into the b c O method, or it falls into personal. So that is how I would suggest organizing your email. And then last thing I wanna talk about as far as your digital workspace, and then I will wrap it up here cause you guys have lots to do.
[00:17:41] Brittany Dixon: Is organizing your Google Drive. Now, first thing is that you should only have one digital storage solution, and you should only have one account for it. Okay? I have four different Gmails, but I have one. Google Drive. I have one Google Calendar. I have one Gmail. Everything gets filtered into it. Do [00:18:00] not try to manage multiple Google drives, multiple Gmail accounts.
[00:18:03] Brittany Dixon: Definitely don't do like Google Drive plus Dropbox times a million, right? Keep it super simple. So again, you'll see a theme here because it makes so much sense across the board. First top line decision is, it business or is it personal? So if it's personal, that's a hot mess cuz I don't really do a whole lot with it.
[00:18:24] Brittany Dixon: There's just a bunch of different things within it. Places to visit kids some photos in there, but it's messy. But as far as business goes, it is very, organized. . So underneath of. You'll see again, green is business development, pink is client services, and blue is operations. And basically, if it is not a colored folder with all caps and a star, then it needs filed away.
[00:18:53] Brittany Dixon: So all of these things actually need to be filed away. And I know that because it's not all pops colored and with a [00:19:00] star, right? So now I can be like, oh, these are client type of things. Put them in there. . This is actually a business development type of thing. I'm gonna put that in there. This and this are both operations things, so I'm gonna put that in there.
[00:19:15] Brittany Dixon: So I go from the top level down, right? So out here, this is actually a call. I still have to do something with it, so it's gonna sit here. This is actually a business item, so I would file that. Then I would go into business. When I get in there, I'm like, oh, okay, operations here. Technically this to-do should live out there because I still have something to do with it.
[00:19:37] Brittany Dixon: Okay, so then I just have these color folders here. This dashboard is something that I have in addition because I have team members and things I have to keep track of. And some KPIs, you're not at that point yet. So just do business development, client services and operations. So then under operations, you come in here and you can see I haven't been into file things.
[00:19:59] Brittany Dixon: So again, [00:20:00] anything colored stays here, anything that's not colored needs filed away. So all of these good notes things. I actually have a good notes backup file here. All of these updraft, these are actually my website backup. And then you see the point, right? So the, next, the rest of these things need to be filed away.
[00:20:21] Brittany Dixon: So then same thing with client services. I go into client services and I will have a folder for each individual client. And then I have a completed client's file. So as soon as I'm done with that client, they get dropped into here. So you can see that I have client folders for each individual. And then when I'm done with 2022, it gets dropped in here because this is all of completed clients, right?
[00:20:45] Brittany Dixon: So each client's getting an individual folder for them, but everything's pink for clients. Then we have business development. So same thing, anything that's colored stays here. Anything that's not colored needs filed away. So a lot of that needs [00:21:00] filed away. But this is where. information is content, PR and visibility.
[00:21:05] Brittany Dixon: My podcast, I have a lot of screenshots and testimonials. Affiliate stuff, marketing type of stuff cuz it's all business growth related. Okay, so that's really it. That's the structure of this. You're now you're asking Brittany, how do I get to this ? So what I suggest is creating the new structure first.
[00:21:25] Brittany Dixon: So creating a colored blue folder that says business and is in all caps and at the top. and a purple per personal folder. Blue Business, purple. Personal. I'm an alliteration kind of girl. I would create those folders and then really just start filing things into them, right? Like that first decision, is it business or is it personal?
[00:21:46] Brittany Dixon: Then when you get into business, do the same thing. Create this folder structure here, and then say, is it growth clients or operations? Growth, client or operations? And just file things into that new structure, right? Because then each level that you go down, you can [00:22:00] start to organize a little bit better and start to see things that are like with So that's really it.
[00:22:07] Brittany Dixon: The B C O Method, business Development, client services, and Operations. Use it to organize everything. Organize your bookmark bar, organize your email, organize your Google Drive, organize your time that way. Organize your tasks that way. , that is how I batch things, right? So that method is literally the core of my entire life in business.
[00:22:29] Brittany Dixon: Digital workspace. Make sure you set up your Chrome profile to be really organized. Make sure you set up your folders here, bookmark every off every different platform that you use within your business. And then make sure you've got some really good extensions here for passwords and trainings and things like that.
[00:22:48] Brittany Dixon: and then make sure you organize your email organize it super simply. Less folders is better. Same structure. Business development, client services, operations are personal. Keep it super simple. Clean up your [00:23:00] email and then follow that system. Okay? Awesome. I'm sure that you have questions because I have actually done an hour long class for each of those individual pieces and parts that we have.
[00:23:12] Brittany Dixon: I actually offer a group coaching experience called Hustle to Flow. Mentioned it a little bit earlier where we actually talk about all of this as a freelancer and more we talk about really the strategy. The systems, and then I'm there for support. Okay. So there's a lot of strategy that goes into it.
[00:23:29] Brittany Dixon: I'm a very big picture thinker. I am really good at taking strategy and breaking it down into the details and the systems. I'm really good at creating frameworks for you to be able to sell your offers and your services. So I can help with a lot of the business coaching side, but it's very highly focused on systems and productivity.
[00:23:46] Brittany Dixon: So taking all of that strategy. Implementing simple, super simple systems to make it really easy for you, execute, and then we're there for support. We have group coaching calls every single week. We actually have a planning call every month to [00:24:00] plan out your month. We have a c e o co-working day where we make sure that you're getting stuff done to help grow the business.
[00:24:06] Brittany Dixon: We have co-working every single week where you can come in, it's called action and accountability. Tell us what you're working on and get it done. And we're really just. There to support you when you are having wins, when you're having the lows in business and helping you to find clients and network within the community.
[00:24:23] Brittany Dixon: If that sounds like something you're interested in, Sarah will drop the link in below this video. It's called Hustle to Flow. Just let me know that Sarah sent you my way so that I can give her credit. And then we also have a free community. If you're not ready to dive into that type of support yet, you can actually go to the productivity pod community.co.
[00:24:43] Brittany Dixon: or the productivity podcast.co. Lots of different resources depending on where you're at in your journey. If you like how I teach and you wanna be disorganized, come in. Take all of our systems and templates and plug and play, have us help you support, help support [00:25:00] you and help you to grow your business.
[00:25:03] Brittany Dixon: I actually grew my business to six figures in 14 months, and I attribute it to systems and organization, and I wanna help you do the same. I wanna be that shortcut for you, so please reach out if you have any questions. My email is brittany bco hq.co, and I hope to see you guys again soon.
