July 20, 2025 • 15 mins
In this episode, Liza introduces the 5-Day SharePoint Reset, a fast, practical, and stress-free way to get your SharePoint environment under control—no massive overhaul required. Born from real workplace frustration and chaos (yes, including those dreaded "final_final_final" file names), this approach is tailored for busy teams dealing with inherited mess, deeply nested folders, and inconsistent practices.
You’ll learn:
- Why most SharePoint advice doesn’t work in the real world
- The rip-and-replace myth and how it sets teams up to fail
- What strategic improvements are and why they’re your best bet
- The five small daily actions that make a massive difference—starting with a five-minute scan
- How targeted changes to views, folders, metadata, and staging areas can instantly boost productivity
- The surprising way this reset also prepares you for Copilot Readiness
Liza shares real success stories from teams who went from digital chaos to clarity in just five days, and reveals how this reset lays the foundation for her upcoming course: Fix the Mess – SharePoint Cleanup for Real Workspaces. You'll also get a sneak peek at the Copilot Mini Assessment, designed to get your site Copilot-ready without the overwhelm.
🧰 Want to start your own reset?
Download the 5-Day SharePoint Reset Starter Kit:
📍 resources.simplysharepoint.com
If SharePoint’s been slowing your team down, this episode is your starting point for fixing it—without flipping your entire workplace upside down.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome back to Simply SharePoint, the podcast
where we make SharePointactually work for real people in
real workplaces.
I'm Liza, and if you're newhere, welcome to the show where
we skip the theory and getstraight into the solutions that
(00:21):
actually work.
Today, I'm excited to talk aboutsomething I've been working on
that I think is going to help alot of you.
It's called the 5-Day SharePointReset.
But before I dive into what itis, let me tell you why I
created it.
A while ago, I was working in anorganization where the marketing
(00:42):
team had a SharePoint librarythat was honestly a disaster.
We're talking folders that werenested like six levels deep,
documents with names like finalunderscore final version three,
actually underscore final doc.
No, I'm serious.
And a permission structure thatlooked like it was designed by
someone throwing darts at aboard.
(01:05):
The team lead looked at me andsaid, Liza, we know we need to
fix this, but we don't have timefor a massive overhaul.
We just need something simplethat works.
And that's when it hit me.
Most SharePoint advice assumesyou can start from scratch or
dedicate weeks toreorganization, but that's not
(01:25):
reality for most of us.
So today I'm going to walk youthrough the five-day SharePoint
reset, a practical approach thatgets you real results without
turning your work life upsidedown.
And at the end, I'll tell youhow you can get the complete
guide and start your own resetthis week.
(01:46):
The problem with SharePointadvice.
Let's be honest about something.
Most SharePoint guidance iswritten by people who've never
had to deal with inheritedchaos.
You know what I'm talking about?
You open up a SharePoint sitethat someone else set up and it
looks like a digital tornado hitit.
The typical advice goessomething like this.
(02:09):
First, establish yourinformation architecture.
Then, create a comprehensivegovernance framework.
Next, implement a metadatataxonomy.
Yeah, that's all true.
But I'm sitting here thinking,that's great.
But what about the 10,000documents that are already
there?
(02:29):
What about the fact that I haveactual work to do today?
Here's the thing.
Most SharePoint environmentsbecome messy for completely
understandable reasons.
Maybe you inherited a systemfrom someone who left the
company.
Maybe your SharePoint greworganically as your team grew
and nobody had time to sort ofsit back and organize it
(02:50):
properly.
Maybe you had a consultant setsomething up that looked great
in the demo, but it didn't matchhow your team actually works.
I've worked on hundreds andhundreds of SharePoint sites,
and I can tell you thatSharePoint chaos is practically
universal.
It's not because people are lazyor don't care.
It's because SharePoint ispowerful, which means there are
(03:13):
a million ways to organizethings.
And when you're busy, you justdump files wherever seems
reasonable at the moment.
The problem with the rip andreplace mentality is that it
doesn't work for realworkplaces.
You can't shut down yourdocument management system for
three weeks while you rebuildeverything from scratch.
