BBP 123: Declutter Your Canva Chaos with Brenda Cadman

Shownotes:

In this episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast, Brenda Cadman shares essential strategies for organizing your Canva workspace, turning it from a chaotic digital landscape into a streamlined haven.

Her expert advice covers everything from batch organization techniques to naming conventions that enhance searchability, making it easier to manage your designs. Whether you’re overwhelmed by a backlog of projects or just looking to maintain a tidy aesthetic, Brenda’s insights provide a powerful framework for creators at any level.

Batch Organizing Your Canva Designs

A crucial feature in Canva—is the ability to batch organize your designs. Whenever you hover over a Canva design or image, a checkbox appears, allowing you to select multiple items at once. Once you’ve selected your designs, look for the folder icon at the bottom of the page next to the trash icon.

Clicking on the folder icon allows you to move your selected designs into a chosen folder. You can easily access recently used folders or browse through all your project folders. If you know the name of the folder you’re looking for, use the search bar to quickly find it. After selecting your destination folder, click the move option, and Canva will transfer your files accordingly.

Troubleshooting File Movement

If you find that your files are still visible after attempting to move them, Brenda has some troubleshooting tips:

• Refresh Your Browser: Sometimes, a simple refresh of your browser tab will show the updated organization of your files.
• Check Filter Settings: Check Filter Settings: Ensure that the filter on your projects page is set to show only your designs, not any designs shared with you.

Framework for Organization

Brenda teaches her organization methods in her course “Cleanup My Canva.” There are two main approaches you can adopt:

1. Tackle the Mess: This option is for those ready to dive deep and organize all existing designs and images into an intuitive system. Although this can be time-consuming, it is highly rewarding.
2. Start Fresh: For those who feel overwhelmed by a backlog of designs and images, this option allows you to focus on organizing future projects while leaving the past behind. This method is perfect for users with little energy to tackle a chaotic account.

As you embark on your Canva organization journey, remember that it’s always possible to create a system that works for you. Whether you choose to tackle your existing designs or start afresh, the key is to find what fits your workflow best.

Tools and Resources Mentioned

• Canva

Related Content

• BBP 099: How to Get Started Creating Products in Canva with Kim George
• How to Get Started with Canva and Find the Best Elements For Your Designs
• BBP 038 Use Canva Shortcuts to Speed Up Your Graphic Creation with Kate Danielle

Transcript

[00:00:00].17] – Liz Stapleton

Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. I’m your host, Liz Stapleton. And today we’re diving into the incredible session by Brenda Cadman at the 2024 Blogger Breakthrough Summit. We’ll be diving into the world of Canva organization. Yes, you heard me right. With these tips from Brenda, you’ll be able to tackle that digital jungle and turn it into an oasis.

[00:00:26].19] – Brenda Cadman

So let’s briefly walk through the steps to batch organize inside Canva. If you’ve ever hover over a Canva design or image, you’ll have noticed that a checkbox appears and that you can select multiple designs or images at a time by checking off those checkboxes. When you select multiple files, you’ll notice that a folder icon appears in the bottom middle of the page next to a trash icon. When you hover over that folder icon, it will say move to folder. And when you click on the folder icon, you will have the ability to choose which folder to move the designs to. You can locate a folder through this area called Recent, which shows the most recently accessed folders, or you can browse through all of your project folders to find the desired folder, or you can search for a desired folder by searching on the folder name in this search bar. Once you’ve chosen the destination folder, you’ll simply click on the option to move the files, and then Canva will move all of those files off of your projects page and into your chosen folder. If you find that when you move files into a folder, it’s not actually moving off of the main projects page, there are a couple of things I want you to try for troubleshooting.

[00:01:37].13] – Brenda Cadman

First, try refreshing your browser tab after you’ve moved files to see if that files them away into the folders, and often it does. Same thing if you’ve deleted files from your projects page and you’re not seeing them delete right away. Sometimes it just needs a page refresh to show the update. The second thing you can try is to make sure that this filter area on the projects page is set to show only your designs and not any designs shared with you. So you can see how I filtered my projects here to only show designs and media from the Brenda Cadman account. So let’s move on to do a quick overview of a framework that you can use to help you get organized in Canva. When I teach how to get organized in my Cleanup My Canva course, I teach two different methods. First is the tackle the mess approach, which is for those folks who are ready to organize all of their existing designs and images and to create an intuitive Canva organization system. And depending on how many designs and images you have in your account, this could be a potentially time consuming project, though still very worthwhile.

