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How I Stay Organized Part Two (Hint: Like a Ninja)

by Jenny • July 25th, 2011

Okay, okay — I’ll let you judge the ninja-level of my organization skills, but I needed something to spruce up the title!

The two most popular posts of ALL TIME on my blog are the original How I Stay Organized (9K page views) and 8 Ways to Organize Your Life with Google Docs (15K page views), in addition to my Templates on everything from personal finance to professional development to processing a break-up (sign-up for my monthly Inside Scoop newsletter and you’ll get access to all 15+ templates, including many other tips and tools).

Start with How I Stay Organized (Part One) if you haven’t already read it; today’s post will cover more nuanced tools and processes that I use.

A quick aside: I just started monkeying around with Google+ (connect with me here) and am really enjoying it. But does anyone else think that saying, “I want to circle you?” or “circle me” connotes an impending shark and/or stalker attack?

Gmail Tools

Priority Inbox: This is saving my life! Groups emails by priority: important and unread, starred, and the rest. You can teach gmail over time what emails should be marked as important. Each day, I set a goal to answer at least five “starred” emails. For emails that I’m long overdue on a reply, I use the exclamation star.

Auto-advance: My email productivity doubled (if not tripled) after I started using this feature. I used to hem and haw over what email to answer next — now auto-advance sends me right to the next one — when I get in the zone, I just answer via auto-advance without going back to my inbox for 30 minutes at a time. It’s amazing how much you can get done!

Canned responses: Any email that you’ve written more than once deserves a canned response. I save a bunch of these and use them as a starting point, then modify to personalize for the recipient. I don’t use them all the time, but they come in very handy for repetitive emails.

Superstars, Send & Archive, Shortcuts = A MUST. Not much else to add here! Superstars are awesome: I use the yellow star to indicate an important or high priority email, and an exclamation mark to indicate something high priority or overdue that I want to reply to that same day (or the next one).

Boomerang (browser extension): Boomerang is amazing!!! It enables delayed send, but more importantly (and true to the name) it allows you to “hide” an email and boomerang it back to yourself in a set amount of time. This is a great way to clear your inbox and have emails sent back when it’s time to follow-up, or at a later date. Procrastinators, beware! It gets very easy to boomerang everything…

Rappaportive (browser extension): Another incredible tool! When you open an email, it shows you all of someone’s social media profiles and latest updates in the right-hand sidebar. You can see if you’re following someone, see their picture (if they have one), add them to social networks, and stay up-to-date on their latest news. LOVE this feature.

Task management

Still in it for the long-haul: Post-its and my moleskine! Every day I write a post-it with my top 5 priorities, ranked in order. This can include project-oriented tasks, people to reach out to, or anything else that I want to finish before the day is done.

Todoist.com: I use this for tracking ALL non-timebound activity, particularly longer-term items, ideas, open questions, and anything else that is not fixed to a date (those things go on my daily “to do” post-its, a weekly list, or into Google Calendar). My Todoist categories include:

CURRENT WEEK (you can also use TeuxDeux.com for super simple weekly planning)
Accountant (questions for her)
Condo (any tasks related to repair, rental, etc)
Blog posts (where I track ideas, in addition to my “drafts” folder)
Networking (people to follow-up with)
Life After College (general website-related tasks)
LAC Strategic Tasks (broader business-related tasks)
Personal Development (courses I’m considering signing-up for or purchasing, ebooks I own that I have yet to read)
Coaching / Speaking / Yoga (follow-up items related to those parts of my business)
Travel (I keep one running item for each city and who to reach-out to when I get there)
NYC (things to do related to my move)
Shopping / Wish list (things I want to buy, but know that I shouldn’t purchase on impulse!) See related: 4-Step Budget Template and Mint.com (for tracking all financial accounts and expenses).
Errands / To-buy (self-explanatory)
Tools & Resources (things I haven’t used yet, but want to check-out)

Project Plan template: Created by yours truly! I use this format to track all major projects that I’m working on — I’ve tried more complicated tools and they don’t work for me. The benefit of this is you can also share with others for collaborative projects. Want to see a project plan on crack? Check-out my 15-tab Master Book Marketing Spreadsheet.

Scheduling

Tungle.me: for speedier appointment-booking (so you don’t have to go back and forth via email), though I’m considering switching to Google’s appointment feature (that I used when I still worked there). I’ve also adjusted my schedule so that I only have meetings two days a week — this keeps me focused and batches my tasks so that I don’t have meetings scattered throughout the week.

