062 Buried in Emails and Bad File Names with Lisa McH

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Have you ever heard the following myths about digital organization and file management? Myth #1: I can keep all my files in one folder. Myth #2: I don't need to organize my digital files, I can just search for them when I need them. Myth #3: I can rely on my computer's default file organization. In this episode, Lisa McH will share the truth behind these myths and provide valuable insights on effective digital file management.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Streamline your digital chaos with effective organization strategies.

• Establish clear digital boundaries for improved focus and productivity.

• Discover the art of balancing personal and professional life in the digital age.

• Master essential skills for launching and growing your online business.

• Embrace the power of perseverance as a crucial element in entrepreneurship.

"I spend my days helping people organize their inboxes, declutter them, set up a strategy and a system that works for them, and then maintain it. That's the big thing. I don't just roll in, organize your files and say, like, peace out, good luck." - Lisa McH

Find Lisa here:

https://lisamch.com

https://instagram.com/lisajmch

Free Guide: 3 Steps to an Inbox That Doesn't Look Like Shit https://lisamch.com/email

Tame Your Gmail Inbox Course: https://lisamch.com/tame

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00:00:00 - Regan Bashara You're cold. I'm cold. It's a cold open. So welcome to money through ease. I have a guest with me today. It's Lisa McH, who is a digital organizer which heavily overlaps with the work that I do. And I think it's amazing that she wanted to come on and share some tips with y'all about how to clean up that clusterfuck of an inbox. So tell us who you are, what you do, what your business is. 00:00:26 - Lisa McH All right, well, my name is Lisa McH, and I call myself the digital organizer, for lack of a better term. I was actually a high school spanish teacher for ten years, and I was super organized as a kid. I'm now finding out that was probably an ADHD coping mechanism, but when I went into teaching, I thought I was going to have this down. And this is way back in 2011 that started teaching y'all. I was not prepared. My files were a nightmare. Everything was disorganized when it came to the digital world. And my second year of teaching was awful. I had to recreate everything from scratch. Basically, I worked way harder than I needed to, and I realized, oh my gosh, something has to change. I have to figure out a system and how to stay organized and how to manage all of this. So I spent like the next five ish years really fine tuning a system that worked for me. Fast forward to the shit show that was 2020. And for the first time, a lot of teachers were thrown into online learning. And I had been teaching at a one to one school where every student brings their own device. We did a ton of stuff online. I had dialed in that organization system. And so I really spent 2000 and 22,021 helping teachers get organized and get a handle on their Google drives and their file names and their learning management systems, like Google Classroom and stuff like that. And from there, it just grew. And I started working with online business owners. And I've worked now with a few people, actually locally in person. But I spend my days helping people organize their inboxes, declutter them, set up a strategy and a system that works for them, and then maintain it. That's the big thing. I don't just roll in, organize your files and say, like, peace out, good luck. Because if I do that, a, 99% of the time, the way I would organize files, not the way my client would do it, and b, if I did that, and they have no habits set up, no systems, they don't know how to maintain it. It's going to be a dumpster fire again, in no time at all. And that's not what I'm about. So, yeah, I spend my days helping people organize, mostly Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, their computer files, canva project management system, pretty much all of the things decluttering, organizing, and then maintaining. 00:02:52 - Regan Bashara It's funny that you mentioned canva because I'm an organized person, even digitally. And then when you said canva, I was like, oh, no, that's a shithole over there. My canvas, a mess canvas. 00:03:03 - Lisa McH Horrible. If you're listening or watching this, and. 00:03:06 - Regan Bashara You'Re like, oh, God, me too. 00:03:07 - Lisa McH Everybody hates canva. I have not met a single person, and I've run across a few people that this is actually their specialty. All they do is help people organize canva. But, yeah, the way canva is, it's one of those things, like, why are you the way you are? Because the way it's designed, it is a nightmare, especially probably if you're, like, below the age of 30. I would guess you didn't get taught growing up, like, go to file, click ads. That's what I grew up. You had to go to file, click save ads, go to file, click save. And that's kind of how canva is built. And so I'm just like, oh, I feel like it's especially difficult for younger people if you're in a design, that's kind of what you have to do, and it's not intuitive at all. 00:03:57 - Regan Bashara Yeah, I did a webinar the other day, and I was, like, prepping my slides in canva the night before, and I guess the cache just got too full or something, and it was like, oops, we got to reload now. I'm almost done with the presentation. And it had just skipped over, like, ten slides that I had just done. But I do like that they have a version history. So I did go back. Oh, good. 00:04:22 - Lisa McH It was in the version history at least. 00:04:23 - Regan Bashara Well, almost like, most of the things that it had deleted were still in one of the versions. So I was able to restore that. But I almost cracked a tooth. I was, like, grinding my jaw as soon as it just refreshed on me, and I had to get up and walk away from my computer, I was like, you got to be shit. Me. Yeah. I almost had a freak out. It was like, 09:00 p.m. The night before this presentation. It was taking me so much longer than I thought, and I was like, always, bro, come on, man, throw me a bone here. 00:04:55 - Lisa McH Like, jesus Christ. 00:04:57 - Regan Bashara So I like canva, the design challenge. 00:05:02 - Lisa McH So canva is great. From a designer. And I love organization aspect. 