Unlocking the Power of Digital Organization: A Teacher's Ultimate Solution to Stress and Overwhelm

Are you a teacher struggling with mounting paperwork, endless digital files, and the constant battle to find essential resources when you need them the most? If so, you're not alone. The teaching profession is demanding, and the ever-increasing administrative tasks and digital clutter can easily contribute to burnout and a sense of being overwhelmed. However, there is a game-changing solution that can revolutionize your teaching experience: digital organization!

The transformative impact of digital organization on teachers' lives and learn how implementing effective organizational strategies can alleviate stress, streamline workflows, and enhance productivity in the classroom.

In this episode, we chat with Lisa McHargue and explore the impact of digital clutter on teachers' well-being, the benefits of efficient email management, and the power of creating unit hubs for seamless lesson planning. Along the way, we'll also provide valuable insights into the health implications of disorganization and the detrimental effects it can have on your overall well-being.

Lisa McHargue is a former high school Spanish teacher turned online digital organizer. She taught Spanish for ten years, the last seven in a 1:1 school. She's a minimalist living her best life binge-reading fiction and helping teachers and online business owners take control of their digital chaos and create systems to keep it organized. When she's not geeking out about organization or minimalism, she's probably hanging out with her family or pretending to be a contestant on The Great British Baking Show.

HEAD OVER TO THE SHOW NOTES: teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/episode62

🆓🎟 Grab your FREE ticket to the Summer Self-Care Conference & Learn More: teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/summerselfcareconference



👉Join the FREE Resilient Teacher Community on Facebook: http://www.teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/supportsquad

📝 Want a FREE personalized step-by-step guide to crushing teacher burnout? Take the Personalized Burnout Recovery Roadmap quiz here!

 ❓Get your Questions Answered on the Resilient Teacher Podcast: Ask anything about burnout, recovery, self-care, simplification, and get your questions answered on the show. Head over to teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/ask

✨While this podcast is meant to be helpful for teachers and their mental health, it is not a replacement for therapy or medical care from a licensed professional. Head over to teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/talkspace to save $100 on your first month of accessible therapy from a licensed professional by using the code: SPACE!

🚨Get on the Waitlist for the Automate Your Classroom course & be the first to know how to simplify teacher tasks and create automations so that you can reduce time wasting tasks, set it and forget it, and have the time to do the things you actually want to do in teaching here!

👩🏻‍💻Get on the Individualized EduCare Program Waitlist and be the first to know when the doors open & special promotions here!

💬PS: Has this podcast been helpful for you? Quick! Screenshot this episode, add it to IG, and tag me @teachingmindbodyandsoul  This helps spread the word of this podcast to other educators.

Introduction and Background of the Guest

[0:00] Hey, Lisa, I am so excited to have you on the Resilient Teacher podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you about how teachers can get digitally organized to make life easier.

Yes. And so I gave this really great little brief introduction about you before we started, but I would just love it if you just like introduce yourself, tell a little bit about how you got started with digital organization. Yeah, it was not the plan. That's for sure.

Shirts, a weird windy road.

So I actually didn't go to school, to college for teaching.

And I worked in a really soul-sucking job in a cubicle and realized I had to get out.

So I took kind of a nontraditional route into teaching. And I taught high school Spanish for 10 years.

And actually, I've taught everything literally from kindergarten Spanish to college credit high school courses. I've literally, like, taught it all.

And when I started teaching, I've always been a really organized person, like I was really into horses as a kid.

And rather than like play with my horses, I would organize them by like color or size or when I bought them or the imaginary families I'd made for them.

[1:11] So I became a teacher and I thought, oh, like, no worries. I'm going to totally be organized to have this down.

Spoiler alert, that is not what happened. I was not prepared for the amount of stuff that a teacher has.

But I really spent those first few years of teaching, especially that second year, struggling because I was not organized at all like how I thought I was going to be.

I spent about the next probably five years or so kind of like perfecting my system and learning how to get my stuff together.

The Birth of Digital Organization and Teaching Others

[2:05] And she said, oh, I'm going to be teaching direct object pronouns tomorrow, but I'm not sure how I'm going to intro it. I'm like, hey, I have this really cute story. Hang on.