Google Calendar: For any super important meetings, I add reminders via email. I also have Facebook email me weekly with a list of upcoming birthdays — then plug my close friends’ birthdays into my “Birthdays” calendar with an annual repeating event and email reminder.

Data Storage/Back-up

Arq (thanks Willie!): Completes an automatic daily back-up that syncs to my Amazon S3 storage

Amazon S3 (h/t WFJ): Holds BOATLOADS of data for a very low monthly fee; I have about 50GB that costs ~8/mo

Amazon cloud storage/player: Currently experimenting with this to play music from THE CLOUD (woohoo) via my phone and Xoom tablet; though thinking that Apple’s Cloud is probably a lot sexier (for what it’s worth, I have a Nexus S, not an iPhone. I even tried to switch to an iPhone and went crawling back because I realized I was passionately in love with my Nexus S!).

Social Media

NutshellMail (h/t Elisa): NutshellMail is awesome — it sends a daily digest (or at a frequency you suggest) of social media activity — new followers, friend requests, the latest tweets/facebook updates, and any other accounts you choose to follow (like LinkedIn).

Tweetdeck: In addition to creating groups for different friends and updating both Facebook and Twitter, I use Tweetdeck to schedule tweets when I publish a blog post at odd hours. Many people also use Hootsuite.

Other Tips and Tricks

Google Docs: I use Google Docs and Spreadsheets for EVERYTHING. My most frequently used docs are: the Keepers File, Taxes (spreadsheet where I track notes related to taxes and expenses), Business Tracker (income, expenses, clients, key metrics — yes, one day I will make this a template , Quotes, and many other random “scratch” documents where I draft content or plan ideas before implementing them. I also use Google Docs for all coaching-related documents with clients.

Browser: I use Chrome because it’s super-fast and doesn’t crash. My second choice is Safari; Firefox just got too slow for me with the number of tabs and windows I keep open at any given time. I make sure to have the restore feature enabled so that if my browser crashes, I can re-open my tabs (which I often use like a to-do list).

Consistent windows/tabs: There are certain websites that I keep in the exact same window/tab order so that I always know where to find them. Window 1 (my “home” window) always has the following tabs in this order: Gmail, Calendar, Todoist, Pandora, Facebook, Twitter, Google+. Window 2 starts with Google Docs in position 1, then I only have other docs and spreadsheets open in the other tabs. Window 3 is my working folder for blog-related activity: admin interface, my blog’s homepage, Google Reader, and other related tabs.

I use shortcuts to quickly switch between tabs and windows (Command + Tab# takes you to whichever tab’s number you indicate; Command+~ toggles between browser windows).

Downloads: I have this selected in my browser preferences to “ask every time” — that way my desktop and/or downloads folder doesn’t get completely cluttered (as has happened to me in the past).

Droplr (thanks again to Willie on this one!): Allows you to quickly take screenshots, and drag, drop and share easily.

Google Maps: I’ve saved my address and frequent locations into My Places — I also have a canned response that gives someone directions to my house.

Google Voice: Transcribes my voicemails so that I receive them as emails. I can’t say it’s accurate, but it allows me to quickly see who called and generally what their message was about. For some funny google voice transcriptions, check this out.

Transcription Services (h/t Gayle): Speaking of transcriptions, Google should hire TransPacificMedical! I’ve been using them to transcribe my dad’s lectures on the History of Post-Modernism, and they are incredibly fast and accurate, with amazing customer service. They charge $1 per minute, and you can request a free trial (for 30 minutes or 300 lines).
TripIt — I love this website and its accompanying app. TripIt keeps all your travel plans in one spot; it has a gmail plug-in that grabs reservations automatically, then shows you weather and local maps for that area. TripIt is smart enough to group hotel and flight reservations together for the same location, and makes it easy to see where friends and family in your network are traveling.

WHEW!!! Tell me in the comments: What did I miss? What are some of your favorite productivity tips and tricks?

Are you new to Life After College? Welcome, and thanks for visiting! Looking for a portable life coach? Be sure to check out my new book, Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want for tips, quotes and inspirational coaching exercises. If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my blog via email. Want access to the Organized Like a Ninja Toolkit with 15+ kick-ass templates, and hundreds of tips and tools to get your life in order? Sign-up for the monthly “inside scoop” (email updates with personal stories, tips and resources). I look forward to keeping in touch!

43 comments

Categories: Organization, Productivity, Solopreneurship, Start Here

http://superduperfantastic.com/ suki

So much information to digest! Thanks, Jenny, for posting this summary!