00:05:06 - Regan Bashara No, it's a hot mess in there. I try to label or name my files like something that will help me in the future, but other than that, I don't have any folders set up and I'm just like, I don't have the time nor do I have the desire to do this. 00:05:23 - Lisa McH That is, most people I work with, I don't have the time and I don't want to do it. 00:05:28 - Regan Bashara Yeah, I think one of the things I was going to ask you is describe a day in your job or your business and you've kind of done that. And I think me being an accountant, you being an organizer, especially a digital organizer, most people would probably think like, wow, that is the last thing I want to be doing is those two things. And yet here you two are spending all day, every day, doing exactly doing the thing. 00:05:53 - Lisa McH Yeah, I love it. And again, it probably comes a little bit from that ADHD and once I start something, I sort of have to finish it for you. 00:06:03 - Regan Bashara I'm not that way at all. 00:06:05 - Lisa McH I have a client and I'm working on her email inbox and yesterday I think she had like 9800 unreads in her inbox. And we're down now to like 6000 unread in her inbox. 00:06:17 - Regan Bashara I know people that have the hundreds of thousands. 00:06:19 - Lisa McH Yeah. Chipping away at it, but it's one of those things too. Like we got to have a talk about some habits and things like that. 00:06:26 - Regan Bashara But me, I'm collecting all and archiving everything. 00:06:30 - Lisa McH Yes, that too. I'm also the kind of person like, I will happily, I will just go and purge. I consider myself a minimalist, so I will let go of things all day. And not everyone's like that. 00:06:43 - Regan Bashara Yeah, I'm with my email inbox for work. I can't have anything in that main inbox folder. It has to live in a different folder. So if something's sitting in there, I'm like itching, I'm like, get it out of there. It's got to be somewhere else. I can't look at it. The visual clutter thing is big for me and I think that's one thing I wanted to bring up was like, our daily lives, like, our visual clutter in our physical spaces can be really bothersome to the point where we end up doing something about it. But in the digital realm, you're not looking at it until you're looking at it. So most of the time you're not thinking about it until you have to find something, and you're like, why is this such a fucking mess? I can't get a hold of any of my files. Do you help, folks? So tell us a little bit about what are the habits or routines that we need to get into to kind of keep the organized on our stuff. 00:07:32 - Lisa McH It's funny you mentioned visual clutter, because there's a ton of psychology research and studies on physical visual clutter. And there's more coming out, actually, about digital clutter and digital hoarding, like, actual hoarding tendencies, but in the digital realm, where I think the guy in the study took, like, 300 pictures a day and then would upload them all and save them all and could not get rid of any of them. And really what it boils down to is your brain doesn't care if you're looking at a messy desk with papers and stuff or a messy computer desktop that has files and stuff all over just helter skelter. Your brain still is trying to make sense of that, and it's still taking in all of that visual data, and it's still overwhelming in the same ways. And it's funny, I always say, a lot of the people I work with end up crying, either at the beginning because they're so overwhelmed, or at the end because they're so relieved. I will never forget I had a client, and it was her inbox, and she said, like, little red number that says you have 53,000 unread emails. It doesn't bother me. I don't care about it, but I should probably do something, blah, blah, blah. And we got done, and she goes, Lisa. I didn't realize how much it was weighing down on me, how much it really was bothering me until it was gone. 00:08:56 - Regan Bashara She was. 00:08:56 - Lisa McH I cannot tell you how much more relaxed I am. I'm not stressed that I'm going to miss something. I'm not overwhelmed feeling like I'm always behind, and there's just this weight has been lifted. The digital clutter, it is a real thing. It really does stress you out. And if you're looking for a place to start, I always start, I think, kind of in an unconventional way. A lot of people want to dive in and start kind of deleting stuff or going through and sorting and moving. But before you do any of that, you actually need to build a structure first. So let's say it's like your Google Drive and you are an online business owner. Let's just say you're a course creator or something, and all your stuff is just sitting in the my drive section. That's like if you took all of the clothes from your closet and your drawers and dumped them in a heap in the middle of your bedroom floor. It's the same kind of thing. So if you were going to go through that whole heap of clothes, you wouldn't take off like a pair of socks and like, where should I put my socks? Maybe I'll try here. No, you'd probably kind of decide where you want stuff and then as you're going through that pile, you know exactly where to put things. It's the same way with your digital world. So if know your Google Drive or Dropbox or onedrive or hard drive, whatever you want to create your file folder system first so that you can start going through those files, let's say it's my drive, you're just going to start at the top and work your way down. You know exactly where to put them. It really reduces your cognitive load, like how hard your brain is having to work, and it reduces your decision fatigue as well because you're not like, oh, what do I do with this? No, you're like, oh, this goes here, that goes there, you know? 00:10:48 - Regan Bashara Yeah. 00:10:50 - Lisa McH And it's, again, nobody wants to take the time to do this. And I will always know they're just files. But they're also not just files. There's always something more important to do than getting digitally organized, whether that's something for your business or your life, spending time with family and friends, taking care of your health and well being, those are all more important than your files. I'm never going to tell you your Google Drive is more important than anything else in your life. And if you are an online business owner or you just work in the digital realm a lot, those files are probably interconnected to kind of everything you do. And so it's probably slowing you down at every single step. Same thing with your