(03:35):
You need solutions that workaround your existing
constraints, your deadlines,your team's varying technical
skills and your budgetlimitations.
That's why I'm such a bigbeliever in what I call
strategic improvements.
Small, targeted changes thatdeliver immediate value and
(03:55):
build momentum for biggerchanges later.
Because here's what I'velearned.
People need to see thatSharePoint can actually work
before they'll invest time inmaking it work better.
When that marketing team Imentioned earlier saw how much
easier it was to find theircampaign assets after just one
day of targeted improvements,suddenly everyone was interested
(04:17):
in doing more.
But if I had started by askingthem to reorganize their entire
site structure and They wouldhave given up before we even
started.
Breaking down the five-dayreset.
So let me walk you through whatthe five-day SharePoint reset
actually looks like.
(04:37):
Each day focuses on one smallachievable task that builds
toward a cleaner, morefunctional SharePoint
environment.
Day one is all about honestassessment.
I call it Scan and Spot theChaos.
You're going to pick onedocument library, just one, and
(04:59):
spend exactly five minutesscanning through it like a
detective.
You're not trying to fixanything yet.
You're just documenting what'snot working.
Look for things like excessivefolder nesting that makes you
click five times to find adocument, inconsistent naming
conventions, random documenttypes all mixed together, And
(05:21):
those files with last modifieddates from, say, 2018.
But nobody wants to touch, butnobody wants to delete either.
Why doesn't anyone want todelete anything anyway?
Well, that's another podcastepisode in itself.
Anyway, the key here is to writedown what you find.
This isn't busy work.
(05:42):
It creates accountability andgives you a baseline to measure
your progress against.
By the end of day one, youshould have a clear picture of
at least two to three majorissues that when fixed will make
the biggest difference for yourteam.
Day two is about creating oneuseful view.
This is where we move fromobservation to action.
(06:06):
You're going to create a single,well-designed, custom view that
addresses one of your biggestfindability issues.
The right view can completelytransform how people interact
with your library.
without requiring anyreorganization of the actual
files.
Maybe your team struggles tofind the latest version of
(06:27):
documents, so you create arecent activity view, sorted by
modified date.
Maybe document ownership isunclear, so you create an owner
accountability view, grouped bywho created each file.
The goal isn't to solve everyproblem.
It's to solve one problem reallywell.
(06:49):
I love this step because it'swhere people start to see the
potential.
When you share that new viewwith your colleagues and they
say, oh, wow, this actuallymakes sense.
That's when you know you're onthe right track.
Views seriously can transformyour library and how your
colleagues feel about it.
Unfortunately, most end usersaren't trained in creating views
(07:10):
at all.
I wrote an entire blog post onthat one recently.
Now on to day three.
Day three is what I call fixfolder hell just a bit.
Folder structures in SharePointoften evolve chaotically over
time.
And day three is about makingtargeted improvements without
(07:30):
disrupting your entire system.
You're looking for three typesof problematic folders.
The shouting folders, you know,with all caps, names that create
sort of visual noise.
The deeply nested structuresthat require four or more clicks
to reach actual documents.
And the name nightmares.
(07:52):
You know, those folders withconfusing similar names like
project files or projectdocuments and project info.
The key word here is targeted.
You're not reorganizingeverything.
You're fixing the mostdisruptive issues.
Rename unclear folders.
with more descriptive names,flatten folder structures
(08:16):
wherever possible, andconsolidate duplicate folders to
reduce choice paralysis.
Now, day four is tag just onething.
Metadata is SharePoint's secretweapon, but implementing it can
feel overwhelming.
(08:36):
So instead of trying to tageverything, we apply metadata to
just one document type orcategory.
Maybe you choose policydocuments and add fields for
status and department.
Maybe you pick projectdeliverables and add fields for
project phase and project owner.
The goal is to demonstrate thevalue of metadata in a focused
(08:59):
way that people can actually seeand use.
After you tag those documents,create a filtered view that
showcases your newly organizedcontent.
When people see how much easierit is to find what they need,
they start asking, can we dothis for other types of
documents too?
