CornerScribe

Getting Organized

If you’re like me, you have writing ideas, to-do lists, reminder lists, etc. to keep track of. Here’s a little piece of free software that you might find useful.

Tiddlyspot

This is an online organizational tool that’s free to use. It’s based on GTD (Getting Things Done), but it will work with your own methods too. I use this kind of setup to organize my writing into projects. A project might be a short story or novel, an article, a query. It might be something not really writing related, like maintenance on the blog, networking with other bloggers, ad campaigns, etc. If you’re going to work on something that takes more than one task to complete, it’s a project in my organization system.

I then list out all the tasks for that project. A short stories list might look like this…

• Finish writing rough draft
• Do research on medical conditions that cause convulsions
• Find two or three appropriate markets

A project list for the blog might look something like this…

Improve blog SEO

• Research SEO plugins and choose one to install
• Add plugin for Related Posts
• Change post titles
• Find new theme to install
• Announce new theme and downtime on blog

I store tasks in this system and ideas in another, Google Docs. When I have an idea for an article, I make notes in a new Google Document. Sometimes that’s no more than a title, but other times it’s the skeleton of an article. I divide articles and short stories, novel ideas, etc. into folders, one for each story, novel, or blog. When I need an idea, I have some already there, ready to be used.

There’s one more benefit to using these systems; both are online and available anywhere you have internet access. Log in for five minutes at lunch and makes a few notes, work from home or on the go, even jot down some ideas from your mobile phone. This is a great way to get your writing life (or regular life!) organized and track your ideas and projects.

Of course, I still carry my moleskine, for times when I just want paper or the internet is inaccessible. I like knowing that, no matter what, I have some method of collecting ideas and notes so that I won’t lose them.

Anyone want to mention other organization tools you use with success?