email. So while it's not really a priority, it is because it affects everything else. And once you take care of that sort of like center spoke of pain points, everything else becomes easier and the benefits are great. So if you can create a structure first, and then you have to have a way to make these habits work, that might be, if you're like me, I have to find one that doesn't have something on it. I really like brightly colored postits in my work area that maybe say things like, hey, empty your downloads folder at the end of every work session, or hey, take 15 minutes to process your emails from today to file, delete, unsubscribe, respond archive, whatever. So that way everything new that is coming into your digital world, you're taking care of it. It's not contributing to that mountain of mess. And now you can slowly chip away at that really full inbox or all of those files you need to go through. So if you can create a system, implement the system with all the new incoming things, and then you don't have to take a ton of time, I will literally say, hey, get a kitchen timer. I have a kitchen timer on my desk. Set it for ten minutes and spend ten minutes a day and you'll be amazed at what you can get through when you focus on one task and you also want to focus on one task. So if it's your inbox, say, you know what, for ten minutes I'm going to go through and I'm just going to look at stuff I want to unsubscribe from. I'm going to unsubscribe and delete all the emails from that sender. That is all you're doing for ten minutes. And when you see that important email from Regan that you really want to read, you can be like, no, I'm not doing that right now. Maybe click a star on it. I am unsubscribing. So when you focus on that one task for ten minutes. Sorry, that's my timer to get my child from school, even though it's a snow day and she's not at school. When you focus on that one task for ten minutes and you're doing just one thing, you will be amazed at how much you get done versus I'm going to work for ten minutes and you're doing a lot of task switching. You're going from one thing to a different thing to a different thing. There's a term, it's something like the switch cost effect about just how much time and mental energy you lose in between switching from one task to another. And again, it really adds up. So that's the other thing. Small work times, so it's sustainable. You're not going to want to bash your head against the wall or your computer against the wall and pick one task to work on during that time. 00:14:36 - Regan Bashara Yeah, those are great tips. Oh, I know what I was going to ask. So do you have a suggestion for the decisions to make about creating that structure of files or like folders or something? 00:14:50 - Lisa McH Yeah. So a lot of people get hung up on. Okay, well, great. I need a folder system, but what do I create? Right, what folders? So the first decision you have to make is I call them shallow and deep. Do you want shallow folders? Meaning there's not a lot of subfolders? Maybe let's just stick with my drive, Google Drive. Let's say you go into Google Drive and there's one folder, maybe it says, like, recipes, I don't know. And then you go into that and maybe you just have like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and you click on Dinner and there's all your dinner recipes right there. That would be a shallow folder system because it's only really two folders deep. Now, if you're me, you like really deep folders. So I might have recipes, dinner, and then I'm going to subdivide it out by like vegan, vegetarian, beef, pork, chicken. I am going to have it all subdivided. And then because I'm me, I'm also somehow in a file name, probably going to have some sort of like a tag in the file name that tells me how complicated or how long it takes my teaching files. When I was a teacher, you would go and click on my drive, I'd click on my units. Spanish, one school and a star. A star. And then I would get a star is a spanish verb. And then I would get to my resources for that. That is four folders deep. Most people like really shallow folders. They want one or two. So decide which one you are. One's not right and one's not wrong. You have to go with what's natural and instinctual to you. Do not say, oh, Lisa's a digital organizer, and she said I should have lots of subfolders and have things like six layers deep. So that's what I better do. No, because if that doesn't work for you, you'll never find it. So figure out shallower, deep. And then take a few minutes, look at your files or look at your emails and see what is in there. Actually, just kind of scroll through and really look at them and see, okay, what kind of things do I have here? And then imagine that was actually a stack of papers in your hands and you had to start sorting them. What piles would you start putting them into in front of you on a table? Yeah, those are the folders you should create, and there's a lot of different ways you can do it, but so much of it depends on your situation. Are you a teacher? A business owner? Do you take care of a family? Are you an accountant? Whatever your stuff is, that is really going to be a huge determining factor on what your folder should be. One folder. I think everybody needs mine. I call it an archive folder. It is a folder for everything you are keeping just in case you need it someday, or because you're too afraid to delete it, or because it's an entire nine month full school year of spanish two curriculum. But you don't teach Spanish two anymore, so you don't need this in the way. But I'm also not going to delete an entire curriculum I spent years refining, but I don't want it in the way. So I'm going to put it into my archive folder or old stuff or shit I'm too afraid to delete or might need this to cover my ass. You name your files or your folders, whatever you want to name them. But having that archive folder is a really nice place to get those things out of your main work area. So now they're not cluttering up and hiding what you really want to find. But if you need them, you know where to go find them. Like, I live in Nebraska. We get all four seasons. It is eight degrees today. That's our high. We also get up to 108. So in the summer, I don't need my heavy winter sweaters. I put them up on a shelf so that they're not hiding like my summer clothes. But if I needed a sweater because I was going to be traveling or something, I would know exactly where to get it. So it's out of the way, but still findable and