And that's exactly the momentumyou want to build.
(09:22):
Day five is about preventingfuture chaos by setting up what
I call a staging library orneeds review area.
This addresses one of thebiggest challenges in document
management.
People need a quick place tosave files and without stopping
to think about properclassification.
(09:44):
What you do is create adesignated space where users can
drop files that will later beproperly processed and moved to
permanent locations.
This keeps your main librariesorganized while still giving
people a place to save thingsquickly when they're under
deadline pressure.
The beauty of this approach isthat it acknowledges reality.
(10:06):
People are going to save filesquickly sometimes, and that's
okay.
But instead of letting thosequick saves mess up your
organized libraries, you givethem a designated place to land
temporarily.
Let me share a couple of successstories to show you how this
(10:26):
actually works in practice.
That marketing team that Imentioned earlier?
After their five-day reset, theywent from spending 15 to 20
minutes looking for campaignassets to finding what they
needed in under two minutes.
But more importantly, theystarted maintaining the
organisation because they couldsee how much time it saved them.
(10:48):
The IT department and otheroffice had been struggling for
months to get users to follownaming conventions.
After implementing the staginglibrary approach, Compliance
went from about 30% to over 80%in just a few weeks.
Why?
Because people had a place toput files quickly and the IT
(11:09):
team had a systematic way toprocess and properly organize
them.
Here's what I love about thesestories.
The improvements weren't justtechnical.
The marketing team startedcollaborating better because
they could actually find eachother's work.
The IT department went frombeing the SharePoint police to
to being helpful partners inkeeping things organized.
(11:32):
And in both cases, the successof the five-day reset built
momentum for biggerimprovements.
Once people saw that SharePointcould actually work for them
instead of against them, theywere willing to invest time in
learning more advanced featuresand following better practices.
The key insight here is that youdon't need perfect organization
(11:55):
to see dramatic improvements.
You just need strategicorganization, fixing the right
things in the right order tocreate the biggest impact with
the least disruption.
So this now brings me tosomething I'm really excited to
(12:16):
share with you.
The five-day SharePoint Reset isactually the first product in a
new series I'm launching calledFix the Mess.
I've been working on this for awhile now because I kept seeing
the same pattern.
People need practical,achievable solutions for
SharePoint chaos, not moretheoretical frameworks.
The Fix the Mess series isdesigned specifically for people
(12:39):
dealing with inherited orchaotic SharePoint environments.
The five-day reset is yourstarter kit.
It's designed to give you thosequick wins and build momentum
while you're waiting for thefull course to launch.
Speaking of which, the completeFix the Mess course SharePoint
Cleanup for Real Workspaces,launches in just a few weeks.
(13:03):
The full course goes deep intoeverything we can't cover in
five days.
Comprehensive siterestructuring, advanced metadata
strategies, permissionoptimization, workflow
automation, and buildingsustainable governance that
people can actually follow.
Also following on from thatcourse will be the Fix the Mess
(13:24):
mini assessment course forco-pilot readiness.
And whilst I'm mentioningCopilot, all the things we are
doing in the five-day reset andthe full Fix the Mess course
prepare you for Copilot, so keepthat in mind.
But here's the thing.
You don't have to wait for thefull course to get started.
The five-day reset gives youimmediate value and helps you
(13:47):
figure out if this approachworks for your specific
situation.
The starter kit includes twothings, a guide that walks you
through each day withexplanations, and a set of
slides that you can use as achecklist, share with your team,
or even present to stakeholdersto show them your improvement
plan.
(14:13):
Here's what I want you to takeaway from today's episode.
SharePoint chaos is fixable, butyou don't need to fix everything
at once to see dramaticimprovements.
The five-day SharePoint resetproves that small, strategic
changes can transform how yourteam works with documents and
information.
And the best part?
You can start tomorrow.
(14:35):
If you're ready to begin yourown five-day reset, head over to
resources.simplysharepoint.comto grab the complete starter
kit.
And honestly, if it saves youeven one hour of searching for
documents, it's paid for itself.
