I have fallen behind in posting on this weblog. That’s always how it happens. I start a site and I am all excited about it and really get into it. After the initial excitement has worn off, the reality of the work required to keep the site up sets in and I fall behind. I’m determined to try and not let that happen this time. Look at Mizidy or TheChris, they both have kept their sites operational for some time. I aspire to be like them.
Now, on to the topic of this post: time management and organization. I have struggled with this since starting my job fulltime for the Help Desk. I always considered myself a pretty organized guy before. I mean, I had a plastic tub with hanging file folders in it containing all my bill stubs, credit card statements, bank statements, etc for the past three years. Granted they weren’t organized by date or anything to that degree, but still, I had all that stuff. I got all my homework and projects done for class. True, many of the big projects were completed the night before they were due, however, I felt that I got things done when they needed to be done. Then, I got hired full time at the Help Desk.
The basic work was pretty much the same as stuff I had been doing as a student employee. However, I was given more responsibility and many more projects. I love my job and threw myself into my work. I quickly realized that my “tried and true” system of organization would not work to help me keep these new tasks organized and allow me to complete them on time. I tried many things: paper lists, Outlook tasks and calendar appointments, using MS OneNote to keep a day-to-day task list, and several others. I seem to have reverted back to using simple paper lists. As it all stands, I do (as I like to think) good work and get things done on time. But I know there has to be a system out there to organize myself and allow me to reduce the stress I sometimes feel when I’m not exactly sure which project I should be working on at the moment.
My question to the readers of this site is what methods do you guys use for organizing and keeping track of your time/projects?
Tags: 3 Comments
3 responses so far ↓
You could use entourage’s project manager!!
Seriously though, I use netvibes.com which is basically a desktop that you can clutter up and then minimize. They have To Do Lists though and I have several, one for work, personal, wedding, and longer term. They also let you do all your RSS stuff through it so it works pretty well for me. It’s my organizational method for the month at least…ask me again next month, it might be different.
This helped me a lot: The Hipster PDA. Make one of these and start using it. There are tons of sites out there to mod it if you want but I use a plain one. It will make life so much easier. My problem is I forget things very easily. I’m an exciteable person by nature so I forget one thing when I finish another or have to do soemthing else. Use this and just jot shit down whenever you need to. Live the hipster!
It’s not so much an organizational thing it’s more of a, “Don’t forget blah” or “blah sounded interesting”. Makes your life better.
The new webarnold.net - LOVIN’ IT!! Very impressive - keep it up!!