74: The Ultimate Canva Organization Episode with Canva Verified Expert Brenda Cadman

If your Canva account is a complete disaster — designs floating in space, uploads you've had since 2017, and templates you used once and can never find again — you are not alone. Most solopreneurs are working inside a cluttered Canva account without realizing how much time and mental energy it's costing them. The good news? Getting organized doesn't have to be a full weekend project. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm joined by fellow Canva Verified Expert Brenda Cadman, whose entire expertise is Canva organization. She breaks down where to start, what to delete, how to structure your folders, and the one navigation trick most people don't know about. If you've ever re-uploaded the same brand photo six times because it was faster than finding it, this episode is for you.

Check out the full show notes for this episode CLICK HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

• Why your uploads folder is probably a dumping ground, and how to fix it
• The purge-first approach: why creating folders before deleting is the wrong order
• How to use Canva's "Your Projects" view to actually see what still needs to be filed
• The star folder trick for projects you're accessing constantly
• The difference between designs and templates, and why mixing them up is costing you time
• Why naming your files matters more than you think (and what to name them)
• How to make progress in small chunks without overhauling everything at once

Resources & Links mentioned in the episode:

• Brenda Cadman's website (where to find her and learn more)
• Brenda's Canva organization course, evergreen and updated when Canva changes

Connect with me:
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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Listen, I know I was the weird kid organizing things in kindergarten by category. Mm-hmm. And it's what I love to do. I actually get a real joy when I see a big pile of messy folders that I can sit down and put order to. That's fun for me. I know a lot of people will see that and think, "Oh, hell no. I don't wanna touch this. I, I- Yeah I just, I can't." And they'll put it off and put it off. So break it down to what feels manageable, just a small chunk of it, and see if we can start getting some of that relief, and that's probably gonna power you on.

Speaker 2 0:33

Welcome to the Creative Bodega Podcast. I'm Em Connors, Instagram content strategist, one of 43 Canva-verified experts worldwide, and a mom of two, who is not on Instagram for fun. I'm there to market my business, grow my email list, and get the heck off my phone. And that's exactly what I teach. You can expect simple content strategy, visual systems, and Instagram-to-email tactics that actually work without taking over your life. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Creative Bodega Podcast. Today, I have my very first Canadian guest on the podcast. I actually don't have guests that often. It's something I wanna get a bit better about. It's honestly more about me being lazy about scheduling and, and coordinating with other people. But honestly, this guest is probably gonna make me look disorganized, which is saying something, 'cause I actually consider myself to be pretty organized when it comes to systems in Canva. But her name is Brenda Cadman, and she is a fellow Canva Verified Expert. There's only 43 of us in the world, and she is up in Canada, and her expertise is Canva organization. As in anytime we are all together as a group of CVEs, if anything organization comes up, everybody looks right at Brenda, and she's typically got an answer for it. So if your Canva account is currently a complete disaster, which honestly I I happen to know a lot of yours are, because I've worked with you and you've complained about it. You've got designs floating in space. You've got no folders. You've got templates that you used once and never again, and you can't even find them when you need them. This episode is going to be for you. So welcome to the podcast, Brenda.

Speaker 2:22

Thank you for having me, and your first Canadian. I feel so special.

Speaker 2 2:26

I f- I love my Canadians. You know what's funny? Actually, a lot of people think I'm Canadian.

Speaker 2:33

Interesting.

Speaker 2 2:34

Yes. They will DM me, like, "Are you in Canada?" And I'm like, "No." And they say that I give off Canadian vibes, which are kind vibes. They're kind- Well, that's

Speaker 2:44

good. I was gonna say- Yeah what does that mean?

Speaker 2 2:46

No, yes. Like, honest to God, Canadians are so kind and just kind of down to earth, I, I think, personally. So whenever I get that question, I take it as a complete compliment.