And if you want to be first inline for the full Fix the Mess
course when it launches, makesure you're on the waitlist at
resources.simplysharepoint.comslash courses slash fixthemess.
(15:00):
People on the waitlist get earlyaccess and special pricing.
Next week, I'm going to diveinto one of the most requested
topics, how to handle SharePointpermissions without losing your
mind.
Trust me, you don't want to missthat one.
Until then, remember...
Thanks for listening to SimplySharePoint.
(15:28):
If this episode helped you,share it with someone who's
struggling with their ownSharePoint chaos.
I'll be back next week with moreSharePoint solutions that
actually work in the real world.
This has been Simply SharePoint.
I'm Liza, and I'll talk to younext week.
UNKNOWN (15:50):
you
Welcome back to Simply SharePoint, the podcast
where we make SharePointactually work for real people in
real workplaces.
I'm Liza, and if you're newhere, welcome to the show where
we skip the theory and getstraight into the solutions that
(00:21):
actually work.
Today, I'm excited to talk aboutsomething I've been working on
that I think is going to help alot of you.
It's called the 5-Day SharePointReset.
But before I dive into what itis, let me tell you why I
created it.
A while ago, I was working in anorganization where the marketing
(00:42):
team had a SharePoint librarythat was honestly a disaster.
We're talking folders that werenested like six levels deep,
documents with names like finalunderscore final version three,
actually underscore final doc.
No, I'm serious.
And a permission structure thatlooked like it was designed by
someone throwing darts at aboard.
(01:05):
The team lead looked at me andsaid, Liza, we know we need to
fix this, but we don't have timefor a massive overhaul.
We just need something simplethat works.
And that's when it hit me.
Most SharePoint advice assumesyou can start from scratch or
dedicate weeks toreorganization, but that's not
(01:25):
reality for most of us.
So today I'm going to walk youthrough the five-day SharePoint
reset, a practical approach thatgets you real results without
turning your work life upsidedown.
And at the end, I'll tell youhow you can get the complete
guide and start your own resetthis week.
(01:46):
The problem with SharePointadvice.
Let's be honest about something.
Most SharePoint guidance iswritten by people who've never
had to deal with inheritedchaos.
You know what I'm talking about?
You open up a SharePoint sitethat someone else set up and it
looks like a digital tornado hitit.
The typical advice goessomething like this.
(02:09):
First, establish yourinformation architecture.
Then, create a comprehensivegovernance framework.
Next, implement a metadatataxonomy.
Yeah, that's all true.
But I'm sitting here thinking,that's great.
But what about the 10,000documents that are already
there?
(02:29):
What about the fact that I haveactual work to do today?
Here's the thing.
Most SharePoint environmentsbecome messy for completely
understandable reasons.
Maybe you inherited a systemfrom someone who left the
company.
Maybe your SharePoint greworganically as your team grew
and nobody had time to sort ofsit back and organize it
(02:50):
properly.
Maybe you had a consultant setsomething up that looked great
in the demo, but it didn't matchhow your team actually works.
I've worked on hundreds andhundreds of SharePoint sites,
and I can tell you thatSharePoint chaos is practically
universal.
It's not because people are lazyor don't care.
It's because SharePoint ispowerful, which means there are
(03:13):
a million ways to organizethings.
And when you're busy, you justdump files wherever seems
reasonable at the moment.
The problem with the rip andreplace mentality is that it
doesn't work for realworkplaces.
You can't shut down yourdocument management system for
three weeks while you rebuildeverything from scratch.
(03:35):
You need solutions that workaround your existing
constraints, your deadlines,your team's varying technical
skills and your budgetlimitations.
That's why I'm such a bigbeliever in what I call
strategic improvements.
Small, targeted changes thatdeliver immediate value and
(03:55):
build momentum for biggerchanges later.
Because here's what I'velearned.
People need to see thatSharePoint can actually work
before they'll invest time inmaking it work better.
When that marketing team Imentioned earlier saw how much
easier it was to find theircampaign assets after just one
day of targeted improvements,suddenly everyone was interested
(04:17):
in doing more.
But if I had started by askingthem to reorganize their entire
site structure and They wouldhave given up before we even
started.
