Photography Credit: Debs Ivelja Photography (Full wedding on the blog soon!)
Getting reader questions and suggestions for these Post It Notes posts is amazing so thank you everyone that’s commented and emailed me. I’m going to try to get to as many of them as I can! After all these posts are to help you guys so I’m pretty chuffed that my rambles seem to be doing so. Last week, Nik commented asking…
Despite living in chaos and not having tidied the house for…oh approximately 6 weeks, I am actually a pretty organised when it comes to my work. I’ve already spoken about how I organise my email, but this week I though I’d tackle how I organise and structure my inspiration as well as how I keep my posting schedule in tip top shape.
Diary
Although I love everything the internet has to offer in terms of organisational tools, there really is nothing like handwriting lists to keep you organised. I use a mini week-to-view diary from Paperchase (although for 2012 I’m going to upgrade to an A5 size as I don’t half scribble a lot.) I have this in front of me all day every day and I use it to write down which blog posts I’m going to post on which day. I write next to them what time they’re going up (9am, 12pm or 3pm) and when they’re written and scheduled I simply tick them off.
Isn’t checking things off a list sooo satisfying?!
I also use this diary to write down any events I have to go to as well as any notes about my blog adverts – i.e. if one has to be put up or taken down on a certain day. Like with my email management, I use a colour coding system to keep my head straight – a green pen for events I have to go to/meetings I have (basically anything I have to do that involves me leaving the house!) and a pink pen for anything relating to the advertising on my blog.
Although I love the look of swanky Filofax’s, there ain’t no way I’m going to spend £60+ on an organiser that no one but me and my kitty cats see.
Notebook
I always, ALWAYS, carry a notebook and pen in my handbag when I got out. I’m currently using this cute one that I was gifted at The Photography Farm (Lisa’s photos inspire me!) I use this notebook to scribble down any ideas or inspiration for blog posts I might get as I go about my day. Again, there’s something so much nicer about physically writing ideas down then just typing them into a phone. Gareth thinks I’m mad but don’t you agree?
I’m sure most of you have heard of Pinterest by now, but just in case you haven’t, it’s a great way to gather all your online inspirations in one place. The important thing to remember though is that when you ‘pin’ something, be sure to link it to the original source (to prevent people re-pinning and re-pinning and the originally creator of the image getting forgotten in the ether.)
Pinterest is also great to search through if I need to find an image for a blog post on a particular theme. The results that Pinterest gives are usually much more creative images than a Google search can give due to the nature of the types of images that are pinned.
Note: If I find an image online that I want to use to illustrate one of my articles but I don’t want the whole world to see it before I share it on my blog (anything you ‘pin’ can be seen and re-pinned by your followers), I simply keep it on my desktop or starred in my Google Reader (see below).
Google Reader
If you read a lot of blogs and don’t use Google Reader then you my dear have been missing a TRICK! In essence, Google Reader allows you to subscribe to all your favourite blogs so you can browse through them all in one place at your leisure. No more going to every blog every day to see if they’ve updated, the blog updates come to you!
Google Reader not only saves me time and keeps me up to date with all my favourite blogs, but I almost exclusively use it to collate my links for Thursday Treats. If I like something I can ‘star’ it, then when it comes to writing my Treats post I simply go through my starred items that week to put the into my post. Easy!
Google Images Search
As a side note to keeping images on Pinterest and in my Google Reader, did you know that Google’s new image search function is AMAZING for finding the original source for images you find dotted about online? Obviously it’s really important to correctly credit any picture you want to use on your blog (and no ‘via flickr’ ‘via google’ ‘via tumblr’ ‘via weheartit’ or ‘via pinterest’ are not an adequate credit!)
To find an original image source, simply click ‘images’ in the tab at the top left of google.com, the click the camera icon in the search box and either upload the image or enter the url of the image you’ve found. Google will then give you a number of results of where this image appears elsewhere online enabling you to look through to determine the original source. Brilliant!
Google Calendar
I use Google Calender primarily to keep on top of my advertisers – i.e. when adverts are going up and coming down. Using a system ‘in the cloud’ (i.e. online) means I can access this from anywhere including on my phone if I need to check something while I’m out and about.
Google Calender is particularly great because it emails me reminders a few days before so I can sort anything out I need to before hand (you can set it up to email you reminders at a time frame to suit you).
Of course I put any upcoming events/plan in the calendar too.
just-eat.com
And finally, where would I be without just-eat.com? I’m gradually becoming a worse and worse wife in terms on how much cooking and cleaning I do. But when just-eat.com allows me to order a takeaway online (i.e. I don’t have to leave my desk or even pick up my phone and speak to anyone) it means I have more time for, you know, blogging about weddings and stuff…
Shameless Pimp
The Rock n Roll Bride notebook (date free) and wallplanner (2012) are still available to buy through Sugalily on Not on the High Street. So if you’re looking for cheap and pretty ways to keep organised can I suggest a cheeky purchase?
I hope this post helps you guys! I’d love to hear about how you keep organised and please, if you have some more questions (wedding or business related) that you’d like me to tackle in a future editon of Post It Notes, please free free to comment below or drop me an email.