Speaker 2:57

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:59

Yeah. Yeah. So you're one of very few Canva Verified Experts in the world. How did organization become your jam?

Speaker 3:08

I mean, it's been with me since I was a child. I literally can remember being in kindergarten, and most of the kids were, you know, they're playing with the train set, they're playing with the blocks, they're playing... There was a, a dress up area. And then Mrs. McPherson had this kind of armoire of, you know, just little drawers and things, and there'd be buttons in one, there'd be like, I don't know, like bottle caps in another. And it was just drawers of little things, and you could pull them out, and you could organize them into some sort of category, and she'd come by and try to figure out, had you ordered, organized it by color or size or whatever it was. And I distinctly remember that being my favorite thing, so perhaps the signs were in early.

Speaker 2 3:54

That's really super interesting, 'cause my daughter is, is like that. Like, we have a picture of her when she was, like, two, and she's... You know the little, like, food pouches, you know, like the different- Yep kinds of food. All she's doing is lining them up by color order. And then-

Speaker 4:09

Interesting

Speaker 2 4:09

then, yeah, then she moved into dress up clothes, but she never actually tried on the dress up clothes. All she would do was organize all the stuff to... And she still does it to this day. She's got fidgets, and we're not sitting there playing with them. We're by color, or we are by size, or we are by function. So I'm always like, "I can't wait to see what you're gonna do with your life."

Speaker 4:30

It's funny, I was at a networking thing recently, and that story came up, and we'd been talking about neurodivergence, and I've never identified as neurodivergent, but, uh, the more stories I was telling, the more of them that were saying, "Uh, Brenda, data point." So... Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, no, I, I, I realized- That probably very early I was wired to look for, to categorize things, to look for patterns. And then throughout high school, you know, I w- in student council I was the one with the color-coded binder for things, and I got teased about it a lo- a, a lot growing up because, you know, I was always the reliable one who came with everything ready to go and, and organized- Yeah into categories. But it's just how my brain operates, and whether it's, you know, spaces or events or piles of paper, I'm looking for ways to put order to, to the chaos so you can actually- Yeah get things done faster. And- Mm-hmm Canva was just the next iteration of that.

Speaker 2 5:23

That actually makes perfect sense to me. What would you say, 'cause I, you know, clearly I work with a lot of female solopreneurs, and in my course it's definitely more about like design and branding colors, and like getting a system up and running so you can post easily on social media. And, and I have one lesson on how I organize my Canva, and I'm always surprised 'cause people are like, "Oh my God." And I always say, "This is so unsexy. This is like not-" Oh, it's, it's- you know, it's not cool. It's not like-

Speaker 5:53

No, this is not the AI. This is not-

Speaker 2 5:54

Yes, yes

Speaker 5:55

the design side. This is the boring stuff.

Speaker 2 5:58

Yes. But oh my God- It's important how much easier it will make your life if you actually- Yeah take the 30 to min- whatever, how long ever it's gonna take you. It's so worth it, and that's what people say after they do it. They're like, "I'm so glad you made us do this because..." What is, would you say, the biggest mistake you see solopreneurs making with their Canva account when it comes to organization?

Speaker 6:23

I mean, the biggest one there, they're really... It does fall into different categories. There's a wide variety of the same mistakes that come up over and over. One of the easiest ones that people can relate to is using their uploads folder as a dumping ground for every single- Ugh you know, piece of media.

Speaker 2 6:37

Guilty.

Speaker 6:38

I know.

Speaker 2 6:39

Guilty.

Speaker 6:39

And Canva did roll out more recently the ability to create folders inside of uploads, which- Yes was not there for the longest time. But honestly, that didn't need to be, uh, the thing stopping you, because you could always create custom folders to- Mm-hmm organize your images. But you have to actually take the step of doing it, and it can feel overwhelming if you've been dumping images in there, uploading images for years. You can literally have thousands of images in there, so it does feel- Yeah a little bit overwhelming, a little cumbersome to, to do it. But if you don't actually start going through it, doing a purge of what doesn't need to be there, and start looking for the, the patterns and the categories of content that you're uploading, you're gonna end up uploading the same brand photo shoot half a do- half a dozen times- because it's easier to upload it than it is to go back and find it.

