Nov
11
For several days, I’ve been trying to spend a little time getting more organized to increase the efficiency of my work. What I have mostly been doing is reorganizing my Google Reader account.
As a writer/blogger, I have plenty of sources to draw from, and I subscribe to a ton of RSS feeds. I also write for a variety of different blogs/sites, and they’re not all in the exact same niche (plus I have other interests and subscriptions that don’t have much to do with my writing at all). I have been working for a while with pretty much a jumbled mess of all of these things. Don’t get me wrong. I had it organized to a certain extent. I had my work stuff separate from my non-work stuff, although as I take on new writing projects, the line on some of that begins to blur a bit.
But I have been breaking down my organizational structure as far as I can take it. For example, I have a folder dedicated to only blogging-related sources, that I will draw from for this blog in the future. This way, when I know it’s time to write something for PureBlogging.com, I can easily peruse this folder and find a topic that I wish to discuss (if I’m having writers block) or a reference that I can cite. I follow a similar pattern for my other writing projects.
I have also been going around seeking out new sources of information. The more sources the better as far as I’m concerned. The more information coming in, the more informed I am likely to be, which can only enhance my writing.
This is all probably common sense to a lot of you, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it can be a bit time consuming. That’s just the thing. I think sometimes we get caught up in our work (and non-work lives for that matter) and don’t take the time to get organized, which in the long run will likely save you a lot of time and increase your productivity.
I’ve been doing it a little at a time, from day to day as to not take too big a chunk out of my day. When it’s all said and done, my Reader is going to be a well-oiled machine and my writing quantity and quality should increase as a product of that.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Any way, you seem to have all things under control and that is what matters.
I agree with you that we need to seek out more sources of information to enhance our writing. I will follow your example of having a folder dedicated to blog writing. This way, if I need reference or guidance, I know where to look.
Online Marketing Friday Links Round Up…
Yee-haw! This week had some really good reading in the blogosphere. Many thought provoking and even more providing awesome resources that I didn’t even know about.
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It’s definitely worth getting organised, otherwise blogging can become extremely time consuming. On top of an organised RSS feed I also set time targets to write posts and use the text editor called ‘Dark Room’ to try to prevent myself from becoming distracted with formatting issues when writing.
Coincedence you say?
I just took about a two month break from blogging. Decided to jump back in with a brand new site. I got that off the ground and this morning I say, OK next step, clean up that darn Google Reader. I had it maxed out (for me anyways) at around 300 blogs. Crazy. I trashed it all and am starting from scrtch. A good purge is the best way to get better organized.
Bruce from The Big Desk
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This is something I’ve been trying to do. Lucky for me I am overloaded with writing projects which will greatly assist our Christmas shopping, but each day I’m going to try to do at least ten minutes of organizing.
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