4 Canva Habits That Save 20+ Hours Every Month [DESIGN FASTER]

Here are four Canva habits that save me 20 plus hours every single month, and they're going to do the same for you. I'm Natalia and I help creators like you turn content into income, freedom, and a brand you're proud of. So let's do this. Now, the first thing that's saving me a ton of hours is to have an organized structure of folders in my account and have folders dedicated to specific brand assets. So let me explain what I mean by this, because it's actually twofold. Now, the easiest way to get organized inside Canva is to actually create a folder system for your designs and assets. Now, I've got all my core brand stuff like photos, elements, and templates in one place. Then I have folders for social media stuff. So when we jump into it, I actually separated social media with YouTube, but this is what I've got. I've got them separated and broken down by platform, so you can see it in here. Now, Canva also lets you create subfolders and then store everything from, you know, designs to photos, videos to templates within those folders. So when I jump in here into Instagram, you see reels and carousels and single image graphics. And from here, all of these hold my brand templates as well. Now, we can also move files from the Projects tab directly in here, and then you can just select what you want like this and then go ahead and move it to a folder like this. Or you can also just do it straight from within the editor by going to Share here at the top. And then from here, you go to More. And then from here, you've got the option to move and save to a specific folder. This one is in a folder, so it's moved, but it could be named Save to Folder or Move to Folder as well. Now, the crucial bit of keeping it all neat and sorted is to just get in the habit of naming a design straight away once you're in the editor. So whenever you open a new design, when you start with a template, whatever you do, whenever you're taken into the editor, just jump into this panel here at the very top and change the name on it just because you want to have your own kind of keywords and ways of identifying the design when you look it up further. Or you actually want to go ahead to Share at the top again and move it to a specific folder from the CO option. And again, from here, you can choose Move and then just add it to a specific folder that you want. Now, for me, this is one of the top habits just to keep your account organized, but also work in Canva very efficiently. Now, the second bit of this habit is to regularly update your folders with assets that you use a lot. Now, this will be super individual, but I'll give you one example. For my own content, I actually use a lot of cutout images of myself, and it's very, very often that I need them. I have a very specific style where I remove the background from the photo, but I also add a thick white outline. And then I add some shadow underneath on top of it as well. Now, I'll upload them to Canva. You can just drag and drop them like this. You can drag and drop a whole folder if you prefer. I actually have my own dedicated folder for my thumbnails as well. And then I'll add a new page. I'll pop it on top like this and I'll just stretch it out just to match the size and use the background remover. First, you can see that I've used it on this particular photo before, but we're just demonstrating. And from here, I'll go ahead and actually start adding those effects. So from here, I want a thick outline. Of course, I use white, so I don't think we'll be able to see it just now like this. But if only I change the background color to something like this, you can straight away see what it looks like. So I would do something like that just to have it. And then, of course, on top of it, I can keep adding different things. I can kind of keep downloading. But this saves me a ton of time because not only can I download them and re-upload them as PNG into Canva so that every time I want to use it, it's right here, or I will just jump into my YouTube thumbnail PNGs. That's my whole design that I use for this specific reason. And I can just just literally grab it and maybe pop it onto a different design. And they're all ready for me to go. Now, the second habit is to plan and create in Canva all in the same place. Now, when Canva sheets dropped, I was actually super excited because it gave us a powerful tool and eliminated the need to just jump between different apps just to use a worksheet. However, when we got the Visual Suite 2.0 update, which gave us the option to create different types of designs all under one project, this whole idea got to an even higher level and is a perfect, perfect, perfect focusing tool. Not only can we use a Canva sheet to first map out and plan a week or two of content, we can also batch this exact content without leaving the app and better yet, leaving the design itself. So let me show you what I mean by it and how to put it to work today. First, you want to open a new design with a Canva sheet specifically. Now, once it opens from the design tab in here, you can very easily choose a content calendar template. So I can say calendar maybe. And from here, you will be able to see a social media calendar like this one in here. There's another one in here, I think that works pretty well. So anything that works for you, I also have a free one for you. If you want to download it and just use it right now as well, you can grab it from the link down