Staying Organized?!

[leber026]

I like Open Goo for project and general managment. That combined with dropbox and keepass for the passwords.

 

[kineticbug]

Pivotal Tracker - Free Lightweight Agile Project Management & Team Collaboration, from Pivotal Labs is great if I'm working on a project with other people.

 

[BluAffiliate]

I wouldn't recommend roboform, considering you have to pay, and if you want it on another computer, you have to pay even more, or if your computer crashes, etc. Lastpass is a free Firefox plugin that does everything that Roboforms does, just save yourself some money.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

Hey,

Re #3 and #4 - I'd look into a system for organizing things and then look for software to help you work that system. I think a bunch of people here are proponents of Getting Things Done (GTD). While that's pretty good, I think Zen To Done (ZTD) simplifies stuff a lot more. You should be able to find a torrent of that pretty easily (if you can't PM me). The structure is basically collect, organize, plan, do - Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

After you have a look through that, I recommend:

Collection: Welcome to your notable world | Evernote Corporation

Organization / Planning: https://www.rememberthemilk.com
If RTM isn't robust enough, you can look into something like Basecamp for project management - Project management, collaboration, and task software: Basecamp

Hope that's helpful.

I'm a HUGE fan of David Allen and GTD. I synch Outlook with my Blackberry and all my lists are with me at all times, allowing me to call who I need to, read e-mails I need to, and assign other tasks to VA's.

+1 for Basecamp. I use it daily to manage projects, and I love that you can allow permissions to "outside" people to access projects/task lists so that they can download/upload documents, update stuff, etc.

Excel will be your best friend. You are right in creating a "badass spreadsheet," and stumpyb's idea of getting a script written to scrape your earnings has the wheels turning in my head.

 

[kaisdavis]

I do a few things to stay organized while multi-tasking several campaigns or projects:

1. Time management: I usually just know intuitively how much I can handle over a period of a given day or week but if you can't seem to get used to doing that (it's crazy yes I know) and want something more structured you could setup tasks in to several categories (amongst each of the projects): 2 days to finish, 7 days to finish, 1 month, future plans so you can prioritize tasks and accomplish goals faster..idk

I'm using a similar system - synced through Dropbox to my active computers - but my challenge is with time management. I can sit down and work on a project, but when I start getting burnout I'll waste 10 minutes / an hour churning time on social networking / social bookmarking sites. My challenge is to step away from the computer when I get to that stage and be productive on another project.

As far as getting projects and such done for school, and organizing that into a timely program, if you're a Mac user in any way, check out iProcrastinate. Works like a dream, no joke.

I've been using Things for 6 months on my iPhone and Mac. I'll check out iProcrastinate.

 

[mobetman]

This is a great thread. I've been having the same issues too.

My biggest issue was tooooo many usernames/passwords for websites, hosting, social networks, email accounts, etc. etc. I just installed LastPass a few days ago and so far so good. I like that I can use it on multiple computers and browsers. I still like having a backup like a spreadsheet and have been thinking about setting up an Access database for everything.

I'm a big OneNote fan and use it for research, to organize thoughts, and can setup tasks directly to Outlook. It syncs between all my computers via a syncing program I have. Interesting that a few people on this thread prefer Evernote over OneNote. I'm familiar with Evernote (may even have an account) but never really used it. I may give it a chance per these recommendations.

For project management I use ClockingIT. It's free and a powerful project management system. It will help with your checklist. You can use it for outsourcing too because you can give limited access to people and will send reminders for tasks that are due.

I've been hurting in the time management area. It's too easy to get distracted with things online not to mention everyday life. So, I am going to use Rescue Time which is a very good time management program and they have a free version which should be good enough for most lone operators. If you do a lot of outsourcing get the paid version.

To help with the time management, I've been looking at various task list programs. This thread gave some great options, a few i wasn't familiar with and plan to check them out.