Life is a highway, I don't have the energy to ride it all night long.
It's not easy to keep everything together. I get emails from people on 3 different accounts, long email changes of changes mostly, and am constantly working on passion projects. That's why I use a couple of different methods of organization. They involve many folders, a bit of writing, and a lot of help with organization.
1. A notebook. Remember way back in middle or high school when we had to do those weird tests to figure out what type of learner we are. Well, I was a kinesthetic learner. I learn best by doing. So for me, simply accepting meeting invites doesn't cut it. I won't remember to go to them (the 50 million outlook popups help though for sure). That's why I keep a seperate calendar/journal/notebook. Fringe's are especially nice because I can have my weekly calendar, with all my meetings, as well as notes related to those meetings. It's kinda like the best of both worlds. It's especially nice because I don't have a laptop I can carry around with me everywhere.
When so many of your meetings revolve around critique and feedback, it's impossible to not have notes. Being able to look back on the date and time of the meeting without even going back to my desktop, is even better. It's consistent, easy to transport, and I use it daily. That's why I have my notebook ranked as number one.
If you aren't convinced, they're also good for doodling in those super boring meetings. Looks like you're working hard too and not goofing off on facebook. Just to put the last nail in the coffin, there's so many designs. Like so many. If you don't like what Fringe has, just go to your local bookstore or Amazon or even google it. There's no shortage of cool notebooks out there.
2. Asana, project management at its finest. Asana is free to use (top priority for broke college girl in recovery) and pretty intuitive. It's also got a lovely design, many templates, and team collaboration functions. I really like the fact that I can view my tasks from different screens. For example, there's a timeline, task, progress, and calendar view. You can see where you lie in relationship to deadlines, to your teammates, and get insights (if you go premium) as to how to improve your workflow. Asana helps me keep my myriad of passion projects and paid projects in line.
3. Microsoft Office. Specifically, Outlook and Excel since I can't receive emails through Asana. Excel also works wonders for pesky lists like job searching, planning, location mapping, etc. The format by column option saves me a lot of time all too often. As for Outlook, I love how they let me organize my emails by folders and subfolders. I always have a main folder where I rotate in and out projects that I'm working on. It lets me keep track of important information without having to use the search bar or dig through months worth of emails. If you don't already do this, I highly recommend it. Most email systems will let you create folders, I just think that Outlook is the easiest.
Some honorable mentions to Google Drive, it's how I keep 80% of my content organized and ready to be sent off to clients, and Keynote. I love the way Keynote does presentations; less complicated, still has cool animations.
I hope this gives you a little insight into how I do things and keep my life together. If anything, maybe you went out and got yourself a cute little notebook ;) Feel free to like, comment, or share this article if you enjoyed it (or even if you didn't)!
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