Breaking down the five-dayreset.
So let me walk you through whatthe five-day SharePoint reset
actually looks like.
(04:37):
Each day focuses on one smallachievable task that builds
toward a cleaner, morefunctional SharePoint
environment.
Day one is all about honestassessment.
I call it Scan and Spot theChaos.
You're going to pick onedocument library, just one, and
(04:59):
spend exactly five minutesscanning through it like a
detective.
You're not trying to fixanything yet.
You're just documenting what'snot working.
Look for things like excessivefolder nesting that makes you
click five times to find adocument, inconsistent naming
conventions, random documenttypes all mixed together, And
(05:21):
those files with last modifieddates from, say, 2018.
But nobody wants to touch, butnobody wants to delete either.
Why doesn't anyone want todelete anything anyway?
Well, that's another podcastepisode in itself.
Anyway, the key here is to writedown what you find.
This isn't busy work.
(05:42):
It creates accountability andgives you a baseline to measure
your progress against.
By the end of day one, youshould have a clear picture of
at least two to three majorissues that when fixed will make
the biggest difference for yourteam.
Day two is about creating oneuseful view.
This is where we move fromobservation to action.
(06:06):
You're going to create a single,well-designed, custom view that
addresses one of your biggestfindability issues.
The right view can completelytransform how people interact
with your library.
without requiring anyreorganization of the actual
files.
Maybe your team struggles tofind the latest version of
(06:27):
documents, so you create arecent activity view, sorted by
modified date.
Maybe document ownership isunclear, so you create an owner
accountability view, grouped bywho created each file.
The goal isn't to solve everyproblem.
It's to solve one problem reallywell.
(06:49):
I love this step because it'swhere people start to see the
potential.
When you share that new viewwith your colleagues and they
say, oh, wow, this actuallymakes sense.
That's when you know you're onthe right track.
Views seriously can transformyour library and how your
colleagues feel about it.
Unfortunately, most end usersaren't trained in creating views
(07:10):
at all.
I wrote an entire blog post onthat one recently.
Now on to day three.
Day three is what I call fixfolder hell just a bit.
Folder structures in SharePointoften evolve chaotically over
time.
And day three is about makingtargeted improvements without
(07:30):
disrupting your entire system.
You're looking for three typesof problematic folders.
The shouting folders, you know,with all caps, names that create
sort of visual noise.
The deeply nested structuresthat require four or more clicks
to reach actual documents.
And the name nightmares.
(07:52):
You know, those folders withconfusing similar names like
project files or projectdocuments and project info.
The key word here is targeted.
You're not reorganizingeverything.
You're fixing the mostdisruptive issues.
Rename unclear folders.
with more descriptive names,flatten folder structures
(08:16):
wherever possible, andconsolidate duplicate folders to
reduce choice paralysis.
Now, day four is tag just onething.
Metadata is SharePoint's secretweapon, but implementing it can
feel overwhelming.
(08:36):
So instead of trying to tageverything, we apply metadata to
just one document type orcategory.
Maybe you choose policydocuments and add fields for
status and department.
Maybe you pick projectdeliverables and add fields for
project phase and project owner.
The goal is to demonstrate thevalue of metadata in a focused
(08:59):
way that people can actually seeand use.
After you tag those documents,create a filtered view that
showcases your newly organizedcontent.
When people see how much easierit is to find what they need,
they start asking, can we dothis for other types of
documents too?
And that's exactly the momentumyou want to build.
(09:22):
Day five is about preventingfuture chaos by setting up what
I call a staging library orneeds review area.
This addresses one of thebiggest challenges in document
management.
People need a quick place tosave files and without stopping
to think about properclassification.
(09:44):
What you do is create adesignated space where users can
drop files that will later beproperly processed and moved to
permanent locations.
This keeps your main librariesorganized while still giving
people a place to save thingsquickly when they're under
deadline pressure.
The beauty of this approach isthat it acknowledges reality.
(10:06):
People are going to save filesquickly sometimes, and that's
okay.
But instead of letting thosequick saves mess up your
organized libraries, you givethem a designated place to land
temporarily.