Speaker 2 7:28

Find it.

Speaker 7:28

And especially if you have a lot of images you're uploading that might be similar, you know, if you don't have a, a system to help you find what you're looking for quickly, then every time you go to look for a brand asset, a, a, a f- an image asset, or even a design, you are introducing decision-making at every step. Because now- Yeah first you have to find it, and then once you find it, you have to do a quick analysis of is this the version I'm actually looking for, because the naming isn't, you know- Yeah on par to, to tell me if this is the current one that I'm looking for. Yeah. And if you've got a lot of old stuff in there you haven't purged out, now there's a lot of clutter in terms of deciding is this the most relevant version to use. So I think that overall, if I had to look for one thing, it's just the not maintaining it, not staying on top of it. It feels... I think digital clutter feels different than physical clutter because you can put it away and you don't have to look at it the same way. 100%. You also don't, you also don't have the same kind of natural confinement that you have in a physical space. If you have a closet, you only have so much space in there, and if it's overwhelmed and stuff's falling out of it, you can't put anything else into it. You have to deal with it, whereas in a, in a digital environment, you need to... Y- that constraint is taken off to some extent. Yes, there's limits in terms of file-

Speaker 2 8:47

Yeah

Speaker 8:47

counts that you can have, but they're pretty high, so you kind of have a lot of wiggle room there, so.

Speaker 2 8:52

Yeah, I mean, God, I've had Canva for whatever, since 2017, and I've never run into a problem with my uploads. Yeah. And I upload a lot of stuff. I actually have to ask you a question, 'cause I don't know the answer to this Can you name the files? Can you name the uploads? Is it, when you said search. Yes. So, so then you could search a key- You can

Speaker 9:10

rename them

Speaker 2 9:11

keyword. Yeah,

Speaker 9:12

so you can- Yeah you can rename them, so you can search by keyword, but Canva does, if you're on Pro, it's also going to put into place smart tagging, which will-

Speaker 2 9:21

Mm

Speaker 9:21

naturally start adding keywords. So, so you can name them. Mm. You can tag them, and there's smart tagging, which is Canva using its AI to determine what is the content of this image, and then assigning keywords to it to hopefully help you be able to retrieve them later. Got it. Which can be helpful, but, you know, it's not gonna be able to pick up on context, like which event was this from. Right,

Speaker 2 9:40

right,

Speaker 9:40

right. Um, if there is something specific about it, a, a brand or a client that it's associated with that I would want it to come up for. Yeah. And also, back to that point of uploading everything you ever needed, if you have three gazillion versions of, you know, a particular image, it's gonna surface everything. Yeah. And so you still, you w- naming's important, search is important, but you wanna be doing it in conjunction with some sort of actual organizational structure as well.

Speaker 2 10:07

Yeah. So do you do all the things? You name it, you put it in a folder. Like, I think that's, those are like the- Yeah two main things, right?

Speaker 10:15

Yeah, those are the main things. I don't tag images because I, I don't need to, because I- Yeah it's not the way my brain naturally works- Names. In folder and I can find it in the folder if I'm looking for it.

Speaker 2 10:25

Yeah.

Speaker 10:25

But there are all these different aspects to organization in Canva that I think a lot of people don't realize exist. Because if it feels... I- if you feel a lot of friction going into Canva trying to find things, it's easy to, it's easy to blame it on the platform.

Speaker 2 10:39

Yeah. Yep, yeah.

Speaker 10:40

And the reality is there are features there available, but you have to know which ones to use. You have to actually take the steps to come up with a system that works for you.

Speaker 2 10:48

Yeah.

