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June 10, 2005
I've Just Got to Get Organized
It's odd that I can organize a proposal but can't organize my life. I am envious of people who have everything written down in their calendars and "to do" lists. Me, I've got my life written down on stickies and scraps of paper. Dentist appt., Mon, 3:30 PM is on a lined yellow sticky; buy coffee is on a solid pink one. Phone numbers are scribbled on a sheet of paper that I need for something else -- whose numbers are they? On a purple sticky, I've got some notes I took when talking to a client. Another pink sticky has some kind of special search and replace code that I used a couple of times for a proposal document. I had to write it down because it's too complicated to remember.
It's not that I haven't tried to get organized. I've bought numerous agenda books -- the ones that are bound in leather and have different sets of pages for different things. Some of these have been quite expensive. I've had two Palm PDAs, one with a black and white screen and one with a color screen. I've tried Outlook and other software programs that incorporate all kinds of organizing features. And my cell phone has a little calendar and planner built into it.
With all of these things, I've started off with really good intentions. For about a month, I would dutifully enter information into them. But then it became a chore. The agenda books would be in my briefcase in the car when I was making an appointment in my office. The PDAs were a pain to use. I would forget to open the software programs to enter or look at information. And the cell phone -- well forget about that. It has too many functions to remember. So I've always gone back to the stickies. But now there are just too many stickies; they seem to be everywhere.
So I am making a last desperate attempt. I've downloaded and am trying out a new program called Active Desktop Calendar. It parks itself on your desktop and loads when you turn on your computer. It lives on the desktop, so you don't have to remember to open a program. All your notes and appointments can appear on the desktop if you want them to. It can be configured in different ways, it looks nice, and it's easy to use. Will this be my salvation? I sure hope so.
But I haven't yet thrown away my boxes of stickies.
Posted by Deborah at June 10, 2005 04:47 AM
Have you tried Basecamphq.com.
You can use it to organize for clients and for personal use. Seems to be a great tool. I have heard from others who have used it. I just signed up myself so I can't really give firsthand user experience yet.
Posted by: Tina at June 14, 2005 12:02 PM
Basecamphq looks like a really nice program, but it's too much for what I need. I'm just looking for a simple calendar and place to keep some notes. And I don't want to have to remember to open a program because, well, I just don't remember to do that. So far, the Active Desktop Calendar seems to be working for me. But how long this will last, I just don't know :)
Posted by: Deborah at June 16, 2005 05:02 AM
I have a program that sounds just like yours only I'm sure my program is much older. It's called Expresso and it is my Desktop picture which consists of a monthly calendar. I can display it by the week also but what I most like about the program is that it lets me program in events and set up a reminder - you know like for birthday and appointment reminders and it notifies me on a regular basis (I can determine the interval).
I also had a very bad craving for a stickie note program for my computer. One that could also stay on my desktop (which by the way is now getting a little bit crowded). After going through a few duds I now have one called Memo4U and it works great so far.
But I still have my yellow paper stickies for when the computer's off (-;
Posted by: Rose at June 21, 2005 09:50 PM
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