How to Organize Your Book Notes in Google Drive

Alex Hale 7 min read
nonfiction writing craft

You have forty-seven Google Docs with names like “Book Draft v3 FINAL (2)” and “Notes from conference — USE THIS ONE.” Your research lives in three different folders, two shared drives, and a dozen docs you starred six months ago and forgot about. You know the book is in there somewhere, buried under years of false starts and good intentions.

This is not a character flaw. This is what happens when smart people generate a lot of ideas without a system for organizing them. The good news: you can fix it in about an hour, using nothing but Google Drive and a naming convention.

Here is the system I use, and the one I recommend to every nonfiction author I work with.

Why Most Book Organization Systems Fail

Before we get into the structure, it is worth understanding why previous attempts probably did not stick.

The most common mistake is creating too many folders too early. You build an elaborate hierarchy — folders for each chapter, sub-folders for research and interviews and notes — and then you abandon it within a week because filing a single document requires four clicks and a decision about where it belongs.

The second mistake is mixing research with drafts. When your source material lives alongside your manuscript files, every folder becomes a junk drawer. You open a folder looking for your chapter draft and instead find seventeen PDFs, a transcript, and a link document you do not recognize.

The third mistake is having no naming convention. Google Drive search is decent, but it cannot help you when every document is called “Notes” or “Chapter 3” with no indication of which version is current or what the notes are about.

A good system is simple enough that you actually use it, specific enough that you can find anything in under ten seconds, and flexible enough to grow with your book.

The Folder Structure

Here is the exact structure to set up in Google Drive. Create a single top-level folder for your book, then add these four folders inside it:

My Book Title/
  00-Manuscript/
  01-Sources/
  02-Planning/
  03-Archive/

That is it. Four folders. Let me explain what each one holds.

00-Manuscript

This is where your active chapter drafts live. Nothing else. No research, no outlines, no old versions. Just the current working draft of each chapter.

Name each file with a two-digit prefix and the chapter title:

00-Manuscript/
  01-Why-Leadership-Fails.gdoc
  02-The-Listening-Gap.gdoc
  03-Building-Trust-at-Scale.gdoc
  04-Feedback-Without-Fear.gdoc

The numbered prefixes keep chapters in order regardless of how Google Drive sorts them. Use hyphens instead of spaces in filenames — it makes them easier to scan and eliminates ambiguity.

When you open this folder, you should see your entire book laid out in sequence. If there is anything in here that is not a current chapter draft, move it somewhere else.

01-Sources

This is where your research, interview transcripts, articles, data, and reference documents live. Everything you might draw from when writing, but that is not part of the manuscript itself.

Organize sources by type, not by chapter:

01-Sources/
  Interviews/
  Articles/
  Data/
  Books-and-Highlights/

Why by type instead of by chapter? Because most source material is relevant to multiple chapters. An interview transcript might inform three different sections of your book. If you file it under “Chapter 2 Research,” you will forget it exists when you are writing Chapter 5.

Name source files descriptively. Instead of “Interview notes,” write “Interview-Sarah-Kim-VP-Eng-2026-01-15.” Instead of “Article,” write “HBR-Psychological-Safety-Teams-2025.” Your future self will thank you.

02-Planning

This folder holds everything related to the shape and direction of your book: your outline, chapter summaries, the proposal if you have one, your target reader profile, and any structural planning documents.

02-Planning/
  Book-Outline-Master.gdoc
  Chapter-Summaries.gdoc
  Target-Reader-Profile.gdoc
  Timeline-and-Milestones.gdoc

Keep this folder lean. If you find yourself with more than eight or ten files here, you are probably over-planning. Move older planning docs to the Archive.

03-Archive

This is the most important folder in the system, because it is the one that keeps everything else clean. Any time you revise a chapter draft significantly, move the old version here. Any time you abandon a planning document, move it here. Any time you are not sure whether to delete something, move it here.

03-Archive/
  Old-Drafts/
  Unused-Research/
  Deprecated-Plans/

The Archive is your permission to be ruthless about what stays in your active folders. You are not deleting anything. You are just moving it out of the way.

