Last week we posted Part I of ‘Organizing Your Digital Life:’, which outlined general strategies for keeping your digital information contained. This week, we will delve into more specific digital functions, including calendars, photos, and website tracking.
Digital Calendars: If you’re the type of person who prefers to maintain a digital calendar, you probably know that this can be a great tool for time management and organization, if used correctly. There are two strategies for calendaring. Some chose to use calendars strictly for appointments, which is fine. Others use their calendar as an extension of their task list. They create reminders for everything and add them to their calendar during times of the day when they know they can complete the task. This method often helps to ensure completion of the task. Another calendar organization strategy is to use color coding to delineate between personal, family, professional, or task-related entries. In general, I always suggest reviewing your calendar each Sunday for the week ahead and each morning for that day.
Websites: The number of great websites and blogs that pop up each day is staggering. In order to help you keep up with your favorites, without monopolizing all of your free time, there are several excellent tools. A feed reader, such as Google Reader allows you to ‘subscribe’ to sites you like and receive all new content in a single place. Given the typical frequency of use of Facebook, other clients prefer to ‘like’ or subscribe to all of their favorite sites and brands there in order to receive updates via their newsfeed. Either way, these tools will help streamline the content into one place so that you can avoid accessing many sites each day.
Photos: Clients often have difficulty keeping their digital photo collections stored in a way that allows for easy searching and access. With this problem I suggest two things. First, set aside a particular day (or two) each month to download the photos from your camera or phone. Following the download, immediately create well-labeled folders that include dates to categorize the new photos. The second step is to add these folders and files to your external hard drive, online backup (SOS), photo storage website (Shutterfly), or social media site for additional safe-keeping. Although we all fear a computer crash where all of our files are lost, few actually maintain a system for backing up their files on a regular basis. The monthly photo download process is a great time to transfer additional new files or items to their respective backup locations.
No matter the extent to which you maintain a digital life, it is important to keep the files, tools, and processes just as organized as you would your home.
Good Luck!
TWOW
