organization | Geek Life: Augmenting Reality

Wow, can you believe we're already four days into the year 2013?? I've been really looking forward to the coming of this new year, mostly in a symbolic way to integrate better organization in my work and at home. This is a New Year's resolution that I'm bound and determined to hold on to! I don't know about you, but no one could ever accuse me of being a Mighty Organized Bunny. So it's fine and dandy to say that I'm gonna be more organized this year, but exactly how am I gonna pull this off? Well, I've been researching how for the past few days, and here are a few tools that are going to be massively helpful to me (and hopefully to you too!) Use Evernote - Holy Awesomesauce Batman! I've only had access to this iPhone/iPad/Android/Desktop compatible app since January 1st and it's already been a HUGE help for me. I'm able to jot down ideas for my site(s) and the ever needed To-Do lists right when I think of things to add; I can take pics of cool, funky, awesome stuff in Toronto and actually remember to blog about it (as the pics themselves will be posted in my ongoing list of notes); Biz cards and the actual people attached to them can be better captured and remembered. I hate bringing a card home and have no clue who it belongs to truly; I could take pics of important receipts and keep them in a specific folder that would be accessible anywhere I have an internet connection (i.e. ones that happen to have warranty information printed) or pics of review-items received, along with the MSRP for tax purposes (all nicely organized in its own folder in my Evernote account). The ways this app can help me keep it all together are practically endless. The only thing I wish it had was a calendar option. I would love to be able to use it to write out a bloggin schedule, but I found a great WordPress plugin that does just that.... WordPress' Editorial Calendar plugin is a simple app to keep potential blog posts organized. For instance, on January 1st, I knew I wanted to have my first blog post of the year to be published on Friday January 4th. So after installing this plugin last Tuesday, I had created a quick draft file directly in the Friday, Jan 4th box (shown below) with the Title of this post. I was also able to add a few notes on what I wanted to include in this article. Timing is a fabulous thing, and if I decide that a specific post should be published on a Tuesday instead of a Monday, I simply have to drag and drop the titles around as I see fit! :) This? Is gonna be so MUCH fun!One down side is that you can't add additional notes to this calendar without those notes being turned into draft blog posts (that could potentially be published). So if you don't mind seeing the word "[DRAFT]" pop up repeatedly on your calendar as you leave yourself little reminders like: "Post a Fashion Friday status on Facebook today," just ensure that it doesn't become a published post in your blog down the road. *shrugs* And finally HootSuite - it's and oldie but a goodie nonetheless! Of course, I want to keep most of my discussions online spontaneous, but sometimes its just better to prepare. Such as those Fashion Friday posts for Facebook. It takes a little more effort than you might think to put those together, and I like to jot down which clothing/accessory items I'd like to discuss all at once for a month in advance. It means that I'll take an hour and a half out of my work day to put together four or five facebook posts, instead of taking an hour each week for each post (I don't know why it takes me longer to do one a week than five at the same time, but it honestly does!) So yeah, HootSuite will be my new best friend this year to keep track of Facebook and Twitter stuff. I understand some fellow bloggers actually use HootSuite to "chat" on both Twitter and Facebook... I'm not sure I could, but I think I'll give it a shot for a week or two! So those are three ways that I'll be keeping more organized this year. By being more organized, I truly feel that I'll be able to blog more. Heck for every post published on Geek with Style last year, there were five that weren't. I'd like to turn that around and have four out of six potential posts published for 2013! So fess up, what are your organization habits? Did you create a resolution for this year?

Tag: organization

2013 is the Year of Organization

Technology. Collectibles. Travel.

Technology. Collectibles. Travel.