[00:02:39].22] – Brenda Cadman

And if you have the bandwidth to do this, it is the approach that I definitely recommend. The second option is the Start Fresh method. One of the biggest reasons that folks who know they need to get organized in Canva and who want to get organized but still haven’t done it is because they have an absolutely overwhelming backlog of designs and images. So this is the option for those Canva users who feel like their account is an organizational pit of despair and who have zero energy to organize it, but who want to be organized going forward. What I want to do in this video is to give you a quick overview of the tackle the mess approach, because since you’re watching this training today, that likely means you already have a hot mess account that you would like to impose some order on. So I’m going to walk you through five steps, and once you’re comfortable with the organizing process, you will likely find that you’re able to do more than one step concurrently. But I’d suggest breaking it down into steps when you’re new to the process. The first step is focused on deleting and archiving your unneeded Canva designs and images.

[00:03:46].03] – Brenda Cadman

If you were organizing piles of paper in an office or a filing cabinet, you would start by disposing of the papers that you no longer need. You would also archive into long term storage the documents that you may need for reference, but that you’re no longer actively using. The same process applies for your digital content, including your Canva designs. So I’d recommend you take a scroll down Canva memory lane and review all of the designs in your Canva account. Delete any of the designs that you know you don’t need. So for example, you may have copies of the templates you never ended up using, duplicates of designs you thought you would need but didn’t, designs that are super outdated that you know you won’t need, and so on. For those of you who are afraid to let go of any designs, in case you might need it in the future, I would encourage you to create an archive folder and then move all of those, but what if I need it down the road designs into that folder. If you haven’t needed to access those archive designs in the next year, chances are good that you will feel safer doing a purge of them down the road.

[00:04:53].08] – Brenda Cadman

Next up is to do a review of what’s left in your Canva account after you’ve finished deleting and archiving and to update your naming conventions. If you’re like most Canva users, you probably have a lot of designs named things like copy of template XYZ or design version 2 and design version 3 and version 4, etc. Or you’ve labeled it with a really generic name like Instagram Post, without providing any further description about which Instagram post it is, should you want to find it later. It’s important to name your files in a descriptive manner so that you can easily tell at a glance what all of your designs are from the outside, and also so you can more easily search for your designs using the Canva search bar. And as I said, once you’re comfortable using the organization features in Canva, you’re going to be able to do more than one step concurrently. So for example, while I’m working through an account to delete or archive content, I might simultaneously be renaming designs. Your third step is going to be to plan and create your folders. Write down a list of all the categories and subcategories you think you’ll need to organize your designs, your images, and your video.

[00:06:03].00] – Brenda Cadman

There is no one-size-fits-all solution about how to break down your folders within Canva. Some of you will only need a small handful of folders. Others will need a really robust filing system. As an example, my own Canva account is broken down into multiple folders, as you can see here, and then those primary folders are further broken down into subfolders as needed. I would recommend not having more top-level folders than you can see without scrolling. I have 12, and I find that 12 to 13 is usually the maximum that feels manageable before you start having too many choices and feeling overwhelmed. Once you have your initial list of folders, you can start actually creating your custom folders and subfolders in order to begin building your own Canva filing cabinet. Or you may find it makes more sense to create your folders as you go through the category creation process, whatever feels most natural for you. Once you’ve got your folder set up so that your designs and images all have homes, you can Use the batch organizing technique that I talked about earlier in order to begin moving all of your files into your new folders.

[00:07:07].04] – Brenda Cadman

And one of the best ways to start this process is to look for categories of designs where you know there’s going to be large chunks that you can move at a time. For example, if I’m doing an organization VIP day for a graphic designer that I know has tons of designs and assets for clients, I will start by selecting anything that I know can go into that top-level clients folder. I’m not going to worry at this stage about only selecting designs for a specific client. I’ll tackle that later when I go through the clients folder. To start, you’re just trying to organize your designs and images into those top-level categories, and then you can work your way down. And your final step will be to maintain your organization. Once you finish getting through the first four steps of this process, your organization system should be in good shape, but even the best system will fall apart if you don’t maintain your Canva account. You can create a recurring task on your calendar or your project management tool of choice to do your Canva organization on a weekly or bi weekly or even a monthly basis.

[00:08:05].20] – Liz Stapleton

All right, there you have it. Follow these steps and you’ll have a Canva account that’s organized. Remember, the key is consistency. Keep at it in your digital workspace will be every bit as inspiring as your creative projects. Thanks for tuning in to the Blogger Breakthrough Summit podcast. If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with your fellow bloggers. Until next time, happy organizing. As always, you can learn more about our incredible speakers in the show notes, so go check them out.