And I happened to be sharing my screen at the time. And I pulled up this resource and she goes.

[2:18] Oh my gosh, Lisa, how did you do that?

And I thought she meant, how did I make the resource? She was, no, no, no, no, no.

How did you find that so fast? She's like, it would have taken me 15 minutes to find that file, assuming I could even find it.

And she goes, I probably would have just ended up having to recreate it from scratch.

She's like, you need to like tell people how to do this. You need to show them it's possible because she just thought Google Drive was like a terrible product and it couldn't be organized and all of this and everyone hated it.

[2:49] And she said, Lisa, I didn't even think a Google Drive like yours could exist.

Like it wasn't even a possibility in her world.

And we all know what happened in 2020. So it was kind of terrible and perfect timing all in one.

[3:10] And I started with teachers, helping them organize Google Drive and resources and how to name your files so that you can find them.

And then that just grew. And so now I work with online business owners as well now, too.

And I talk with people still about Google Drive and Files, but also things like your email inbox or Canva or project management tools like Asana and things like that. So that is the short version of how I got to where I am now.

Expanding beyond Teaching: Helping Online Business Owners with Organization

[3:40] I love it. I think a lot of teachers really struggle with being able to find what they need.

They get sitting down and they're looking at a lesson plan and they're like, where is that one thing that I got from TPT? I really like that thing, but I don't know where it is. I really struggled with that.

[3:58] I think I actually took a class or a workshop with you and I was like, yeah, Yeah.

Like I need to organize my Google Drive and now it's become like a part of my monthly like system. Like I go through and I try to make sure that they are organized so that I can actually find what I need when I need it, you know?

So what are some other struggles that you see teachers having with digital organization and what do you think the effects are of that?

Oh my gosh. So the biggest one probably is what you said where you remember you have something.

You're like, I know I bought something, I know I made something, but I cannot find it.

And you know, so you search and you search and you're either just clicking around or maybe you're searching for a file name.

And I mean, as teachers at my last school, I had a 90-minute planning period every other day. We had A-day, B-day schedules, which means some weeks I only had two days where I had a plan period.

And 90 minutes, this seems like a long time, but it's not. But if you spend 15 minutes of your 50 minute or your 90 minute or whatever plan time searching for one file, it's like, oh, that just ate up so much of my precious time.

And that's kind of the main thing that a lot of teachers are aware of is that it's taking up my time. Like I am wasting time searching for the thing and then I can't find it. So I say forget it.

[5:25] And I end up recreating it. So there goes another 15 to 30 minutes.

And then I go to like save it and inevitably, of course, after you've recreated the wheel, you find the original file and you're like, are you kidding me?

Yeah. But then if you're listening, you've ever been in that situation, like you know how that feels.

And if you're like me, I have a hard time of like letting things go when I'm frustrated and like walking away.

So I, in those early years, would carry that like frustration then into my classes because it would just sort of like, ah, are you kidding me? I just wasted all this time.

And it really does impact you energetically as well. It makes you frustrated.

It wastes your time, so then you're more stressed because I didn't get to this project that I needed to do today because I was wasting time searching for stuff or I thought it was gonna take five minutes And it took 20 minutes and.

It really – I say it's kind of like getting pecked to death by a duck.

It's all – yeah. It's all these little things just like chipping away at you.

And so really, it – I always say they're just files, but they're not just files. It really.

[6:40] Does have such an impact on your body from a physical standpoint as well. There's a lot of

The Impact of Digital Clutter on Health and Well-being

[6:46] studies about working in a visually cluttered environment, and there's more coming out about digital clutter. But the short version is it's not good for your health, for things like your immune system, which, oh my goodness, if you're a teacher in the classroom, so many germs. We need our immune system as good as it can be. It impacts things like your digestion, your hormones, your ability to recover from illness. People who work consistently in visually cluttered environments are at a higher risk for heart disease.

Like, that's insane, you know? That is. Right?

And so I work with a lot of people that either they know it's weighing down on them, but a lot of times they didn't realize how much.