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Suki! Glad you found it helpful

http://twitter.com/ChaChanna ChaChanna Simpson

Dear Lord Woman! You’re like a online task managing machine. Thanks so much for sharing these with us. I haven’t heard of a majority of the sites you’ve mentioned. I have some serious catching up to do.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

LOL!! Glad I could share some new sites with you — thanks so much for the shout-out in your recent newsletter!

http://www.Twitter.Com/JennyLynnSem Jenny Lynn

Great post Jenny! I’ll have to check out Droplr . Keep up the great work!ps – your template does not allow you to use it at this time. Error?

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Jenny!! Yes — Droplr is amazing Which template is giving you trouble? Sometimes I think they shut down when too many people try to click at once…

http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari

I’m of the “simpler is better” mindset. I’ve tried fancy programs but, at the end of the day, what really works for me is a notebook, ReminderFox and Things. If I add any more I feel like I spend too much time organising and not enough time doing. Plus, I’m a slow learning when it comes to software and it starts hurting my brain to do it all. So I’m a little jealous of your ability to manage all these programs, platforms, etc. I gotta say though, I LOVE your Todoist categories – just brilliant. I’m definitely going to start using those in Things.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Marian – I totally get it! I think for most things simple is best. These systems have become second nature for me so it doesn’t feel complicated, but I agree that’s it’s actually time prohibitive to have too many things going (and never knowing what system to trust). Glad you found the Todoist categories helpful! I debated whether that was TMI, but glad I kept it

http://www.waterfallingupwards.com Sarah Kathleen Peck

LOVE THIS! And I do window tabs by order too (OCD much?) — and *whew* it’s such a relief to know that someone else does it, too!! Mine are always Gmail (3 accounts), calendar, docs, social media – pretty much the same as you. In a second window; a project + related tabs. And I totally do the same things as you: tabs = to-do lists. At the end of the hour I go through and close tabs in a window to make sure / check that I’ve done everything.

NERD!! Fellow Nerd!!!

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Sarah!! LMAO – yes, ordering our tabs is pretty OCD, huh?! At least we can make each other feel sane

NERD ALERT!!!! Hi pi

http://justicewordlaw.com Justice Wordlaw IV

Half of what you are using I have been tampering with over the past year and I really have to say I love them all. You are using some great software.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Justice — awesome that you’ve been trying this stuff out! These programs really are lifesavers…

Have a great day!

Jean-Marc Dedeyne

WOW! Jenny is very impressive. All these suggestions will definitively make a positive difference in my organization. Our students will love them too. Thank you for sharing with us.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Jean-Marc!! Glad you found them helpful

Kristen Mattison

Wow, this is so helpful! I didn’t even know about some of these websites and tools. As a recent entrepreneur, I need as much organization as I can get to keep me disciplined and not wasting time. I also find that I try to set out to accomplish no more than 6 tasks a day. If I do more than that, I feel very accomplished! If I give myself more than 6 tasks, I quickly feel overwhelmed.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks so much Kristen! I always love when I can help spread the word about some great tools Congrats on becoming a recent entrepreneur – so excited for you!!

Raphael Cousineau Morin

Sorry Jenny, but this is giving me a headache. It’s a daily challenge for me juste to remember to write down all my meetings in my agenda. That probably explains why I enjoy working with organized person (I can use my energy at doing, not “wasting” it trying to be organized).

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Raphael — I totally get it! This type of organization is definitely NOT for everyone — if you’re happy with what you’re doing, no need to change! This stuff has become second nature to me now, so it doesn’t stress me out — but I can totally see how it would overwhelm others!

http://twitter.com/ElleinLA Nicole

Jenny, I loved this. I especially liked the part where you described how you always have your browsers organized to display tabs in a certain order. That type of organization really frees up my mind, I’ve found.

Reading through these tips was so helpful for me, I can’t wait to check out TeuxDeux and Todoist. I’m an ENFP, and I think its the “P” in me that resists organization. Yet I always feel so much better when I’m organized!

Cheers.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Nicole! You’re going to love TeuxDeux and Todoist — can’t wait to hear what you think. ENFP’s are some of my favorite people — I admire your “P” ness, and when I’m stressed, I actually have to LET GO of a lot of my systems and just be free. They do say that type under stress does the opposite of their type (so it makes sense that you would organize/plan when you feel stressed!)

Kaya

Jenny, thanks for sharing all of this with us!
I love being organized and I thought I was the one who was super organized but compared to you I feel like a beginner!

