Level up your Teamwork by linking Files
sound familiar?
today:
you store a file in an location that makes absolutely sense. Cause, where else should that file go?
half a year later:
You are 100% sure, it is in the folder where you store information about processes.
half a minute later:
You search every single folder in your drive to find that file, cause it wasn’t in the process folder…
don’t worry, you are not alone! When you save the file, your brain has probably a different context to the file than half a year later.
this means, your brain has a different way of thinking about the topic related to that file. Half a year later you probably would place that file differently.
just imagine the difference between you and your co-worker as you have two different brains… (Captain Obvious)…
that leads to a significant time of searching for files because they aren’t where you think they should be.
however, you can avoid this loss of time by using the linking future in the Google Workspace. It helps you to bring information back to you, no matter how your brain is thinking on this day.
how do you link a file in the Google Workspace?
the linking itself is very easy. But you have to decide where it goes first. I always check the content of the file again and ask myself “where else can this information be useful in the future?”.
now the easy part in 3 steps:
right click on a file within your Google Drive
select “linking file” in the drop down menu
navigate to the folder where the file needs to be placed
I hope that Google will introduce a better workflow for the movement or linking of files. Today you have to click through the whole folder tree…
no matter what system you use, Microsoft, Notion, etc. Always try to think where this information can be useful in the future and link the file.
what is the difference between linking and copying?
copying files just creates a copy of the current state. If someone does an update, the copied file won’t be updated.
a linked file will redirect you to the original file. Therefore you will see any update done on the content.
you will recognize a linked file on the different symbol google is using. There is this little curved arrow on top of the file symbol. It looks like this:
Make it stand out
the little arrow indicates that this picture is a linked file.let me know if this speeds up your teamwork!
thank you for your time,
daniel