I always laugh. I'm like, a lot of times people cry when they work with me for like long periods of time because they'll say, Lisa, I like, I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize how much it was affecting me until it was better.

It's kind of like you don't realize how sick you are until you feel better.

It's that same kind of thing.

I was like, oh my gosh, this is so much harder than I ever thought it was going to be.

Let's heap on all the challenges that have just come on in the last, you know, five years or so. It's really hard.

The Toll of Disorganization on Teachers' Workload and Stress Levels

[8:08] We don't need files and emails, like, heaping onto that workload.

And so, really, when we are disorganized, and I include myself in that because I am not perfect.

Please don't listen to this and think I have to help each other all the time. I don't.

It's kind of like giving ourselves one more plate to juggle.

And over time, it really does just take its toll mentally and physically.

So that's the stuff that, like, really gets me is when I see teachers struggling and really just starting from scratch every single year.

I've worked with veteran teachers who have taught for 15 years that are basically starting from scratch every year and recreating stuff.

And I'm like, oh my God, no, why? And it stresses them out and they're so busy.

I'm like, that's not how we should live.

Yes. And you know, we've talked on the podcast before about how like stress can accumulate and it accumulates within your body and I, have read there's like a, Where's my book at there's a book called joy at work by Marie Kondo and she's talking about like some of some of those same types of things how, Clutter and things like that can really impact your nervous system system, impact your stress levels, and so everything that you just said makes complete sense in terms of the importance of organization.

Digital organization basics for teachers: creating folders and categories

[9:36] What are some of the digital organization basics or foundations that every teacher should have?

Yeah, so I think the basics, just like in your classroom, all your physical stuff, you want to have a place for everything. got like, oh, this is where kids turn papers in, and this is where supplies go, and all that kind of stuff.

You want the same thing in your digital spaces.

This sounds simple, and it really kind of is, but you want to have a place for everything and everything in its place.

So I like to tell people, too, if some people really struggle with a digital world because it's not tangible, you can't touch it, and it's that the fact that it's not physical and tangible, it makes it more of a challenge for some people, especially if we're talking about people like who have ADHD and struggle with object permanence and like executive functioning and things like that.

Like it's out of sight, out of mind, literally.

Stuff tends to get lost. So I will tell people when it comes to digital space, for teachers, I like to have a folder for each prep or each class that you're teaching.

Setting up folders for each class and unit for easy access

And then within that, like within Spanish 1, I had a folder for each unit that I taught.

I have it narrowed down to this one area.

The same way if I say, hey, where are your socks?

You know where things are. Just the same way that you know where, you know, your favorite pair of jeans is or whatever. You know where all your clothing is. Think of your digital files as the same way. If it's really, really intimidating, like recognize already that like you have a really complex organizational system within your house. So think of your digital spaces that same way. Break it down into like rooms, kind of like your big categories.

Than different pieces of furniture or areas in that room.

And if that's it, like you can just do that or you can get really specific and do things like, oh, it's in the front middle section of this specific drawer.

I have yet to work with somebody who likes folders inside of folders, inside of folders, inside of folders, like I do.

I like to get really specific.

Most people just wanna go one or two layers deep because they're not gonna go that deep.

So if you can set up those basics of like, here's my prep folder for the class and then here's like for each unit or each theme or whatever, that can narrow it down.

That's a good starting point.

The struggle of organizing email inboxes

Starting points for decluttering and organizing email

So when it comes to email, in Gmail, If you go, you can start with your inbox, is fine. And up in the top right corner, you're gonna see a number that tells you the total number of emails in your email inbox.

You hover your mouse over that, it's gonna pop down a little window that says newest and oldest.

If you click on oldest, it's gonna reverse sort those emails and take you basically to the last page, really.

I guess it doesn't really reverse sort, but it'll take you to the last page.

If you've never done this and you've had this account for a long time, you might be surprised how far back it goes.

Understanding Gmail's "All Mail" Section

On the left-hand side of Gmail, where you've got like inbox, sent, spam, all that stuff, there's a section that says all mail.