accessible. Same thing with your digital files. So an archive folder is great. I really like if you work online at all or you do any sort of continuing education or professional development, I really like a learn folder for everything you download online or courses you're a part of or conferences and summits you go to to have one place to put all of that stuff, because again, it's out of the way. But you also know where to find it when you need it. And along with a habit for that is then I will routinely go into my learn folder and I'll be like, oh, I really don't need this ebook about what SEO is. I know what search engine optimization is. I've outgrown that ebook. I don't need it anymore. Let me delete it. Or, oh, hey, remember when I thought I was going to learn how to crochet and I bought that course about crochet, and that was seven years ago and I've made an ugly ass rug and I've never done it again. I think I can let that go. So it also makes pruning your files a little bit easier because you can kind of just go into the learn folder and what have I outgrown and get rid of it. So I like archive and I like learn folders for everybody. 00:20:30 - Regan Bashara Yeah, it sounds like we kind of have the same philosophy about. I'm not really concerned about the depth of a folder. Like, I'm fine with having subfolders on subfolders. If it's limitless for the program to do, I'm going to do it. But I am obsessed with file names because I cannot be bothered to be opening every single PDF to figure out what the fuck's in there. 00:20:53 - Lisa McH My love language. 00:20:54 - Regan Bashara Yeah, I have a system that I use for my business and it's the same one that I use for all my clients businesses because part of what I do for them is receipt management and document organization as far as their finances go, or whatever the fuck they want to put in there. There's unlimited storage, they can do that if they want, but people will upload like statements to me and the file name is just like a string of numbers and I'm like, no clue. 00:21:17 - Lisa McH Yeah, whatever you downloaded from something and it gives that just whatever computer. 00:21:22 - Regan Bashara Random? 00:21:24 - Lisa McH Yeah, that's like 23 random characters long. 00:21:27 - Regan Bashara Yeah. And some of my clients have picked up on my naming schemes and they're doing it themselves. But then I have a client that will do the date. It'll start with the date because I like them to be listed in chronological order for receipts and so they'll do that, but then they'll be like Walmart supplies for when we did. 00:21:49 - Lisa McH The file name is a whole name is 120 characters. The file name is like a tweet, I guess it's not tweet anymore, but whatever. 00:21:58 - Regan Bashara No, it's still Twitter in my heart, and it's not in my heart, my butt. It just cracks me up that the whole file name is like date and vendor, which is all I really need. And then an entire description of the business purpose. 00:22:13 - Lisa McH You know, they're never going to see that whole file name again. No program is going to show you that whole thing or you're not going to read it. That's not the way to go, folks. 00:22:23 - Regan Bashara Well, it cracks me up. I leave it the way it is because the date is correct on there, but otherwise that's all you really need. Yeah, and I say date and vendor because when I'm reconciling the bank account, that's what I need to go looking for is the vendor name usually, and about when the date is. But I have the system that I have because like you said, it's in my head a certain way, and it's just reflected that way in the folders. And I have it that way for all my clients, and I don't really allow them to mess around with it. I give them one folder that they're allowed to put things in, and then I move it where it needs to go. But the way that I've set up the folders and named things, they can find what they need to, if they need to, and if they don't, they ask me. But it has to make sense for our brains. We're the ones using the system. 00:23:15 - Lisa McH Yes, 100%. And that's why I will tell people, especially with file names, I will say, first and foremost, your file names have to work for you because you're the one that's dealing with them the most. And once you're confident in that, then you can think about, okay, who else is going to see these file names? Like, I taught at a one to one school, all of my students, they knew my file naming system. They knew if they saw SVC. SVC, it stood for Sabet versus Konocer. That was the unit they were studying. And then it was going to be Tareya homework, one, Tareya. Two, Tareya. Three. And those one, two, three. Like they meant something they knew. And that's important, too. If you get to the point where you have a system that works for you, you also want to have a system that makes sense to others. Because like you said, when people send you a file and it's just a random string of numbers, it's like, fuck is this? 00:24:14 - Regan Bashara And then I open it up, and it's a bunch of documents scanned into one single file that I have to then separate, and I'm like, which is fine. Like, you all can do that. I'm not saying don't do that, but it's just like, great, here's a project. 00:24:31 - Lisa McH Yeah. Your coworker sends you something that says, meeting, agenda, what meeting? When did this meeting happen? What is the meeting for? What department it is it for? That's not a good file name. So you want to also think about other people who are going to see these files. 00:24:45 - Regan Bashara But, yeah, first and foremost, you email subject lines. You all, please be better with your email subject lines, because if I'm searching for it, it's so much easier if the subject has relevant information in it. 00:25:01 - Lisa McH Yeah, 100%, yeah. 00:25:07 - Regan Bashara You've talked about what inspired you originally to start doing this work specifically for other business owners. What inspires you to keep creating and doing the work and growing your business. 00:25:20 - Lisa McH I think the thing that if you run an online business or any business, there are days you're just going to be like, fuck it, I hate this. I'm burning it to the ground, and I'm just going to go get a nine to five. 00:25:35 - Regan Bashara Once a month at least. 00:25:36 - Lisa McH Oh, yeah. 00:25:39 - Regan Bashara In accordance with the lunar cycle. 