Speaker 10:48

Because the five folders that work for somebody else likely won't work for you, because we retrieve information- That's right differently. We have different industries. We are creating different kinds of content. Yeah. And even if you're creating identical content to the person next to you, you may be looking for it in a different way, and you wanna be able to create a system that works for you, but also works for anybody who's gonna be accessing your content on your behalf.

Speaker 2 11:09

Correct. Like i- in my course, The Visual Edit, I'm like, "I can share with you my folder levels-" Yeah "but this may not make sense for you." Like, you need to really think about what you're regularly accessing or how you would, like, layer things, you know. So I'm like, always like, it's a starting point, but definitely-

Speaker 11:29

It's great for inspiration.

Speaker 2 11:30

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But definitely think about how you use Canva. That's really funny you said that. I assumed you were gonna say something about folders, but you went with the uploads, and that is definitely an area where, ugh, I have a lot. I, I have a lot. So, and so, so okay. So this is a good question. So someone like me who y- I may have one or two folders in there that I made years ago and, and I haven't kept up with.

Speaker 11:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:56

How do you recommend somebody tackle... Is this, like I say, like for folders, I say set a timer and, like, g- see what you can get through in a certain amount of time, and then, like, then let it go. Like-

Speaker 12:08

And I think this is a mistake a lot of people make, and then they write off folders because it didn't work for them. And it's also why I don't say folders is the first thing, because the fix often isn't to just start creating folders, 'cause there's no point creating folders for things until you understand what you have and what you have to organize.

Speaker 2 12:23

Right.

Speaker 12:23

Otherwise, you're gonna end up scrolling through pages of folders instead of pages of files, and that's not helping anybody. So I honestly think the, the best first step is just, y- you know, put, put your favorite show on, whatever streaming platform you watch, grab s- your favorite drink, and get into purge mode. Let's start deleting what you don't need, because if you think- Yeah of the parallels with, like, a physical filing cabinet, you're not gonna start creating folders for papers- Need that don't need to be there in the first place. If they're garbage, if they're reference-

Speaker 2 12:55

Mm-hmm

Speaker 12:55

these are things we need to know. Like, if there's archive stuff in there you need to keep, but it doesn't need to be Forward facing that you need to be accessing on a regular basis, this is where creating an archive folder can come in handy. So usually what I find the best first step for folks is you're gonna go through, you're gonna make a decision, is this current? Am I gonna use this? Leave it alone. I don't need this anymore. I, I don't see any situation I'm gonna use this. It's garbage. Delete it. And, uh, I'm not sure, I might need to reference this in the future, but it's not something active. Create a folder called, called archive and just dump all of those in there. You can create a subfolder structure for that later if you need to, but at least that's something if you go searching for it in the future, it's still there. Yeah. And you know, there might be things you have for nostalgia purposes. Maybe there's something you created with an old brand that's no longer active- Yeah, yeah that you kind of wanna be able to reflect on it later on- Yes to see how far you've come. Yes. You can keep those. I'm not saying turf everything. I- Mm-hmm I'm a little aggressive when it comes to clearing things out in my home. Me too. My h- my husband can attest to that.

Speaker 2 13:55

I threw my daughter's tooth out last night, and she lost her mind. I was like... Yeah. Anyways, keep going.

Speaker 14:00

We all have that, the, the teeth and hair pile.

Speaker 2 14:03

Uh-huh.

Speaker 14:04

Uh-huh. It's mom's

Speaker 2 14:05

prerogative. I, I, I- Yes I take it, I take it seriously. Yeah. Teeth and hair. But,

Speaker 14:09

you know, in terms of, in terms of that digital content, because we don't have the same physical constraints, you can keep it. I'm not here to say you have to get rid of everything that you're not using at this moment. But you need a really intentional place of where you're gonna go look for it if you need it, and you don't want it, it cluttering up the stuff that you actually need to get done.

