It's been quite a week. I've begun keeping a to-do list on my desktop to help me make the most of the time I have to tinker with the computer, my blogs and other projects on weekends. It's satisfying to be able to tick the old items off and yes, even add new ones. This is something I usually do a few minutes per day throughout the week, with a final recap on Friday to ensure that anything I've overlooked gets included. Since I've always been fairly good at staying organized, this in not a difficult routine.

There are as many ways to get organized as there are people who like to be (or need to be) organized. There are also many varied software packages you can download and purchase to help with this; the key is to find one you are comfortable with...then use it consistently. Some people make elaborate lists but never look at them to ensure the items on the list are completed and removed. What's the point of making the list in the first place?

In college, particularly as an undergrad (and like most students I've ever met!) I had more demands on my time and resources than a day could contain: Classes, assignments, volunteer work, family commitments...Life. So, getting organized was a survival tactic.

I used a paper day planner that I carried everywhere. Now, guess what?, I still have many demands on my time...but now, I'm in the habit of writing things daown, and following up to ensure that my lists are completed. I use a couple of software programs to help with this, but one of the most basic and easiest to use is just a plain text editor (notepad, Wordpad, or any flavor you like.) It's no problem to keep a simple notepad document on my desktop for keeping track of my to-do's, and...it costs nothing. That's my favorite price.

I certainly have no shortage of projects, and staying on top of them this way helps me feel as though I've actually accomplished things at the end of my "free" time to work on them.

It had to happen. I just took my own advice: I created a Firefox profile specifically set up for blogging. It should be much simpler to manage blogs with the new profile, because I've eliminated the clutter from my Bookmarks Toolbar. When I imported the bookmarks, I used the Bookmark Manager to eliminate all of my bookmarks except for those directly involved in blogging and blogs.