All mail is all of your mail. So it's your inbox, anything you have in folders, and anything you've archived.

When you accidentally hit that archive button and you're like, oh no, where did it go?

It went to all mail. That's where it went. Out of your inbox, it's in all mail.

Still there, still searchable, hasn't disappeared. It's just been moved.

If you do this in all mail in reverse sort, you'll probably get even older things.

So a lot of times I will recommend start there because those really old emails are like nice low hanging fruit that are sometimes easier to get rid of.

Like, you know, that's almost 10 years ago. I don't need emails from 10 years ago. Yeah.

And the other question, the other thing to consider is sometimes people run across stuff.

Like, oh, but this PD session I went to seven years ago, and here's the handouts.

Ooh, I might need them.

Is this one handout really going to be the thing that transforms your life? Probably not.

And honestly, it's probably not even best practices anymore depending on what it was about.

So I like to go into inbox or all mail, go up to the top right where it shows you that number, hover over it, click on oldest, it'll take you to the old ones, you can start deleting.

And that's usually easier because they're old, and so there's not as much emotional attachment to them maybe, or there's a little more like, it's seven years old, I can let this go.

Managing Your Inbox and Avoiding Inbox Zero Pressure

That is not its purpose. Now that said, I am not an inbox zero person.

I think Inbox Zero, one, it doesn't work for me and my brain, two, I feel like it puts a lot of added pressure on people. Like, oh, no, I didn't get to Inbox Zero today.

I've quote unquote failed.

Like, no, life happens. You know, I feel like it's extra pressure we don't need to put on ourselves.

So for example, the emails about our podcast interview today are in my inbox.

Guess what? Like, after this interview, I'm going to go delete, like, the calendar reminders and the link to get to this interview, you know, because I don't need them anymore.

And I left them in there because I'm like, oh, this is coming up in, like, the next, you know, two weeks or so. I'm going to leave it here. So, yeah.

Now, I have a lot of email addresses, too. I have a personal email address.

Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Organizing Multiple Email Inboxes

I have an email dedicated to online shopping. So all of those email confirmations and shipping and it's been delivered and confirmed, all those emails go to a specific email inbox so that they're not mixed up with like my kids' summer camp stuff.

So if I'm gonna attend like a summit or I wanna download an ebook from somebody, I use that one.

I have another business email account which is like my client facing one.

It's what I use to communicate with clients, book podcasts, things like that.

So some people are like, I can't even manage one inbox. How am I gonna have more than one?

And the key is really if you, I sometimes will say, you need another separate inbox, that is specifically dedicated to XYZ.

Because I'll work with teachers sometimes who I'll see dentist appointment reminders coming to their school inbox.

And I'm like, why is that coming to your school inbox? Not in a judgy way, like, that's personal.

It shouldn't be there.

But is that really the best place for it? Because now your brain is switching between trying to lesson plan and, oh, gosh, I forgot I have that dentist appointment coming up.

Reschedule, and now your attention's been diverted.

And now it's harder to find you.

So I like multiple inboxes.

Using Folders for Efficient Email Management

So when our media specialist would send us the list of, here's all the databases we have access to, and all the logins and passwords, that doesn't need to live in my inbox, and I need to keep it, so let me put it in my save reference folder.

And now I know where it is if I need it, and it's not in the way.

And then if I do need it, it's a lot easier for me to say, okay, let me search in this folder for an email from Anna, cause I was our media specialist, and I'm gonna find it a lot faster than having to like scroll my inbox forever or search and find a lot of emails from Anna about like the potluck and whatever and all this stuff.

So that save reference folder, and at the end of the year, I would usually go and like kind of clean it out at the end of every year, but okay, I don't need the graduation schedule, I don't need the prom information, I don't need all of this.

I would kind of clean it out at the end of every year or the start of every year.

And that kept that folder manageable too.

So that's like my favorite thing tip to do. I love it.

Creating Unit Hubs for Teacher Organization

Your presentation is gonna be fantastic.

Can you talk a little bit about what, like the teachers are gonna be learning from you, what you're gonna be talking about so they can know what to look forward to in your session?