Speaker 2 14:29

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14:30

So going through and doing that first purge through is really important. And while you're going through, you can also be looking at, what am I creating? What are the natural- Mm-hmm clusters of content that I'm creating? You might be finding, I create a lot of social content. Okay, mental note, there's probably gonna be a primary folder for social media.

Speaker 2 14:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 14:48

And that can be broken down into platform, or that can be broken down in another way that makes more sense to you, maybe by campaign or by, you know, month if, if that makes more sense for

Speaker 2 14:57

you. For me, it's by style. It's like carousels- There you

Speaker 15:00

go

Speaker 2 15:00

single image, whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 15:02

There you go. So you're gonna have your own unique way of how you b- you break that content down. Some of us are active on certain platforms and not others. So I don't need- Yeah a folder for TikTok or anything- Yeah 'cause I don't create anything for that.

Speaker 2 15:15

No. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 15:15

So you can start absorbing that while you're going through it. But it's also a nice entry point into getting organized because it's not a huge heavy lift in terms of deciding. You can follow your gut on, yeah, I still need this, oh, I might wanna keep that for the future, and oh, I, that's garbage, I don't need that anymore. Never use. Yeah. So it's a quick decision. And the same thing goes through your u- for your uploads. You wanna do a purge through those as well.

Speaker 2 15:38

Right. Do you have any naming? Like, are you, do you have like a st-

Speaker 15:43

I, I'm

Speaker 2 15:44

not- Naming folders? No

Speaker 15:45

I'm not really militant about it. I, I think- Yeah the important thing is be consistent where you can, if there are things you're, you're naming on a regular basis. Make sure it's descriptive enough that you know at a glance what is actually in there, because-

Speaker 2 15:58

Yeah

Speaker 15:59

we all have multiple versions of things that look very similar on the outside. Mm-hmm. And you don't wanna be losing a few minutes here or a few minutes there opening four different versions of a file trying to find the right one. Yeah. Uh, so making sure that the naming is, is there. There are, there are techniques you can use that I can, I think can be very effective. You know, if you are creating content for clients, having a prefix on client files that, you know... I saw this with one client I worked with Like, if she was working with me, any design files related to me would start with BAC for Bonacure Creative, a colon, and then the file description. So she could search on the prefix to find everything, or she could at a glance see when organizing things what things were gonna go into my client folder. So those kinds of labeling can be very effective. Yeah. But I think really the most important thing is you be- you need to be able to look at it and know what it is without opening it. Right. I don't wanna see copy of, copy of blah, blah, blah. Oh, God. Yeah. Or copy of template name that had meaning at the time, but you haven't renamed- That's it so you don't even know if it's something you're using.

Speaker 2 17:01

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 17:02

So those kind of clean... little labeling cleanup issues. Yeah. But other than that, I think do what makes sense for you to be able to find the content easily in the future. That's the real test. Can you find this in fi- within... in under five minutes in the future if you need to?

Speaker 2 17:17

Yeah. If something took me five minutes, I'd give up, and I would just start a new design. Oh, yeah. Fi-

Speaker 17:22

five minutes may be generous.

Speaker 2 17:24

Yeah.

Speaker 17:24

If I can't find it in under

Speaker 2 17:25

a minute, I'm just gonna copy it. I really come out. I mean, you, you hit a really good point, and it's something I talk about a lot. It's that friction and decision fatigue. Like- Yeah that's why I'm always like, "Find reusable templates." You do- you should never be starting from nothing every time. Like, you... It's just crazy. Just because you used a design once doesn't mean it's, it's written off and done. In fact, people love seeing things that they recognize, you know, and they'll start to recognize your template style. Oh, absolutely. And that's huge. It

Speaker 17:51

shouldn't look different every time, otherwise- Right. Right you, you're not gonna build that, that brand recognition that you're after. Exactly. But if you're creating those templates, just make sure that, A, you, you know, you're creating a system to be able to find them easily, and B, that you're not mixing them up with designs. There's a difference between designs and templates, and you wanna be able- Correct to make sure you know which one to start with so you're not accidentally overwriting something- Yes that you've used in the past. So, you know, taking advantage of Canva's brand template feature if you're on Pro. And if not- Mm-hmm just making sure that you have a structure where the f- the template file is verily, very clearly the template and not, uh, one of the, the copies of it that you've created for a specific purpose.

