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Downloads Folder

Lesson 29 from: Digital Declutter: Organizing Your Digital Life

Jonathan Levi & Maya Yizhaky

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Lesson Info

29. Downloads Folder

Lessons

Class Trailer

Chapter 1:Introductions, Foundations, & Setting Up For Success

1

Download The PDF Syllabus

00:28
2

Course Structure How To Succeed

05:43
3

What is Digital Overwhelm

04:17
4

Why Does It Actually Matter

07:06
5

The Alternative - Digital Peace of Mind

02:31
6

Quiz - Chapter 1

Chapter 2: The Fundamentals To Digital Peace of Mind

7

The Importance of Robust Systems

05:41
8

The Power of “The Cloud”

03:30
9

Leveraging Automation To Reduce Friction

04:55
10

Reestablishing A Healthy Relationship With Your Technology

05:47
11

Digital Minimalism - The #1 Strategy To Achieve Order

04:57
12

What Intuitive Organizational Type Are You

04:28
13

What To Do When “Life Happens”

03:27
14

Quiz - Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Regaining Control: Taming Your Inbox

15

Wrangling All Of Your Email Accounts

04:56
16

Inbox vs. Archive - Achieving Inbox Freedom

04:07
17

The Machete - Cutting Down Your Overloaded Inbox

03:41
18

The Scalpel - Strategically Cutting Down The Rest Of Your Inbox

06:58
19

Get A Grip On Your Subscriptions

04:35
20

Starting Fresh - Creating Your Own Structure

07:25
21

What Happens Next - Beginner’s Inbox Organization

08:40
22

Let’s Get Ninja - Advanced Inbox Organization

08:02
23

Quiz - Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Everything Else: The Basics of Digital Order

24

Enabling Back-Ups

10:02
25

Calendar

12:24
26

Choosing & Using A “To-Do” List

09:23
27

Neat Notes Snippets

11:59
28

Syncing and Organizing Documents

10:00
29

Downloads Folder

03:49
30

Conquering Your Contacts List

11:08
31

Securely & Safely Storing Passwords

09:00
32

Scan It, Send It

04:55
33

Managing Legacy File Storage

04:46
34

Quiz - Chapter 4

Chapter 5: Managing Your Media

35

Saving Sites

05:16
36

Cross-Device Syncing of Photos & Videos

06:45
37

Keeping Your Music Organized

07:57
38

Books and Reading Materials

05:18
39

Quiz - Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Conclusion

40

Self-Assessment & Success Moving Forward

05:47
41

Congratulations & What We’ve Learned

01:42
42

Bonus - How To Take Your Digital Decluttering To The Next Level

00:27

Final Quiz

43

Final Quiz

Lesson Info

Downloads Folder

for most people, the downloads folder on our computer is the ultimate digital dumpster. The downloads folder is essentially the digital equivalent of the kitchen junk drawer, it's littered with all kinds of random documents, photos and mysterious PDFs, that's because most of the time the default settings on our computers and web browsers send all files that we download to a hidden downloads folder. So in this case we already have one home set up for all of our downloaded files but it's the wrong home. Most of these files need to either be deleted because you only needed the file for an immediate task or migrated to the cloud with the rest of your documents. So if you haven't taken the time to intentionally tweak this setting and change your downloads location, you're going to end up digitally hoarding an assortment of random and useless files. Our recommendation here is two fold. Let's clean up the downloads folder and change the downloads location setting. Going forward first we recom...

mend you change the default location setting for all downloaded files, moving the location from the downloads folder to your desktop. In the lecture on sinking and organizing documents we mentioned uploading all of the files from your desktop to the cloud. This gives you a clean workspace free of digital clutter by sending downloaded files to your desktop. You're going to then be able to quickly see downloaded files and immediately action them. This is akin to putting your clothes away post laundry though. If you do prefer the discretion of the downloads folder with most cloud synchronization services like google drive, you can also set it up to synchronize the downloads folder in addition to everything else. If you do want to change the setting to make it your desktop, you can do this by opening up your default web browser in the web browser, open settings, advanced then downloads location here. You can change your default download settings. We recommend you change the location to your desktop like this. Users maya desktop for example for even more digital mindfulness, you can also enable the option that appears here to ask where to save each file before downloading. This will be less relevant for most of you now that our documents are on the cloud but it's worth a mention for those of you who like playing around with automation. There are also some cool automation tricks you could set up for auto cleaning or auto sorting downloaded files but we cover those elsewhere in the course. So now you're set going forward. But what about our digital hoarder past? We recommend you do take the time out now or later this week to clean out your downloads folder. At least files from the past few weeks or months, Philip a fresh cup of coffee and spend a few hours sorting through files. The leading ones you don't need or uploading them to your document home in the cloud to speed up the process. Air on the side of delete and be ruthless if you haven't touched a file in a year, chances are it can be deleted while you're at it, Open up your computer's trash folder and hit empty, officially clearing out your computer from junk files. One more thing here now that your desktop and downloads folder are clear. Take a minute and look at your desktop visual. You'll want to make sure you have a background that sews or inspires you. You can choose a calm neutral color or download a beautiful image from a splash. That's it. You've digitally de cluttered yet another area of your digital life. Your downloads now have a proper home and you've optimized your ability to find files when you need them. This was a critical step to eliminating computer clutter and cleaning up your digital life.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Course Syllabus
Worksheet - Exploring Your Intuitive Organizational Type
Worksheet - Surveying Your Digital Landscape
Worksheet - Email Account Triage

Ratings and Reviews

joe culver
 

This class is well organized and flows well. There is one thing I do NOT like is the reference to another class in the Syllabus: "Kill The Chaos of Information Overload with Evernote Webinar" The webinar has only one good tip, use Tabs in Evernote. The webinar hypes more tips if you buy the course by Charles Bird. I bought the course for $197 which was listed as a discount from a much higher price. The course is poorly assembled, out of date, and hardly worth more than a few dollars. It assembled with a bunch of short videos, each video starts after he is talking and ends before he is finished. Evernote Scanner is no longer made and Evernote no longer supports the software.

Student Work

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