00:25:42 - Lisa McH Yes, sorry, go ahead. I just love it. But where is it going with this? Okay, I just hosted my monthly have fun and get shit done training. It was Monday, actually. It was just a couple of days ago, and I got an email from somebody who was able to attend live, and this person emailed me and was like, oh, my God, I was so inspired. The guidance helped so much. Here's everything I've already done. I already feel so much better, so much, way less stress. I had this many files. Now I only have this many, and I know I'm going to finish the others. And like, oh, my God, this is just so amazing. And so when I get messages like that, or I work with people one on one, and they're like, oh, my God, I can find my shit now. Oh, my God. I don't feel those emails weighing down me. I no longer feel like I'm a constant failure because I can't find stuff or I forgot to respond to an email. That is what does it for me, like, making people's lives easier. But also there's a real, sounds like so dramatic, but there is a real mental health and emotional well being component to this. And also, I think there's a lot of people that just, for whatever reason, were told that they're not organized. I'm not an organized person. Nobody came out of the womb, like, knowing how to do that. It's a skill anybody can learn. And so really helping people realize, like, oh, my God, I can keep track of my business finances. Oh, my God, I can keep track of my emails and respond to stuff in a timely manner. And somebody asks me for a file and I can find it and send it right off. I feel really competent. I feel really good about myself. And being able to help people feel that is great. And then there's just, like, my ADHD coping mechanism of, I must have control in order. That is really satisfying, too, from, like, a dopamine rush standpoint. 00:27:46 - Regan Bashara Yeah, we were cavemen not that long ago, and the things that bothered us were the things that we knew depended, like, our survival was dependent on. And when you think about it, files on us, pixels on a computer screen, the file names and shit don't really have much to do with our survival. But we make it mean so much about, like, my email inbox is out of control and therefore I'm a failure. Oh, my gosh. But it's dramatic when you just look at it objectively. But it is true that so many of us make it mean so much about us as a person. We're not whole and worthy if we're not completely OCD about every. Whatever. 00:28:33 - Lisa McH Yeah, the Internet doesn't help, really. This goes back to the teacher world and back when before twitter was as much of a shit show as it became. Again, we're talking back in like, 2011. 00:28:49 - Regan Bashara Before the Musky era. Yeah. 00:28:51 - Lisa McH In the teacher world, there was a hashtag called highlightreal real, and it would be. People just was like, hey, here's what went totally wrong on my classroom today. Hey, here's why I fucked up. Hey, look at what a nightmare my classroom is. And it's a mess. Hey, look at my ugly bulletin board that still says, welcome to school, and it's march. People would post this and was saying like, hey, not everything's pinterest perfect, and not everyone's out there killing it except for you. Actually, today, my Instagram stories just before this was about how after the holidays and after winter holidays, and I'd been traveling out of state for quite a while, my shit was a mess. I was so unorganized. Specifically with this one long term client. We have a lot going on, and everything was a mess. And I was feeling so overwhelmed, like I was dropping the ball, things were falling through the cracks, and I just post like, hey, guys, that was me. And I work as a digital organizer and my shit was mess. And that's so, you know, what did I, like, stopped and I took like half an hour today. And we use Asana for project management. I went through, I cleaned that up, I added tasks, I got stuff updated. I linked the canva folders and the Google Docs, and now I know where everything is. And now I know that tomorrow I can sit down and feel like, okay, I know what I need to do. I know where stuff is, and I feel calmer. I feel like I'm not going to let my client down or drop stuff through the cracks, and it's just going to be easier for me from a time and energy standpoint. So I am very big on like, yeah, I'm a digital organizer. I actually don't use inbox zero. It doesn't work for me, but I'm real normally say like, hey, look at what a mess my downloads folder is because your downloads folder is a temporary holding space. It's not a forever home. Stuff isn't meant to live there. 00:30:50 - Regan Bashara I just delete stuff out of there every day. Gone. 00:30:53 - Lisa McH Sometimes it happens. I'm like, oh my God, look at this mess. Hey, I'm going to clean it up and it's going to take me five minutes. I like to post the not so glamorous, the not perfect stuff. Nobody is perfect at anything. 00:31:08 - Regan Bashara Pinterest is so ridiculous. And things that look great on Pinterest means that no human has touched it yet. 00:31:15 - Lisa McH It's like the pin fail. I think there's like a Pinterest fail. 00:31:18 - Regan Bashara Website you can go to where you. 00:31:19 - Lisa McH Tried stuff and it didn't work. 00:31:22 - Regan Bashara But even like the people that post stuff on there, like their beautiful homes. 00:31:26 - Lisa McH Or whatever, everything just shoved in a corner off the. 00:31:30 - Regan Bashara And then somebody goes into that organization system and touches one thing. Or like you're talking about classroom, when children enter, it's like they just bring crazy. 00:31:42 - Lisa McH Yeah. 00:31:43 - Regan Bashara They just walk in the room. 00:31:44 - Lisa McH Real life happens. The perfection gets ruined. And that's the other thing. A lot of like, when I work with people, I'm not, you know, now you have to spend 4 hours on Saturday doing this. It's like, no, take five minutes a day, put on a podcast or put on like a Netflix show you don't really have to pay attention to, and spend five minutes doing. That's. That's all you have to. And I'm. It's really about, for me, finding those simple, small, sustainable actions. Oh, hey, alliteration. Simple, small, sustainable actions that you can do that feel doable and actually make a difference and pay off. Because you should not spend your life cleaning out your inbox or dealing with files if you haven't ever seen the movie office space. It's from the late 90s, early two thousand s. It is amazing. But there is a quote. Peter Gibbons, the main character, says, human beings were not meant to sit in cubicles staring out screens all day or something