Let me share a couple of successstories to show you how this
(10:26):
actually works in practice.
That marketing team that Imentioned earlier?
After their five-day reset, theywent from spending 15 to 20
minutes looking for campaignassets to finding what they
needed in under two minutes.
But more importantly, theystarted maintaining the
organisation because they couldsee how much time it saved them.
(10:48):
The IT department and otheroffice had been struggling for
months to get users to follownaming conventions.
After implementing the staginglibrary approach, Compliance
went from about 30% to over 80%in just a few weeks.
Why?
Because people had a place toput files quickly and the IT
(11:09):
team had a systematic way toprocess and properly organize
them.
Here's what I love about thesestories.
The improvements weren't justtechnical.
The marketing team startedcollaborating better because
they could actually find eachother's work.
The IT department went frombeing the SharePoint police to
to being helpful partners inkeeping things organized.
(11:32):
And in both cases, the successof the five-day reset built
momentum for biggerimprovements.
Once people saw that SharePointcould actually work for them
instead of against them, theywere willing to invest time in
learning more advanced featuresand following better practices.
The key insight here is that youdon't need perfect organization
(11:55):
to see dramatic improvements.
You just need strategicorganization, fixing the right
things in the right order tocreate the biggest impact with
the least disruption.
So this now brings me tosomething I'm really excited to
(12:16):
share with you.
The five-day SharePoint Reset isactually the first product in a
new series I'm launching calledFix the Mess.
I've been working on this for awhile now because I kept seeing
the same pattern.
People need practical,achievable solutions for
SharePoint chaos, not moretheoretical frameworks.
The Fix the Mess series isdesigned specifically for people
(12:39):
dealing with inherited orchaotic SharePoint environments.
The five-day reset is yourstarter kit.
It's designed to give you thosequick wins and build momentum
while you're waiting for thefull course to launch.
Speaking of which, the completeFix the Mess course SharePoint
Cleanup for Real Workspaces,launches in just a few weeks.
(13:03):
The full course goes deep intoeverything we can't cover in
five days.
Comprehensive siterestructuring, advanced metadata
strategies, permissionoptimization, workflow
automation, and buildingsustainable governance that
people can actually follow.
Also following on from thatcourse will be the Fix the Mess
(13:24):
mini assessment course forco-pilot readiness.
And whilst I'm mentioningCopilot, all the things we are
doing in the five-day reset andthe full Fix the Mess course
prepare you for Copilot, so keepthat in mind.
But here's the thing.
You don't have to wait for thefull course to get started.
The five-day reset gives youimmediate value and helps you
(13:47):
figure out if this approachworks for your specific
situation.
The starter kit includes twothings, a guide that walks you
through each day withexplanations, and a set of
slides that you can use as achecklist, share with your team,
or even present to stakeholdersto show them your improvement
plan.
(14:13):
Here's what I want you to takeaway from today's episode.
SharePoint chaos is fixable, butyou don't need to fix everything
at once to see dramaticimprovements.
The five-day SharePoint resetproves that small, strategic
changes can transform how yourteam works with documents and
information.
And the best part?
You can start tomorrow.
(14:35):
If you're ready to begin yourown five-day reset, head over to
resources.simplysharepoint.comto grab the complete starter
kit.
And honestly, if it saves youeven one hour of searching for
documents, it's paid for itself.
And if you want to be first inline for the full Fix the Mess
course when it launches, makesure you're on the waitlist at
resources.simplysharepoint.comslash courses slash fixthemess.
(15:00):
People on the waitlist get earlyaccess and special pricing.
Next week, I'm going to diveinto one of the most requested
topics, how to handle SharePointpermissions without losing your
mind.
Trust me, you don't want to missthat one.
Until then, remember...
Thanks for listening to SimplySharePoint.
(15:28):
If this episode helped you,share it with someone who's
struggling with their ownSharePoint chaos.
I'll be back next week with moreSharePoint solutions that
actually work in the real world.
This has been Simply SharePoint.
I'm Liza, and I'll talk to younext week.
UNKNOWN (15:50):
you
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