below. Now, from here, what I want you to do is just plan the content you want to post in the next two weeks, at least. Ideally, this would be more, but you can just easily work towards this. Now, I'll go ahead and jump into my kind of content calendar that I've created. And from here, you can see that I've got content type, platform, publish date, visual. So you can plan it out. You can map it out as easily as you want. And if you are struggling with like strategic thinking or maybe with like finding specific ideas at this point, you can also add a whiteboard so you can see that this is actually a whiteboard. I can zoom in and zoom out. And this is where I could work out my thumbnail, my newsletter titles, my social content ideas. You can also embed stuff on your whiteboard. So this is how easy it is now to get this whiteboard if you only have this sheet in here. So imagine this is our situation, right? We have the social media calendar. We just want to add a new sheet or actually a new whiteboard. So you don't click on here because it would give you another sheet. You actually click on the arrow in here and then choose whatever you like. I'll go for whiteboard in here. And again, from here, it's your space for infinite creativity. You can just brainstorm, have a little nice fun session. And this is going to help you a little and help map out your content. Now, once you get to a good point with the content plan, you can start adding new pages for this exact content. So again, the idea is that when you're focused, go with the flow and start creating so that you're using the momentum. You can actually write an email by using a doc file again to open up a new doc file. All you need to do is just click that arrow and add whatever format you need. So this is what we're going to follow in here. Now, you can just create a reel from here using the new video editor. You can actually create something like text-based, maybe, maybe B-roll reel, something simple. Then you can have like an Instagram carousel. This is actually a thumbnail in here, as you can see, but you can have like a carousel worked out for this particular wheel. You can also resize them from here to a different size, to a different platform. So in here, I have an Instagram page. So you can see Instagram posts four to five. But from here, I can just click a resize page and I can use a Pinterest pin, something that I use quite a lot. And from here, Canva is going to just change things up for you. And all you need to do is to, of course, just kind of working on your specific design just to match it for this particular format. So from here, you can see that I've just tidied things up. All I need to do, of course, is just select the stuff that interests me, select the stuff that I want to kind of reposition and move around. And just like that, maybe I would delete that one because I don't want that kind of saving thing. And I have this locked up. So I would just move it ever so slightly to the top. And this is how easy it was for me to go from the Instagram post to the Pinterest post size. And maybe I would reposition this one actually a little bit. But this is kind of the general idea, right, that you've got your planning board from here and you know exactly what you need to work on. Of course, creating a YouTube video on Canva would be a bit of a, you know, hefty thing to do, but you can still plan it in here. And then you have the newsletter, the real short. You can kind of change the different content types and formats. You can draft a little kind of copy, you know, your title or maybe your specific captions in here. You can also plug those visuals. So once you kind of download them, you can re-upload them in here as well. Now, the habit of planning and batching content in Canva right in the same places can save you hours every single month. But this becomes even more efficient when you add this next habit onto it. So we're stacking, right? This is something that I want you to do. And it's going to act almost like a self-onboarding process for Canva and content. And then you repeat that regularly to build a library of your own branded templates, stories, reels, etc. Let me explain what I mean by this. Now, to create a brand template, of course, start a new project and of course, design it how you like. This is a little carousel that I've created not too long ago. And I actually want to keep it as a template for the future. Now, make sure you're using your brand fonts and brand colors. Of course, Brand Kit is your best friend in here. And then once you're happy with a layout, you can go ahead to the share button here at the top and then go to brand template like this. And from here, not only can you just save it as a brand template, but of course, we're keeping things organized and you can actually move it to a specific folder as well. So this is super cool. You can just hit publish. And from here, you'll be saved. And like this, you have your brand template that you can use just to recreate. So when you click use brand template, you will not be taken to the original. You can see that it actually created a copy. And from here, I would be able to just, you know, say something like updates and updates, updates and just start creating my new content. I could, you know, swap the visuals in here. I have something that I can kind of work on very easily. And I never start from scratch. And as an important note, the brand template function, as well as the Brand Kit are Canva Pro features. So