Did you know that January is National Get Organized Month? It's the perfect time to declutter and get things straightened out. Here are 3 tips to organize your digital life, along with how a virtual assistant can further help.

1. Inbox organization - Sort your emails into folders to find messages easily later. For my personal email, I have folders dedicated to bills, taxes, etc.  For my business email, I have tags for each of my clients, personal expenses, in-progress actions, to-dos, etc. Do what works for you!

How can virtual assistants help? 

a. They can set up the initial organization system. - They can outline proposed changes, have you sign off, then create folders & start moving old emails.  Additionally, they can organize the email layout so that you can prioritize what's important.

b. They can set up automations so certain types of emails (example: calendar invitations) go to one folder. 

c. They can sort emails as they arrive to your inbox so you can focus on what's most important and spend less time sorting out the junk.

2. Computer file organization - At the end of every day, take five minutes to go through your downloads folder and either delete or move files to appropriate folders.  To make this easier in the future, change your settings so that your computer prompts you on where to save rather than automatically saving downloads to a default folder. 

How can virtual assistants help?

They can take a folder of downloads, delete what's not useful, and organize into a cloud-based system like Google Drive or Microsoft Sharepoint. 

3. Phone organization - Go through the photos on your phone once per month and delete anything you wouldn't consider framing.  Additionally, once every six months, delete any apps you don't use anymore. 

How can virtual assistants help?

They can go through cloud-based files from your phone and delete old screenshots, downloaded PDFs, and irrelevant photos.