Briggs 9: Dealing with data
Posted by jsouthee on March 22, 2011
MORE AND MORE information becomes available online all the time, so more organization of the information is needed as well. The formula to find out what you need to do to organize is this:
“what you need to manage + the right tools to manage it = personal productivity.”
The best place to start getting organized is your e-mail:
-Make folders, like a ‘read this’ and ‘waiting on’ folder
-Take no more than 2 minutes to look at each e-mail.
-Look at an e-mail only once to save time
Journalists and freelance writers also need to organize things like to-do lists, calenders, images, documents, and notes. The best thing you can do for yourself is use fewer tools/websites to organize your things as possible, so that you won’t have too many things to check at once. Using web-based programs are the best option so that you can share your material with anyone and access it from anywhere.Some free programs include Google Docs and Zoho. Some services you do have to pay for, but there are many free programs/services available online.
As for organizing the information itself, databases and spreadsheets can be useful tools for a journalist: Databases and spreadsheets are useful for keeping contacts’ information (name, address, phone number, etc.), as well as keeping stories with a lot of data organized.
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