Speaker 2 18:33

Correct. Correct. One of the things people do, do that kills me is, like, multiple carousels w- within one design. Like, I'm like, "You're never gonna be able to find it." 'Cause for me, I'm so visual. I'm not looking at words. I'm looking at that first page of the carousel with the headline or the hook, and that's how I know it's it. So if I had multiple carousels buried within one, I would never find... I'm always like, "Make a duplicate and, you know, or create a brand template and start from there." But I feel like that's a big mis- mistake I see people make.

Speaker 19:05

It can be. Uh, again, it's, it's individual. It's up to them. There are some people- Yeah, yeah, yeah who like to have all of the... They search by file type. They want it all in a single file. Yeah. In a single one. They wanna go to grid view and then scan and find it. But regardless, I mean, duplicating it and Using that fresh for an, a, a new carousel makes absolute sense. That's probably the way I would operate myself just instinctually.

Speaker 2 19:28

Yeah.

Speaker 19:29

But again, once you duplicate it, make sure you're renaming that sucker right away- Right because otherwise you're gonna have copy of, and then again, we're back to that, "I have to come back to this later." Copy of problem. If there's one file to, to reevaluate and rename later, it's not a big deal, but none of us has one file to do. At the end of the week, you're gonna have a whole bunch of them, and then it's, "Oh, I'll put that off until later," and then the pile grows again.

Speaker 2 19:51

Yes. Yeah. Definitely true. What is something that exists in Canva that most people don't know about, that you find yourself kind of schooling people on, like, "Oh," like... Oh.

Speaker 20:04

Oh, I know what the number one is. Okay. And it's not even a feature, it's just how to interact with it. Most people will say, "Okay, I've created folders, and I put a bunch of stuff in folders, and I'm still seeing everything I ever created, whether it's in a folder or not when I go to my project area."

Speaker 2 20:19

Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.

Speaker 20:20

That is because the way Canva works, at least at this time, is it surfaces kind of everything on that main, when you go to projects.

Speaker 2 20:26

Everything.

Speaker 20:27

The one thing you have to do is in the left-hand projects navigation, if you're not seeing that, make sure you expand the sidebar. You don't want the main default projects landing page. You want to go and show your projects. And when you filter it to your projects, you're not gonna see all the shared files to you. You're also not gonna see everything you ever created. What you're gonna see is the folder structure that you have and any files that have not been put into a folder yet. So if you narrow down to just your projects, if it's on that screen, it has to go into a folder. Like I literally had to create- Mm I literally had to create a YouTube video about this because so many people were asking

Speaker 2 21:07

So I'm on here now- How do I do this? so I clicked, I clicked projects on the left-hand side, and then I, and then at the top it says all projects, your projects, shared with you. So you're saying click on your projects, and then there it's recents, folders, and items. I don't know what that is. And items. So you- Yeah. So you're saying if it's on this page, it, it basically needs to be filed? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If you have filtered to your projects, you're not- Uh-huh on all projects- Right it needs to be filed. Under the items. The items. Correct. They're not

Speaker 21:24

in

Speaker 2 21:42

folders. Yeah. Interesting. I didn't know this, so I'm looking at everything now that needs to be-

Speaker 21:47

I mean, the caveat is that it could always change.