try them out for $0 yourself and see how easy they make your life. No strings attached. You can just always cancel the trial and go back to Canva Free, but know that you can claim it using the link down below. And this leads me to my fourth habit, adapting a new template in Canva periodically to build upon your library. Also, do you see how all of these habits, again, tie together and just help you achieve more with less work? Now, I feel like I've been connecting a lot of dots in the past few months. And this is what happens when you're intentional about how you work and how you flow through things. But back to it, we want to try adapting a new template as a brand template every single month, maybe more often. But this is what I want you to do. Your favorite Canva creators probably contribute to the Canva library from time to time. So it's worth following them, which I talked about in this video right here, and checking their pages. Now you do this by going to the Templates tab from the homepage. And then by opening this burger menu, it used to be a burger menu, now it's this icon. However, you can still maybe see a burger menu in here. In any case, this is where you jump into this creator's icon. And just like that, you'll see the Canva suggestions. So the creators that Canva thinks I would love based on the stuff that I've used before. And also I am following kind of 10 different creators in here. And you can see that this gives me a very, very easy access to their content. So I can just jump into this creator in here, Figura Design Studio. And just like that, you have the different kind of featured stuff. You've got collections, which means that very often you'll find kind of different things that you can use for yourself that have a very similar theme. So this can help with branding in particular or having that consistency. And you see different things that can just kind of, you know, graze through and check and browse. And if I like something in particular, maybe I see something like this and I think, okay, great, this could work for my brand. I can just jump in and start adapting. Following a creator is also super simple. We've got Diana in here, who's an amazing fellow Canva verified experts. I can just jump in and click following. And this is how easy it is to just have access to everything that she's created for the Canva library and contributed. And you can see that once I refreshed, she appears in here for me as well. Now, apart from this, again, graze through any of the templates from the templates tab with something specific, like a keyword or maybe a specific filter just to find new inspiration. So I can go for something like lifestyle content creator in here. And you can see that this is how easy it is to just find certain things when you're looking for a specific category. So maybe you're going for an Instagram post, you can specify it in here. And apart from this, you also have these different kind of style filters. So I could go for something like aesthetic and that's going to kind of limit the amount of things that I have to browse through. And maybe again, if I like something, I can just jump in from here. This is how easy it is to again, follow those creators that you really like. So if you see someone that pops up consistently for you, go ahead and give them a follow and then jump in and customize this specific template just to adapt it to your brand. And maybe you'll love it enough to adapt it for a brand template as well. Now we want to make sure that we're matching the style of the template. So for example, in here, if the tones and hues are light, try to stay on it. Not to like the detriment of your branding, we still want to keep a consistent brand color and brand vibe. However, just choose something that works for your particular design. So from your specific palette, I wouldn't go for something dark and try to kind of readapt the whole thing. I would pick something lighter from my whole kind of, you know, obviously this is a photo, but I would pick a lighter colors for this and same goes for the kind of darker colors. If this is a darker font, I would try to match it. So this would be kind of my way of kind of adapting it that way. So you can see a quick example in here. This was an original template from the Canva library and it adapted it to something like this. So you can see from here, like match your brand fonts, try to match the style of the photo. So I needed something that would be to the side in here a little bit just to create that kind of nice balance and space in here. We're going for a similar vibe of the photo for the similar vibe of any of the kind of elements in the original template. And if there's like an Instagram handle or a name on it, make sure to change it to yours because again, if we're adapting it and maybe then saving it as a brand template to reuse later on, you will be able to just have it plugged in very easily in here and you won't have to, you know, obviously change things later on. And at this point, voila, you've just built upon your brand template library and you can create with more variety and more fun. Now I have another video coming up with content habits, so make sure you're subscribed and let me know in the comments what you're working on this month in terms of content, discipline, systems, and anything you like. Watch this video next. YouTube seems to think it's the best one for you right now. Like this video if you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.