along those lines. And I'm like, yeah, we're not meant to be sitting in a cubicle or an office or whatever, staring at computers all, yeah, don't let it run your life. 00:33:02 - Regan Bashara Yeah. And unfortunately, the way the world is today, it just kind of necessitates that we do have a presence on the fake Internet and stuff. For us to have well being online, you do have to have some level of boundaries and organization, even when it comes to your usage of certain technology. Pausing. Because it's all designed to hold our attention constantly. We have to find ways. 00:33:36 - Lisa McH If you look at the ceos or the people who created these apps and you actually see interviews with them, they will say, I don't let my children use my app because we know it's bad for brains. And I taught for ten years, from 2011 to 2021, and I'm still very like, a lot of my friends are teachers, so I still hear stories. I'm by no means in the classroom, but I hear stories. And just the change in students in that ten years was terrifying in terms of attention span and true addiction, and not even realizing that they were looking at their phone, they didn't even realize it. And I've had friends that have said to make a point, they say, okay, everyone, hey, put your cell phones on the desk. And just throughout class, every time you get a notification, I want you to go put a tally on the board. They would just get up, go walk in the board, like, put it under Snapchat, under TikTok, under tech, whatever. And the one video I saw about this, the teacher was like, in a 50 minutes class. I don't remember. I mean, it was hundreds, hundreds of notifications that these kids had gotten as a class in just 50 minutes from. 00:34:53 - Regan Bashara Their friends who are also in school. 00:34:58 - Lisa McH To function like that. And so when you ask, why do I do what I do? And you touched on it. Part of it is about having boundaries. About a lot of us. You have to answer emails, you have to work with digital files. It's just a reality. And now that we all have those files and emails attached to us, when I can help people manage those in a way that it takes them less time and less energy, or that they're not stressed about it, they can walk away and they're able to go out into nature, spend time with their family or friends, or do things that they enjoy. That's the other reason, kind of why I do what I do, I spend a lot of time looking at a screen to help other people spend less time looking at a screen. 00:35:52 - Regan Bashara Yeah. We all have to have our tolerance and understand to what is going to help support us in our well being outside of work. And every entrepreneur that I speak to, this is the same struggle for everybody. And it's like finding the way to prioritize your personal life, your health, your well being over the business, even though the business needs you to survive and you need the business to survive. And it's like a symbiotic relationship almost, but you have to have that boundary up of you can be somebody that answers your dms on Instagram at three in the morning because someone's messaging you or you don't have to be that person. There's actually not a necessity there. You get to decide what kind of tips would you give another entrepreneur? So you're not working as a teacher anymore. Do you have any other job or you're just doing business full time? 00:36:57 - Lisa McH I am just business full time. I'm an online business manager for an online course create, and she has a membership and a podcast and a lot of stuff. So I do a lot of online management for her. I have a couple of long term clients that, like I said, the one, I'm cleaning out her email and I just do stuff on a monthly retainer for her. And then I have courses about your inbox and I have a monthly membership where we do trainings and accountability and coworking and stuff. It's a lot of different things that I do, but it all kind of revolves around digital organization and systems and keeping all the nuts and bolts organized and easy to find so that we can all save time and energy and walk away at the end of the day. 00:37:46 - Regan Bashara Yeah. Can you share a little bit about what that journey was like to go from teaching full time? And I just want people to be realistic about their expectations because a lot of folks are doing a side gig or a side hustle and they feel a lot of shame about having to work a full time job and that it's like taking longer for their business to support them completely. 00:38:08 - Lisa McH Can you speak to that? This is so timely because it's right after, not right after, but we're still in January. And I'm thinking back as we're recording. 00:38:19 - Regan Bashara This, yesterday was January 1. It's not, but it feels like. 00:38:25 - Lisa McH It'S January, as I was thinking back, just like, oh, God, I need to run my numbers and figure out December and get all that of that at the point. I have technically been in the online space since 2019. And could my business support my family? No, it couldn't. And not on my own. I married and my spouse's income supports us and we have other stuff going on as well that brings in money. And so again, it's that highlight real thing. Again, I think you see all these people online, you think they're all killing it. And then I had a business coach once, and she's phenomenal. She's great. And she launched this thing. If you just looked at Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and stuff, you would have thought she did amazing. She was like, Lisa, I sold two. I sold two of them. And it was a digital product. And she's like, yeah, and it sucked. So I was a teacher, and there's an online marketplace called teachers pay teachers where you can sell your teaching resources. And I knew that at some point I was going to leave teaching, not because I didn't like teaching and I didn't like the kids. I actually loved teaching in kids. I hated the american education system about it. I always knew I was going to be leaving. And at the time, the only exit strategy I knew was teachers pay teachers DPT. And so that's the world I started in. And then I found out, holy shit, there's this whole online economy of obms and bas and courses and memberships and coaches and consultants and all the fucking things. You're like, holy shit. And for me, that opened up my eyes to the possibility I never set out to be a digital organizer or a consultant or an OBM or a Doo or any of those acronyms. And so my online journey started as making digital products. And then it went to, well, shit, let me make some courses. Because I'm a teacher, I know how to transfer knowledge. That is what I can make a curriculum about anything. I literally have my master's degree in curriculum and instruction. 