Tools

Wherever I go, people ask about my organizational tools (I get lots of “ooh! Where can I get that” comments), so I wanted to share that info here. The more organized the world, the better, in my opinion!

Dave Seah’s Compact Calendars

Image courtesy of DavidSeah.com

In my job, I am constantly scheduling projects.  Once the projects are scheduled, they go into SharePoint, but in order for me to visualize the timeline, play around with dates, and nail down timelines, I utilize Dave Seah’s fantastic Compact Calendars.  Dave’s calendars are perfect for seeing a long run of months (most of my projects are at least 3 months long), for jotting down notes, and for visualizing the project as a whole.  Once scheduled, the Compact Calendar is Circa-punched and put into the appropriate project notebook.

Daily To-dos

Todoist

Do you like simple, clean to-do lists online? Me too.  That’s why I use ToDoist. This great online to-do list allows for easy input by day. It automatically updates day-to-day, dragging those things you didn’t finish yesterday into today’s list.  There’s also a Chrome app, and it works swimmingly on the iPhone and iPad! 

OneNote

I use Microsoft's OneNote to store all my notes for all my business interactions (consulting, research, etc.). I prefer OneNote over Evernote for this because of the number of 'layers' you can use in OneNote, versus Evernote where you essentially have folder stacks and folders. For my notes I need to essentially have binders, chapters, notes, sub-notes and more. 


Evernote

Evernote is my "second brain" when it comes to saving articles, videos, receipts, essentially anything I want to store. Evernote calls their platform a "platform for human memory" and it really is that! Entries can be organized into folders, tagged, and even PDF scans can be searched. 


Google Calendar

The layering abilities of multiple task lists and and multiple calendars within Google Calendar make it the perfect tool for me when managing multiple projects, charity work, personal appointments, etc. 

Book Organization

LibraryThing

If you’re looking to create a catalog of your books, look no further than LibraryThing.com. You can catalog your books from Amazon, Library of Congress and other libraries, and import them from anywhere.  But perhaps the coolest aspect of LibraryThing is its social aspect – you can find people with similar tastes and find new books to read.  You can connect your account to Facebook and Twitter as well, a feature that I love.

Levenger Circa

Image courtesy of Levenger.com

All of my projects are organized with Levenger Circa notebooks.  I have one for every project, as well as house binders, study binders, etc.  The genius part of the system is the Circa punch, essentially making any paper into Circa paper.  Why is this good? My notebooks can contain everything from standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper, to airplane tickets, to greeting cards, catalog tear-outs, etc.  Also, with Circa you can move papers/material from one notebook to the other with great ease. I’m a huge product evangelist of Circa, I honestly couldn’t live without this system now.