Speaker 2 21:51

Yeah. Oh,

Speaker 21:51

well. Yeah. And it has in the past. Yeah. The way of filtering to see this view and understanding what still needs to go into a folder that has- Yeah changed, and I mean, it could- That's interesting by the time people are listening to this. But-

Speaker 2 22:04

Yeah

Speaker 22:05

it's been like this for a little while. If it changes- That's cool I'll put another YouTube video out. But, um-

Speaker 2 22:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Speaker 22:10

yeah. At

Speaker 2 22:11

this point- Oh, that's

Speaker 22:11

really cool that's how you have to do it.

Speaker 2 22:13

I tell people don't even look at that project. Like I don't spend two seconds here. Oh, Em,

Speaker 22:18

don't do that.

Speaker 2 22:19

You don't. No, the main projects one, because I file everything- Yeah so I just navigate right to the file. I never s- have to spend time sort of perusing that like all designs area.

Speaker 22:32

Once you're organized and you have your folders and you're working from your folders, you can go through all projects 'cause you can quickly find the folder. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you haven't taken that step yet, it's just- Right gonna feel very overwhelming 'cause you could have a whole lot of folders that, you know, you don't even need. But I, I do find that particular... Uh, and I'm on a mission to ask them to please make your projects the default instead. Yeah. Because all projects- Yeah is not really useful for a lot of people- Mm. Mm-hmm because it, it does feel really overwhelming. But yeah, so until- Honestly, even if you have already organized, I've kind of developed the muscle memory to go straight to your project. Go right there.

Speaker 2 23:08

Yeah.

Speaker 23:08

And then if there's, you know, if there are folders you're constantly using and it's just a handful of them, don't forget that you can star folders so they're- Yeah appearing on the left-hand side. That can be really useful, particularly if you are working on just a kinda time-constrained project that-

Speaker 2 23:23

Yes

Speaker 23:24

maybe is, maybe it's in a subfolder that's really buried and you don't wanna click m- multiple times down. You can- To get there star it so it just appears in your little favorites on the side there, and then un-star it when you're done with that project.

Speaker 2 23:34

Exactly. That's one of the easiest things to do, and I am a huge star fol- folders. And it'll be like I have a course coming up, and I'm working on a lot of stuff all the time in this next month. And then when I'm done, you literally click the star, and it goes away. And it's gone. And it just goes back to its home. Yeah.

Speaker 23:52

So- And just make sure you don't star everything, because again, you're gonna get into- Yeah well, if you star everything, nothing is standing out, and it's not gonna serve its purpose.

Speaker 2 23:59

Right. I think I have five max at all times.

Speaker 24:02

Great.

Speaker 2 24:03

Yeah, that's a big one, like my podcast, right? Like, I'm always having to create- Yeah the image for the podcast, so it's like I want that folder really easy. I don't wanna go three layers, four layers deep to get to it.

Speaker 24:14

Yeah, like my blog is always starred. My blog- Yes and my course. The blog- Yeah I'm in there creating content multiple times a week. I'm always gonna need share images. I'm gonna need- Mm you know, screenshots that are formatted the way I want them. So I'm in there regularly. And it, it only saves a couple of clicks for me, but again- Yeah it's, it's cumulative. It adds up. Those little bits of savings-

Speaker 2 24:36

Yeah

Speaker 24:36

they add up to, you know, a, a big time savings overall, and also just a huge reduction in frustration.

Speaker 2 24:43

Totally. And that's one of the main things I hear, that women are, you know, "I don't use Canva that much 'cause it's just so frustrating," or, "I can never find what I need." And I'm like, "Oh, that breaks my heart." Like, there is a way to avoid that or make that better. 'Cause it, to me, it's, it's not a It doesn't feel like friction, you know? No. To me, going into Canva is really fun and light and creative. It's not like this big ask that I'm gonna get overwhelmed with. Um- No,

Speaker 25:09

everything just needs a home.

Speaker 2 25:10

Everything needs a home. I know. Well, okay, one last question. So someone's listening and their Canva is sort of a complete hot mess, and they've never really done anything to make it any better, what's like the one thing you would have them do today, starting with?