The Naming Convention

A consistent naming convention matters more than the folder structure. Here are the rules:

For manuscript chapters: [Number]-[Chapter-Title]

  • 01-Why-Leadership-Fails
  • 02-The-Listening-Gap

For sources: [Type]-[Author-or-Source]-[Topic]-[Date]

  • Interview-Sarah-Kim-VP-Eng-2026-01-15
  • Article-HBR-Psychological-Safety-2025
  • Data-Gallup-Employee-Engagement-2024

For planning docs: [Document-Type]-[Descriptor]

  • Outline-Master
  • Chapter-Summaries
  • Timeline-Q1-2026

For archived files: Add a prefix with the date you archived them.

  • ARCHIVED-2026-02-01-Chapter-03-Old-Draft

Never use “v1,” “v2,” “FINAL,” or “FINAL FINAL.” If you need version tracking, use the archive date. Google Drive also has built-in version history (File > Version history) which handles minor revisions without cluttering your folders.

Setting It Up: A One-Hour Migration

Here is how to move from chaos to this system in about an hour.

  1. Create the folder structure. Open Google Drive, create your book’s top-level folder, and add the four sub-folders with their prefixes. Add the sub-folders within Sources and Archive as listed above.

  2. Identify your current chapter drafts. Go through your existing documents and find the most recent version of each chapter or section you have written. These are the only files that go into 00-Manuscript. Rename them using the naming convention.

  3. Move everything else to Archive first. Do not try to sort everything at once. Take every other book-related document and move it into 03-Archive. You can sort through it later. The priority is getting your manuscript folder clean.

  4. Pull sources out of the Archive. Over the next few days, as you come across research material you need, move it from Archive to the appropriate sub-folder in 01-Sources. Rename it using the naming convention as you go. This way, you only organize what you actually use.

  5. Recreate your planning docs. If you have an outline or chapter summary that is still accurate, move it to 02-Planning. If your outline is out of date, create a fresh one. Stale planning documents cause more confusion than having no plan at all.

  6. Set a weekly cleanup reminder. Every Friday, spend five minutes moving old drafts to Archive, renaming any files you created during the week, and making sure 00-Manuscript only contains current chapters. Five minutes a week prevents the next rewrite of this system.

Common Questions

What if I am still in the early stages and do not have chapters yet?

Use the same structure, but your Manuscript folder will hold whatever your current working documents are — maybe a single “Exploratory Draft” or a series of chapter sketches. The system scales down just as well as it scales up.

What about documents other people share with me?

Create a sub-folder in Sources called “Shared-With-Me” and move shared documents there. Do not leave them floating in your main Google Drive. If someone shares an editable doc, make a copy and file the copy — that way you have a version that will not change unexpectedly.

Should I use Google Drive’s color or star features?

Stars are useful for marking the three or four documents you are actively working on this week. Colors can work for status (green for “done,” yellow for “in progress”), but only if you commit to maintaining them. An out-of-date color system is worse than no color system.

What about using Google Drive folders for collaboration with an editor?

Create a separate shared folder outside your main book folder structure. Copy files there when they are ready for review. Never give an editor direct access to your Manuscript folder — you want to control what they see and when.

When You Outgrow Google Drive

This system works well up to a point. Google Drive is excellent for storing and organizing documents, but it was not built for writing books. As your manuscript grows, you will start bumping into limitations: no way to see your full chapter structure at a glance, difficulty tracking which sources connect to which chapters, no simple way to move between research and drafting.

That is the problem we built DraftCrane to solve. It connects to your Google Drive and gives you a writing environment designed specifically for nonfiction books — your documents stay in your Drive, but you get the structure and tools that Drive alone cannot provide. If you are at the point where the folder system is working but you want something purpose-built, it might be worth a look.

The System Matters More Than the Tools

The folder structure in this guide is one version of a principle that applies everywhere: the system for organizing your material is at least as important as the material itself. A mediocre outline in a well-organized Drive is more useful than a brilliant outline you cannot find.

Set up the four folders. Name your files consistently. Archive aggressively. And spend five minutes a week keeping it clean. Your book is already in your Google Drive somewhere. Now you will be able to find it.