I use a small notebook with a monthly weekly pages and another notebook to scribble on almost everything. I’ve used google calender before and I liked it SO much that I found myself spending too much time over my laptop. By using a online program my organizing becomes more efficient but it makes me use the internet more than before, and I didn’t like that. Plus how can you access your schedules/to dos/etc where you are in a situation where you can’t use the internet?
So my question is, how do you focus on only using your organizing programs when you are online? And what do you think are the pros of using online organizing programs versus the old fashioned paper method?
I honestly love all the things you have shared, but I see myself spending tons of time just poring over how to organize and start organizing every aspect of my life. So another question arises, how much time daily do you spend on your sheets of organizing?

Thanks again!

http://CameronPlommer.com Cameron Plommer

Spend as much time organizing as it takes to get everything of your mind. Use this rule and you should be set

Kaya

Thanks for the reply Cameron!
http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Cameron — thanks so much for your helpful replies for others!! Gave me a huge smile to see you chiming in with people

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Kaya — thanks for stopping by! Love the small notebook — my moleskine is practically glued to my hands (and my purse). Thankfully I have access to a lot of my to-do lists and calendar on my phone, so when the Internet goes out I’m not totally stranded. A lot of times I’ll brainstorm things in my notebook, then only later transfer the important stuff to the computer. I have found a mix of both to be helpful for me, but it’s probably something that would be good for you to experiment with.

As for how much time I spend, I’m not really sure! Everything has a home — a doc, the calendar, todoist, so I don’t actively spend time, I just dump things in their appropriate place when they come in.

Good luck getting all your systems squared away!

http://twitter.com/JeremyNJohnson Jeremy Johnson

Jenny, your organizational skills are off the charts. What advice would you give to someone who knows they need to get organized, but are just too overwhelmed to get started? What three simple tips would you give to that person to get their mind right? What would be the first simple tools you’d offer them?

http://CameronPlommer.com Cameron Plommer

First start writing everything down. Everything that is on your mind and on your plate. If you are not already doing this you will feel so much better when you do. Use a paper notebook or an app on your phone or computer (I love teuxdeux as well). Wunderlist is great too.

The next step is to then organize those responsibilities into lists. Think about how to group them in a way that makes sense.

You can email if you have further questions. I love this stuff and would be glad to help.

http://www.facebook.com/jermhoop Jeremy Noel Johnson

Thanks for the response Cameron, sounds like writing things down and then grouping that into small tasks is a good way to get started. Appreciate the insight.

http://CameronPlommer.com Cameron Plommer

Definitely, those are the basics to start building a good foundation. As I mentioned in a comment above, the golden rule to to organize to the point that nothing is being kept in your head.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Cameron — love all your suggestions!! The writing everything down directive (a la David Allen) completely changed my life.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Jeremy!! Cameron shared some great advice below — I love his advice to start by just writing things down. Every day write down three things you want to do, then at the end of the week readjust your list and plan for the next week.

Three tools that I consider a must:
1) Google Calendar
2) Todoist (for tracking long-term / non-date-bound stuff)
3) Trusty pen and paper (I swear by my moleskine and post-it notes)

Bottom line: just start small, and start somewhere — you can always add to and adjust over time

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http://CameronPlommer.com Cameron Plommer

Good stuff. I do several things similarily as you. Will have to whip up a post of my own.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Yes!! Would love to see how others stay organized and compare notes

http://www.ValenciaRay.com Valencia Ray M.D.

Fabulous article! Jenny do you have a recommendation for organizing business cards? To be able to keep up with people with detail? Thanks.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thank you so much Valencia! For organizing business cards I have a little binder that I got from Office Depot that has sheet-protectors that hold 8-10 cards on each side. They’re not alphabetized, but I can see cards I’ve collected over the year in a time-bound way (all cards from conferences are grouped together). Great questions! Thanks so much for stopping by

http://twitter.com/amandaabella Amanda Abella

This is great! I just gave my inbox and Google Docs an organizational overhaul! Thanks for sharing
http://twitter.com/amandaabella Amanda Abella

This is great! I just gave my inbox and Google Docs an organizational overhaul Thanks for sharing!

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

My pleasure! So glad you found the post helpful

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http://annieandersonblog.com Annie Anderson

Ha! Finally someone who is more organized than I am! LOL It happens rarely.

And I agree with the majority of your apps/tools/tricks here, Jen. I use most of them as well. Also LOVE Rapportive.

The major difference is that I use a Mac app called Mailplane for my email. It works exclusively with Gmail and it looks just like it does in the browser. Even includes Rapportive and Boomerang, etc.

But I do use an iPhone. Thought about the Nexus S but my biz partner swears by his iPhone so he bought me one when we teamed up.

http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

Thanks Annie!! Mailplane sounds awesome — I’m going to have to check that out! Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment — have a great weekend!