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Monday, November 23, 2015

Organizing the VIrtual World

One of today's tasks: Organizing my bookmarks.

Well, they aren't even bookmarks.  There is a bookmarks manager that is very cool, but out of site out of mind.  Today I'm going to tell you what I've been doing, how I got in over my head, and what I'm doing to solve the chaos.

In the old days, if I ran across something on the internet I wanted to read later, I'd throw the URL into "bookmark" or "favorites" land, but I discovered that I never went back.  All I was doing was creating this giant collection of URLs that would never be visited again.  Yes, with Bookmarks Manager (or a little forethought), it is simple enough to create subfolders of categories for everything.  But it's that whole "I can't be bothered to open a drawer" thing.



I discovered that as I went about my day, if I saw something on the internet I wanted to read or save for later, it merely became an open window "to deal with later".  So when it was time to go to bed, I'd have like ten browser windows open and I was TIRED and wanted to go to bed... so I'd just put my computer to sleep (instead of turning it off) and everything would still be there in the morning.

Problem is, in the morning, I had better things to do.  So the windows would just pile up, day after day.  And my poor computer never got a chance to turn off.

To end the madness, the solution was to create a Word document that I keep open on my computer at all times.  It's called "Daily".  I put all kinds of important tasks and deadlines and notes in there.  And at the end of the day, I grab all those URLs that are open on my computer and just copy and paste them into my DAILY document.  Then I can shut down the computer and my URLs are still safe.

Safe but not organized... yet.

So it goes like this:
  1. I roll along with my daily tasks:
    • Making jewelry, doing laundry, checking on Facebook, posting in forums, doing homework, creating meals, etc.
  2. Something crosses my path:
    • "Oh, that's a great idea for a color combo" copy the URL to my Word document
    • "Oh, I want to try that recipe" copy the URL to my Word document
    • "What a cool way to use sandpaper" copy the URL to my Word document 
    • "I could stand to read this article on improving memory" copy the URL to my Word document 
  3.  I now take that URL and copy it to my DAILY word doc.
The ONLY problem with that is it began to look like this...

 ... for pages and pages.  And if I wanted something, like I knew there was an article on SEO Marketing that I wanted to share on my blog, I'd start looking through the URL until I found it.

But that time-wasting process is similar to a cluttered house where you know you've got something but looking for it takes valuable time away from everything else you have to do.


So today, I created a new section.  I threw a one-column table into the Word doc and put a bunch of headings into each column, like:
  • Recipes I want to try
  • Color inspiration
  • Jewelry how to's
  • Articles on astrophysics
  • Marketing
  • May want to buy
And I'm going through my URLs and putting them in the appropriate category.  This will make it infinitely easier to find things when I need them.

And since this table is still in my DAILY Word doc, it won't be any harder or more time-consuming to stick the URLs into their rightful place to begin with.

BTW, there's the new look.  So much easier to find things.  I want to finally try that cauliflower recipe I saw online?  Instead of looking through 300 saves URLs, I just go to the "Recipes" section.


If you're also a "piler" and/or your collection of URLs is out of hand, let me know if you do something similar and how it works for you.

And the whole point of doing that today was I wanted to blog and I've collected a ton of URLs I want to share with you all... things about jewelry making techniques, and marketing, and a ton of other stuff.

So thank you for prompting me to get organized!

Next blog post... I'll share some of those helpful URLs.


4 comments:

  1. All those pages is why I originally started on Pinterest but now I have so many there, trying to find the right on can be tricky and I even have then in categories. Think that I am going to try Pocket since I can use it on all my devices.

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  2. That is why I use OneNote I can have tabs in one notebook and I can add or change it as I need to.

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  3. I am obsessive about organizing. I have had folders for years. Large categories, like ART, under which are subfolders: beads, wire, shopping, color, etc... Every once in a while I will add another subcategory.

    As for webpages- I follow over 300 art/decorating/cooking blogs. (Honestly 95% of them are jewelry.) I have an RSS feed that I clear every week. If something is really good, like Milissa Ingrams comprehensive list of Czech beads (http://tinyurl.com/nom2osa) I create a new bookmark.

    I recently bought a Kobo e-reader which has an application which allows me to send articles to my e-reader. Great for reading, bad for art because the e-reader is not in color.

    Sometimes it is overwhelming at which point I just mark items as read and move on.

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