Speaker 25:28

Oh, the number one thing. I mean, that, that delete thing- There we go is a good starting point. I think it's one of the... I, I'd say start small, honestly. If you have it- Mm-hmm in you to go through and do a deleting episode, go through and do that. Yeah. If you wanna narrow the focus, just start with your uploads folder, which may be a big job into itself, but maybe- For sure just going through and deleting old uploads, that might be all you work on to start with. And I think getting that, those quick wins of, "Okay, this feels good. I'm actually getting rid of a lot of stuff that I don't need," it lifts the weight. It does start to feel lighter, and I think it can give you a bit of momentum to carry on. Because I know this is... Listen, I know I was the weird kid organizing things in kindergarten by category. Mm-hmm. And it's what I love to do. I actually get a real joy when I see a big pile of messy folders that I can sit down and put order to. That, that's fun for me. I know a lot of people will see that and think, "Oh, hell no, I don't wanna touch this. I, I- Yeah I just, I can't." And they'll put it off and put it off. So break it down to what feels manageable, just a small chunk of it, and see if we can start getting some of that, you know, that relief, and that's probably gonna power you on. And don't feel like you have to do it all at one time. It- baby steps. I mean, if, if you wanna carve out a weekend and just tackle this once and for all, fantastic. Yeah. But don't feel like you have to. Like, i- if you just even wanna clear the deck, move a lot of stuff into a folder to sort later, and just start fresh, that's fine too. I want you to find something that's gonna work for you to actually stop putting this off and tackle it. Yeah. Or figure out if there's somebody else that you can do this with, where maybe it's, you know, holdi- holding each other accountable, where you carve out some co-working time once or twice- Mm-hmm a week to just focus on clearing the mess a little bit half an hour at a time. Just make progress. It doesn't have to be perfect, just, just make progress.

Speaker 2 27:21

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. 'Cause a lot of people ask me, like, "Well, how far back should I go?" You know? And I'm like, "Well, I... It's up to you. If you start getting to stuff that you know is so old and you don't use it anymore, like, maybe that's your cutoff." Like,

Speaker 27:37

you know? Or, or at that point you're just, you know, click, dragging and selecting multiple files- Like you just said, yeah at that point and swoop it into an archive folder. It's an archive. Yeah. So you're not having to make decisions anymore. And then there's still decisions- That's definitely something- of having to do it. Yeah. But there's no mental power needed to do it, and that's the kind of task you really can do while you're, you know, catching up on Paradise or whatever. That's

Speaker 2 27:58

super satisfying to hear. To like, to... The, the thought of like selecting all and dragging it into an archive and then just like starting fresh from that next upload or whatever, that sounds very satisfying to me. That- I

Speaker 28:09

wish... That's one of the things I do wish Canva had, the ability to select all.

Speaker 2 28:12

Select all. You gotta manually- It's on

Speaker 28:14

my wish list

Speaker 2 28:14

click, click.

Speaker 28:15

They know it.

Speaker 2 28:15

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, Brenda, this was so good. Thank you so much for coming on. You're making me want to go to my uploads folder immediately and do a little recon, which I probably will do after we finish recording. But please share how people can find you and how they can work with you.

Speaker 28:33

The best place to find me is at my website, brendakadmon.com. I am not as active on social as I know your audience is. Same. I'm trying. It, it's an uphill battle for me. For sure. Uh, but the website's the best place. And, you know, i- if they're needing a little more help to actually tackle this process, I do have, uh, it's a course that's evergreen. It's available whenever you're ready to start the organizing process. And any time there are major changes to Canva's organization features, it does get updated as well, so you get lifetime access to those.

Speaker 2 29:03

I love that. And we will put both Brenda's website as well as a link to that course in the show notes. And yeah, I think that's it. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 29:14

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 29:15

All right, guys. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you loved this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode to help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, thecreativebodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode