What do you do to keep "organized"?

[AAA]

palm/sync

[OWC Jamie]

you don't want my 'help'.

[tahoedrew]

What is it you'd like to keep organized? As you can see there's a lot of tech toys and software options available, but I think it depends on what you're trying to keep organized.

I work for a business consulting agency and a LOT of what we do is help business owners better organize and manage their time, both at work and in their personal life. Some of our unique methods are also EXCELLENT systems for individuals in sales or executives who have to build and maintain relationships with hundreds, even thousands of people.

There have been a number of recent studies done about tracking lists and such on a computer. They've found that the problem with technology is when you type something into a "to do" list your brain often registers the act of actually typing it in as completed. So unless you are used to working from a to do list in electronic format it may be very difficult to "train" yourself to start looking at it 4-8 times a day, which is about how often you should reference a to do list throughout the day (and remember, if you implement that system, it should apply to both work and personal items, otherwise you're using two systems - one for work, one for personal - and it will take even longer to train your brain).

For one of my clients I actually use the system we most often train our own clients in (the one developed specifically for sales people and people who need to keep a large network of contacts). The amazing thing about it - it's completely manual! Sure, you could do it with existing software, but in many ways it would actually make the system more cumbersome to use. Don't get me wrong, I still very much use my calendar in outlook synced to the iPhone, but my outlook calendar can reflect the manual system I also use, and it's very little extra work using two systems because they can completely interface with each other.

If you're interested PM me, I'd be happy to share the system with you, no fee of course!!

~A

[davester]

I use iCal synced to my RAZR phone. I also occasionally sync it to aol calendar, though that is not as automatic as I'd like.

For to do items, I use ToDoX. I've tried several fancier applications, but they didn't cut it relative to this simple app.

[graylocks]

palm Tx syncing my handheld and desktop. free app on the palm tracks my ongoing grocery list. another app tracks misc expenses.

quicken and online banking for finances.

i have whiteboards in my office and kitchen.

[spearmint]

I just keep layering pieces of till it gets so messy and old I just throw them away. Only good thing I have done is instead of partying at night with the guys during trade shows is to go to hotel room to calm down and input business cards into old Casio Boss. People used to use me as a resource during the year for info. Never have that many appointments to have to keep track of and my anxiety disorder makes them oppressively on my mind.

Organized and spearmint have never been mentioned together without the prefix "un."

[blooz]

I have a board next o my door I pin appointments on so that i have a fair chance of seeing them on the way out. I've lately started keeping pay dates for my bills on the ical as well as written on a tablet i keep in the bills box. Which is on a bookcase right behind my chair in the kitchen.
That's it, mostly bills and doctor appointments. No wonder I hate looking at calendars!

[JoeBob]

Palm Desktop 4.whatever, and my Treo 680.

Trying to get into Google calendar for a joint thing with family, but haven't spent a lot of time with it yet.

[beerman]

For work I use a web application called tasks pro. It hast notes, to-do's, and a calendar. You can attach files to each kind of item. You can also have multiple users with their own sets of items and optionally you can view and edit each others items (but I don't do that). You can either buy the web application and install it on your own machine (which is what I do) or have them host it for a very reasonable fee.

http://www.taskspro.com/