frankjath.com

Image via Wikipedia

Living in the digital age brings a lot of amazing technologies which allows us to consume lots of information in a short amount of time. This is why it is important to stay organized. I am a student, musician, bloger, and much more. This means I have to juggle many different tasks through out the day as we all do. One minute I am writing a song the next I am studying for a math exam. So how do I keep my self organized? Here is how. 1. It is important to have a good email system. I prefer “Gmail” out of all the email services on the market. “Gmail” has it’s strengths and weakness however some of it’s stronger features are labeling, filtering, and not to mention when you sign up for a “Gmail” account you have access to all of googles free services. With that you are getting my favorite, “Google Calendar”, and “Contacts”. Lifehacker has a great article on how to get the most of “Gmail” to maximize productivity so that you can worry less and get things done. 2. The second tool I use is a know brainer, a smart phone now I am not going to get in to which is the better platform, you can find that here, here, and here. The phone I currently use is an HTC Evo 4G. This ties in with tool number one, if you have an email account that supports push email I highly recommend enabling this feature when setting up email on your phone. Here is an article on how to do this with gmail and any smartphone that supports push. Push essentially allows for email to get pushed to your phone as soon as someone sends it. This means your phone doesn’t have to keep checking every five or ten minutes to see if you have new email. It also means you can get back to the other person quicker. 3. The third tool is near and dear to my heart. I don’t know how I lived without it before it was invented. The tool I am talking about is “Evernote“. “Evernote” is more then just a note taking app. It allows for all kinds of documents, links, pictures, and data to sync across many different platforms in a seamless way. They like to call it your “external brain”. You can even take pictures with your phone and it will recognize text from bill boards, white boards, to napkins the possibilities are endless. 4. Have to many paswords to remember? Well I do and there is an amazing solution, it’s a service called “Last Pass“. It is a service that will remember all of your passwords and encrypt them so hackers can’t get to them. No more writing your passwords on sticky notes. I highly recommend this service. If you are skeptical listen to one of my favorite podcasts form the TWIT network “Security Now”, Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson go over how secure “Last Pass” is in detail. These are the main tools I use to stay organized on a day to day basses. I use many more tools however these are the ones that make my life more productive. If you have any tips or suggestions leave a comment and I will add them to the list.