Oh, I can talk a lot about it. I get really geeky about this.

And so this is one of those, I'm gonna be talking about creating unit hubs.

And what I mean by unit hub is one document that has everything you need for a unit.

Because I worked with so many teachers who, you know, let's say, okay, hey, I'm gonna be starting the family unit next week or whatever.

How did I start it? Where are my lesson plans? Oh, I wonder what assessment I used.

Like, where's those hands-on cards that we used for that partner talking activity?

They have no idea, and stuff is scattered everywhere. And I'm like, why? No.

So unit hubs are great. They pair really nicely with a good folder system and good file naming conventions.

But even if you don't have that, I don't have a great file folder structure.

So it's all of your lesson plans.

It's all of the resources like linked in there so that really you can prep for a unit in like minutes instead of hours, because all you have to do is open that hub.

And it's like the dummies guide to this unit. It's everything you need in one spot.

So you're not wondering, gosh, what did I do for my unit hook or intro?

Or how many days did it take? Or gosh, what was that YouTube video?

God, did I pin it? Do I have it in YouTube? Where is it?

It's all there organized for you. It's kind of like the master plan.

And these can be really, really simple. The ones I actually used while I was teaching were really simple and ugly.

They weren't pretty because if you know me, I say practical over pretty all the time.

And I show a few examples in my session of like, hey, here's how you can add some color and some fun icons and use tables to kind of like format it.

You can make it look really nice. So if you do like pretty things and you do like color coding, kind of having themes, you know, you can do that as well.

But unit hubs really are just, they were a lifesaver for me teaching.

And any time I run across a teacher that I work with that doesn't have something like that, I'm like, okay, we got to talk. This is what we're going to do. So that's what I'm going to be talking about at the conference. And I'm really excited about it.

Yes, I'm excited about it. Because I had never thought of unit hubs when you talked about it, when I've gotten to see the, I've got to see it already.

Yeah, we got behind the scenes a little bit.

Yes. And so I was just like, What have I not been doing? I mean, usually, teachers could learn a ridiculous amount from you. And I mean, just from this podcast episode, I've learned like five things. I'm making my to-do list right now to go into my email inbox and even play around in my Google Drive. But can you tell the listeners a little bit about where to find you, where to learn more from you? I know you're on Instagram. Some of the courses maybe you offer those types of things.

It's a doozy to say. It's a doozy to spell, so online I'm lisamch.

On Instagram, I am lisajmch. I spend way too much time there.

Kind of calm down for the summer. During the school year I'm in stories.

Monday through Friday I accidentally made an Instagram story show called The Pickup line with Lisa, where I'm literally sitting in the school pickup line waiting for my kid.

The double entendre with like a pickup line is also intentional.

Yeah, you can find me at lisamch.com.

You can also find courses I have, trainings, and free resources.

I mentioned earlier I've got one about, it's called Tame Your Inbox.

It's all about getting your Gmail under control. I have a whole training about the unit hubs we talked about.

If you use Canva, there's a workbook on how to organize your Canva.

I feel like there's another training. Oh, there is. I just did a training because, again, I kept getting asked about how to organize your TPT purchases.

All these people that buy stuff from Teachers Pay Teachers and then can't find it.

I'm like, what do you mean you can't find it? And they download it.

They have to go to TPT and download it for the hundredth time.

I have a training about that. But there's also some really great free resources like a Canva declutter guide, three steps to an inbox that doesn't look like crap.

So if you go to lisamch.com along the top, you'll see all of those things.

So I'm going to put the links for those all down in the show notes for people to grab and see all that you're talking about.

I mean, I can just see this really helping a lot of educators and reducing that stress and overwhelm, which is so important nowadays. So I want to thank you so much, Lisa, for coming on to the show. And I hope everybody comes and checks out the Summer Self-Care Conference and your presentation. Thank you so much, Brittany, for letting me come on and geek out about digital organizing. And yeah, I'm looking forward to reaching a lot of people through your event this summer and be able to help make teaching just a little bit easier because it's hard enough without the digital clutter adding to it. Yes, absolutely.