Your Organizing Coach

Technology Made Easy

I'm not a technology maven. I used to be, back when computers only did about five things. And I was the family genius who could fix the color balance on the TV set. But everything got more complicated and I didn't keep up. So I'm always happy when I can use technology without having to learn anything.

Jott is a fantastic service that allows me to send myself emails via my cellphone, and it doesn't involve texting, which I have not been able to master. I just call a number (I've set it to speed dial because I use it so much) and speak my message and it magically appears as typed text in my email.

There are other applications for the service, but this one is incredibly useful for me since I routinely think of a dozen things I need to do while I'm driving and can't write them down. If I don't have it down in writing, I'll forget it. Jott also has scads of links so you can use it to track expenses, post to Twitter, find products on Amazon and much more.

A recent New York Times article recommended Jott and three other great voice-activated services: GOOG 411, a free business phone directory; ChaCha, a web research service and Reqall, a task reminder service that sends reminders to your phone or email at the requested time. All these services do more than my short description indicates; check them out!

[Helpful reminder from ford's photostream]

Declutter the Digital

Rule of thumb: it's easier to organize things when there are fewer of them.

How often do you look through a folder or collection of digital photographs and find only a handful that you want to show to anyone? The rest are too dark, out of focus, more versions of the same thing, make you look fat, or you have no idea why you even took them. If you get rid of them now, it'll be easier to find the ones you like and share them.

Next time you download your camera, really look at each photo and decide whether you want to keep it. This is also the ideal time to tag your photos so you can find them again by keyword. If you're making the effort to tag them, the pictures should be worth keeping.

Tags can be very straightforward, such as names of people in the picture, where it was taken, what the occasion was, etc. Also, think about what else is good about the picture, or why else you might want to look at it or share it with others. Is there a fantastic sunset in the background? Is it similar to other pictures you've taken in the past (and might want to compare it with)? Is the mood calm or energetic? Do you want to remember what camera and settings you used?

Pitch those Pix
I know, you've got plenty of space on your hard drive. But think of decluttering your photo collection as a good-habit building exercise. Review all your possessions regularly and get rid of the ones that don't fit, are beyond repair, have been replaced by something better, are ugly or you don't like anymore. If you can make this a habit, you will automatically declutter your life. Automatic is good!

Nag Me, Please

Nagging is just another form of reminding, isn't it? How you feel about the subject dictates whether you think of a reminder as a nag or as a helpful productivity tool.

There are lots of ways to nag yourself; put books by the door that you have to kick out of the way if you're not going to pick them up (and return them to the library), stick Post-Its on the mirror where they block your view, leave things out where they'll visually bug you till you do something about them.

And now there's HassleMe. This service lets you compose your own nagging emails and then sends them to you on an irregular schedule. Since you won't be expecting them, you can't tune them out quite as well as your own homegrown nags.

I could also see using this service for non-nagging purposes, such as sending myself encouraging notes. Or to remind myself  of things I actually want to do, but tend to forget about.

Thanks to this Mashable post for enlightening me about HassleMe and 99 other nifty productivity tools.

Password Hints

I have 170 passwords in my Palm. Some are written in directly, the ones I use for sites where I don't care about security, like reading the New York Times online. Others I use so often I have them in my head. But there too are many secure passwords for me to remember and those are listed with hints only.

Mine your past to create easy-to-remember passwords with letters and numbers. It's important not to use current information that you might possibly have recorded elsewhere, or that would just be easy for someone to guess. Also, current information that seems memorable now might not stand the test of time. For the letters part, I typically use:

• Names of former teachers
• Names of streets I used to live on
• Names of neighborhoods I used to live in
• Names of my childhood friends' pets

For the numbers part, try:

• Four digit birth dates of friends and relatives (provided these aren't recorded with the person's name in your datebook)
• Previous street addresses, mine and friends'
• Parts of old phone numbers, mine and friends' (I actually remember the phone number of my best friend from first grade)

So the hints look like this: "Second grade teacher, Dan's birthday" or "North Beach Street, Lynn's phone (last 4 digits)." Easy to use for you, hard to crack for anyone else. Try it!

Voicemail, Improved

Two big reasons I love email:

• I can send a quick reply or request or, more likely, a whole slew of them. Not that I have anything against conversations, but sometimes I really need to get through a list of to do's and email is the quickest way to dispatch them.
• I can send email on my own schedule. I don't need to worry about interrupting or, worse, waking someone up. I send emails when it's convenient for me and the addressee responds likewise.

The fly in this ointment is that some of my correspondents really prefer voicemail. But, calling someone means that they might answer and I'll actually have to talk to them! Yikes!

Besides the above-mentioned reasons, there are other times when I just don't want to talk. I'm not in a good mood, or I'm concentrating on something else or I'm just not feeling very verbal. Now I have a solution; a fabulous service called Pinger.

I knew there was a way to send a message directly to voicemail with my phone service provider, but only to fellow subscribers. So I looked on the web, knowing there must be something like it that would work no matter who I was calling. And I found Pinger. Bingo.

Pinger provides a way to call someone's voicemail directly, meaning you don't even have to wait for the ring, much less listen to someone's outgoing message (save those precious mobile minutes!). It can be used to send voicemail to a group of people, but it works fine for individual calls too. And you're not limited to a few sentences as you are with text messaging.

When you sign up with them, you give them your cell phone number, then enter names and numbers for those you want to ping. Then you call into the Pinger number, say the name of the person you want to ping and record your message. Easy peasy. An email confirmation of your message is sent, and you also get an email when your message is picked up.

I'm very happy with this service. And, it's free! Check out Pinger today!

A Blackberry is Just a Tool

Having information is not the same as knowing what to do with it. Sometimes more is just ... more. Will a Blackberry make you better at your job? Are you sure about that?

In an interview with CIO Insight magazine, David Allen said, "If you are unproductive to begin with, technology will add something else you are unproductive about." Having great tools is wonderful, but they don't automatically bestow the skills needed to use them. It's easy to have the illusion of productivity when you are constantly pushing information around.

Go ahead and get the Blackberry if you want it. If you also want to be more productive, you'll need to

• be clear on what you're trying to accomplish
• make decisions
• take action on those decisions
• follow up on the actions of others
• stay on track

Electronic devices such as Blackberrys are great for aiding you in those tasks (so is a pen and some paper). It's you, however, who supplies the brain power.