Mastering the etiquette of Google Docs

I’m addicted to Google Docs. As I type this blog post draft in Docs, I have 29 other Docs open across five Shift workspaces and my Google Chrome browser. I don’t have hard data to back this up, but I suspect I spend at least three-quarters of my day working in various Docs. I use them for call notes, client deliverables, contracts, internal marketing, Christmas lists, email drafts, and pretty much everything else I type. 

Collaboration within Google Docs is essential for my remote team. Below are some tips, tricks, and best practices I’ve honed over ten-plus years of using Google Workspace professionally. I share these with all new Lumino employees to help them collaborate effectively and efficiently with me and one another. I thought I’d share here to see what you think.

The Basics

Set up your Google Doc defaults to match your company’s style guide (fonts, colors, bullets, etc.). To do this, open a document that has all the paragraph styles you want already programmed and then go to Format → Paragraph Styles → Options → Save as my default styles. Then every new Google Doc you create will have those styles pre-programed. This is such a time-saver!

Get consistent with your file naming. We start every doc name with the client name then a vertical pipe ( | ) followed by the project and deliverable. We end with the date. Choose what works for you, keeping in mind you’ll want to be able to quickly scan your tabs to find the right doc so those first few characters are the most important. 

How to Share Your Doc

Skip the notification. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I do not like Google’s automated doc share email and recommend “skipping the notification” when you share your colleagues on a doc. Instead send a link wherever you’re regularly communicating (Slack, SmartSheet, Teams, Teamwork, etc.). Google Doc share emails are too easily lost in the inbox with bad subject lines and even often ending up in the “unimportant folder.”

When you share the doc, you should:

1. Identify who’s responsible for what. Collaboration works best (read: only works) when every member of the team understands their role. There are several frameworks you can use (I like the RACI matrix) to determine who is responsible, who needs to give feedback, who needs to approve, and who needs to be aware. Depending on your organization, it may make sense to define this for every client, every department, or even every document. Find a system that works for your team and stick to it. 
2. Give a timeline for feedback. This may be one of the most important tips in this post. Collaboration means you could go on iterating forever. At some point, someone needs to decide the ship has sailed and the opportunity for feedback has ended. 

Align with your team members on helpful notations. We use a series of short-hand characters and symbols across all Google Docs. It’s important new hires quickly recognize them. First up, we use the publishing industry’s “TK” for placeholder copy (an abbreviation for “to come”). This stems from a background in journalism and works well because so few words have “TK” in them that it’s easy to do an “Apple + F” for “TK” to ensure we haven’t left any blanks unfilled. Also from journalism, we use ### to indicate that’s the end of the doc. Anything below the three hash marks is a “parking lot” of information we don’t want to delete yet but should not be reviewed with the rest of the deliverable. I’m sure your organization has its own list of similar devices. Master them so you can contribute feedback meaningfully.  

Comments

Comments are one of Google Doc’s greatest features, but they’re also the fastest way to annoy your coworkers so use them responsibly. 

Not everything needs a comment. Comments are ideal for feedback that requires discussion. They can also be used to explain why you made changes, especially if you’re a manager giving feedback to a direct report or a project lead editing based on your knowledge of the client. But they’re (usually) not necessary to call attention to every edit you made, and not all comments are created equal. 

A good comment:

• Is succinct. No one wants to read an essay.
• Is actionable. Ask a direct question or offer a specific edit, but don’t leave open-ended statements or opinions that are difficult for others to act upon. 
• Tags appropriate team members by name so they know to look it over. 

Pro tip: If your comment applies to a long paragraph or section of the document, highlight only the first few words and make it clear in the comment that you’re referring to the whole section. Highlighting a long section of a doc and adding a comment makes it difficult for others to leave comments within that same section. This is especially important if you’re simply asking someone to review. 

Not all comments should be negative. To be a good colleague, I encourage you to balance out your constructive edits with some positive comments. A simple “well-done”, “nice” or “I dig this!” can go a long way to help you establish rapport with coworkers (especially in a remote office).

Tag specific team members when relevant. This is not necessary when only two people are collaborating. If you leave a comment there, it’s clear the only other person on the doc should be the one to respond. But as soon as you have more than two of you collaborating, it’s important to add names so it’s clear who needs to make an edit, respond to the question, find more information, or whatever needs to be done to resolve the comment. Like most things in life, Google doc comments that are “everybody’s job” end up being “nobody’s job.” If you want specific people to take action, @mention them by name so expectations are crystal clear.

When to…

Here’s a helpful guide to know when to take which action. 

… Make Suggestions

Suggestions are a personal favorite feature of Google Docs. This allows me to make recommended (but not required—see below in edits) copy changes that I used to leave as comments before suggestions were added. The original author can review and then accept or reject. And better still: additional reviewers can edit my suggestions to further polish them. 

Most of the time, do not use suggestions for typos, grammatical errors, or other issues that you’re positive should be changed. The only exception to this rule is training. If you’re a manager or senior employee who wants to coach direct reports or new employees, you may leave suggestions so they can learn what you’re doing. If this is the case, I recommend you also leave comments to explain the “why” behind your edits. I generally find that when employees understand why they’re much more likely to remember for the future.

... Make Edits

Make direct edits for anything you’re positive needs to be changed. These changes are “must-haves” to get this document finished. This includes typos, factual errors, grammatical errors, updated information, and any other no-discussion-needed edits. If you use comments or suggestions to make these changes instead of directly editing, you’re calling attention to the author’s error. This is almost guaranteed to annoy (or maybe even enrage) your colleagues, so don’t do it.

If you’re the author, project lead or otherwise the “final decider”, you may make direct edits as needed to get the document to the finish line. I often find I rely more heavily on direct edits the closer we get to the deadline when decision by committee becomes less feasible and a favorite expletive-ridden expression becomes my guide (I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “bucket, ship it”).  

… Resolve Comments

In most cases, the author will resolve comments once they’ve addressed whatever issue was brought up. The only exception is when another team member has been specifically asked to take an action by being @mentioned in the comment. In that case, the tagged team member should resolve once the edit is complete. 

What do you think of this list? Is there anything you’d add or change? Do you have document collaboration guidelines for your team? I’d love to see them!