00:40:40 - Regan Bashara Yeah. 00:40:42 - Lisa McH So I made courses and I did some trainings, and that was fine. I actually still really love doing courses, but with what I do, it's so individualized that I realize I really kind of need to work with people one on one, because it's different if you're a teacher, and it's different if you teach Spanish or math. And even if you teach Spanish. Are your classes a quarter long, a semester, all year? Do you use a textbook? Do you use comprehensible input? Do you use all these things? It all is going to affect how you manage stuff and what your things are. And so I really then realized working one on one with people is really what I love to do. I love doing long term and being able to delve into somebody's business or life or as a teacher and get to know them and really be able to support them and say, well, hey, you need to do this. And I can confidently say that now because I know you and I know your situation, and I will tell you right now, nobody wants to pay a digital organizer because I was talking with someone the other day and I said, yeah, we could do a strategy session, which is like 90 minutes, and you'll get an action like plan with video tutorials and all this stuff. We'll start building it. We're all the things. And again, the cost is 297. And this person, I'm going to be working with them. But they made a comment about, oh my God, if I told anyone I was going to pay $300 to get my files organized, that would be so embarrassing. Or they'd be like, what's your problem? Or really? You had to pay money to organize your Google Drive. And what I do is not a priority for most people. They don't want to spend the time, the money, or the energy. But like I said, what I do tends to affect every area of their business. And so for me, it's taken a while to be like, oh, yeah, my skill set and what I do actually has value and actually helps people. But then I also remind myself, people pay a nutritionist to tell them what to eat. You can't fucking figure out what to eat every day. You should pay someone to tell you what to eat. 00:42:51 - Regan Bashara You don't know what you like. 00:42:53 - Lisa McH You pay like a personal trainer. Why don't you just go to the gym and lift some weights? Or why don't you just exercise? Just do it. You don't know how to. There's a lot of stuff that for me be like, oh, you can't do that. I don't know how to. I need somebody to teach me the skills. 00:43:13 - Regan Bashara Even the nutritionist, like grocery shopping and budgeting are both skills. You can't just walk into a grocery store planning meals. 00:43:21 - Lisa McH Cooking obviously is a fucking figuring out the time. I think no matter. Here's the thing. If you are starting a business, whether it's online or brick and mortar, there are going to be a shit ton of people that think what you do is dumb and unneeded and that you're trying to take people's money like, oh, you can't figure what? Like reggae spoiler alert. I do have to figure out their finances. Everyone can do math. 00:43:45 - Regan Bashara Well, most people hate math and that is why they come to me. 00:43:49 - Lisa McH That's the thing. 00:43:50 - Regan Bashara Yeah. 00:43:50 - Lisa McH And I do a lot of done with you work, but in certain circumstances I will do done for you work. And it's one of those things. Do you want to keep fighting this problem for months or years and having it piss you off? Or do you want to pay me for my time, knowledge, expertise and skills and I will take care of this for you in a week and you can then use all that time and energy to make money, read books, do whatever the hell you want. Right? And I think no matter, like I said, no matter what your business is, people are going to think it's a dumb idea and people are going to be like, holy shit, where were you six months ago? Like, I needed you, or, oh, my God, we need to talk. I don't care what it costs. I don't care what I have to do. You have what I need. 00:44:38 - Regan Bashara Yeah. 00:44:39 - Lisa McH And I think it's just hard. We basically just said that you want to burn it down? I will say, if you are starting a business, get yourself some biz besties, get yourself some people that are in the same field, and get it and understand. I started back in 2019 in the online space, and at that time, I reached out in a Facebook group and I said, hey, it was specifically for digital product makers for teachers, pay teachers. And I said, hey, are there any other high school spanish teachers in here that would want to create a little mastermind and support each other? And three women were like, yeah, me. And I was like, great. And that was back in 2019. Two of those women I talked to every single day, multiple times a day, and it's 2024. And the other one I talked to for years, and she had a kind of a life change and was like, hey, I have to step away from this. And that's the only reason I still talk to her from time to time. But had it not been for those three women, I would have quit years ago. I would have walked away because running a business is hard. It is a roller coaster. And people, especially if you're in an online business, people don't get what you do. Like, my parents have no idea what I do since I left teaching. They just don't get it. Or to have somebody that knows the world, I can say, hey, my conversion rate on this product is this, and. 00:46:16 - Regan Bashara The price is this. 00:46:17 - Lisa McH It's got this many views, and this is what it is. 00:46:20 - Regan Bashara And pages. 00:46:21 - Lisa McH Do you think I should increase the price or do you think I should do this or that? To talk about these very niche things that I can't talk to my next door neighbor about. She doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about. Yeah, you have people that get you and can help you, not only strategically, but you can also be like, hey, I want to fucking burn it to the ground. Here's why. But I'm not going to do that, so help me out here. And I'm old because if you're watching the video, I'm making, like, the old phone symbol with my hand. Yeah, but, yeah, get yourself some biz besties, because the journey has been hard. And if you set out to do one thing and you end up doing something completely different. That's okay. I started selling spanish resources to teachers, and now I work as a digital organizer. Yeah, you told me in 2019 I would have been like, what I'm going to do? 00:47:15 - Regan Bashara You're like, never in a million years. 00:47:18 - Lisa McH Yeah. 00:47:20 - Regan Bashara That'S awesome. And I always appreciate when my guests come on and kind of share their real experience with business. And it's just because of all of the kind of shit that we see. 00:47:33 - Lisa McH That is my teaching salary in 30 days. I didn't make six figures in a month, working 10 hours a week. Anyone who says I can do that, I'm sure there are people who have done that for 99.99% of the population. That's not going to happen. 00:47:50 - Regan Bashara I wish. I mean, sounds great, but sounds like a lot of work that I would have to do up front anyway. So if I'm going to do a lot of work anyways, I'm just going to do what I need to be doing. 00:48:02 - Lisa McH Okay. Speaking of, I'm going to do a lot of work. So there's always the joke about, oh, maybe I'll sell pictures of my feet online for money. And I was in the burn it down phase one day and I'm like, I'm going to do the research. I'm going to figure out how much do you actually make if you sell weird pictures of your feet online? And I went through the rabbit hole, I did the research, and you know what you have to do if that's how you want to make money? You have to know about search engine optimization. You have to build an audience. You have to market all the same shit I'm already doing, and that is. 00:48:35 - Regan Bashara Already a heavily saturated market. Feet pick. So find something else. 00:48:40 - Lisa McH I don't think there is no easy road. I saw a reel the other day and it was like, make $3,000 working in the evenings as a transcriptionist. And I'm like, yeah, no, because I. 00:48:52 - Regan Bashara Want to transcribe my own shit. 00:48:55 - Lisa McH Yeah, exactly. And I'm just like, yeah, no, it's not how that works. So there's no easy way. There's not an easy road. 00:49:05 - Regan Bashara I get these people all the time that are like, closers. They'll teach you how to be a closer. And I'm like, I need to close my own sales in my business. Why the fuck would I do that for somebody else who I don't even know? 00:49:22 - Lisa McH Like, what? 00:49:23 - Regan Bashara But that's like the thing. I've seen a lot recently and I'm. 00:49:26 - Lisa McH Just like, God, but the folks that. 00:49:31 - Regan Bashara I actually do follow, a digital creator, sex worker, whatever, that has courses on how to become how to do it, a digital sex worker creator. And I'm like, well, she's even doing the thing. 00:49:47 - Lisa McH It's the same thing that everyone do anything else. I'm like, good for her. 00:49:55 - Regan Bashara But also she's having to. That's what her account is, is to market her products to you, whether you're interested in feedbacks or interested in selling your own feet picks. 00:50:05 - Lisa McH Yes. It's like one or the other doesn't matter. It's all the same. 00:50:09 - Regan Bashara Yeah, I find that really hilarious. But yeah, it's cool to know that you started off with one thing and it was really just because you saw kind of a need and then you started selling digital products and then it's turned into this. And I think that's beautiful. And it is mostly about how we can support ourselves personally, our families, and do the kind of work that brings us joy. Like, you have an adhd hole in your heart to fill. 00:50:40 - Lisa McH Organizing. I genuinely enjoy organizing your shit shows and inbox and your files. That is enjoyable for me. That's a nice Tuesday afternoon. 00:50:51 - Regan Bashara Exactly. Perfect. What more could you ask for, honestly? Will you tell us you have a free guide that I will include the link to that in the show notes, but tell us a little bit about how we could work with you, what kind of resources you offer. Yeah, I mean, you've already kind of. 00:51:10 - Lisa McH Talked about, yeah, but you can find me online and you can find all the things at my website. Let me try this again. You can find my website, Lisamch.com, and that'll link you up to kind of everything. From there you can see courses, there's free resources. I think the one you're talking about is three steps to an inbox that doesn't look like shit, which will give you three simple steps to an inbox that's going to look a little less shitty. And then I also have a full course about how to get your gmail inbox, like, tamed and under control. I spend way too much time on Instagram. I'm Lisa J. Mch there. And that's where you can find me hanging out most days. 00:51:50 - Regan Bashara Awesome. 00:51:51 - Lisa McH I got to make sure. 00:51:52 - Regan Bashara I thought I followed you, but maybe they're just not showing me any of. 00:51:55 - Lisa McH Your posts because the algorithm just doesn't like us being, they hate us. 00:52:01 - Regan Bashara But anyways, thank you so much for being on. I really loved where this conversation went and that you really gave us some awesome tips. So everybody out there go take ten minutes and focus on one task in your inbox and get that shit together, you all. Come on. If I look at somebody's home screen one more time that has 100,000 unread emails, I'm wagging my finger at you all. 00:52:23 - Lisa McH If you have 100,000 unread emails, go to the end because they're probably at least five years old, and I'm pretty sure you don't need any emails from five years ago. 00:52:36 - Regan Bashara Anything earlier than 2023. You can probably just archive that. 00:52:40 - Lisa McH Probably, yeah. At least archive it. Red and archive it. 00:52:45 - Regan Bashara I like the archive function because it still exists. 00:52:47 - Lisa McH It's still there. Yeah. 00:52:51 - Regan Bashara Oh, my God. 00:52:51 - Lisa McH We get a whole nother episode about the environmental impact of emails and servers and the energy it takes. Like, all the emails in your inbox, it's not paper and trees, but it still takes power to power the servers that store your emails. 00:53:05 - Regan Bashara Probably even a lot more energy to cool the rooms and stuff. 00:53:12 - Lisa McH It's depressing, but we'll save that depressing conversation for another day. 00:53:15 - Regan Bashara Yeah. What a note to leave it on. Thanks so much, Lisa, for being. 00:53:19 - Lisa McH I'm so fun. 00:53:22 - Regan Bashara I had so much fun with you today. Thanks so much. Y'all go check out Lisa at her website, Instagram. Get your guide to get your inbox less shitty, and we'll see you next week.