Get Sorted

It’s a new beginning to a new year; well at least for the students and teachers who have embarked on a new academic year.  For many I know the time for resolutions start in January. I would suggest you start your new resolutions with starting your resolutions in September/October. You will be ahead of the game by December and this year won’t have seemed like it’s a waste.

To help you get started on your new found enthusiasm for change; why not rely on the trusted Internet to organize your life for you. As the saying goes ‘every little helps’.

1: Let’s get you started with something simple. Padlet (Formerly Wallwisher) is a free on-line notice board marker built for collaboration or to use on your own. It’s so easy to use that all you have to do is go to padlet.com and then double click anywhere on the workspace, write and post; that’s it. No registration required and it’s that simple. However I would suggest registering with Padlet to access and moderate your wall for a later stage.

You can use it as a digital sticky note or for discussing new ideas, taking notes. Each click opens up a new digital sticky note where you can enter text, add images, videos or links that you might want to remember. Sticky notes or digital sticky notes are as useful, as you want them to be.

2: Got some great ideas? But always forget to jot them down? Well Bubbl.us is there for you to create simple to use and easy to maneuver around to help people organize their ideas from mind to digital. It’s very simple with very few buttons to de-clutter the interface. It’s a tool that works well for individuals or people to use together. To get started all you have to do is go to bubbl.us and click on the start button. From there you start typing an idea, which strands out to other ideas that might start popping out of your head. Once this simple or complex spider web of ideas is complete then you can either simply discard the page or save it for future reference. If you wish to save it for future reference then you have to register with the site. Other options entail exporting it as an image, print it directly or simply email it. It’s a fantastic tool for organizing your thoughts.

3: The men around the world have definitely been there, where they get a discreet call or text from the better half to remember the milk. Some very clever people have come with rememberthemilk.com. The ‘PC World’ magazine calls it as ‘reinventing the to-do-list’. It’s free to use and sign up which is always a bonus. It is compatible with Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter, Blackberry, Apple iPhone and Android phones. Because of its ability to work with almost any mobile device you can manage your tasks from anywhere, get email, SMS or IM reminders, share your tasks so your wife can create that to-do-list and simply share it with you and of course don’t forget it’s FREE. It has to be one of the best ways to manage your tasks. As the tagline from the website goes, you will ‘never forget the milk (or anything else) again.

4: At one point in our lives, I am sure we have been in situations where you have spent time organizing your files and made sure you take the important files with you on your USB. Whether it’s to work or to your friend’s house, it just happens that when you need the USB most, you seem to have left it somewhere but it is not where you need it. Well the geeks on the Internet have thought of a solution for this problem too. It’s called Dropbox. You download the application from dropbox.com, which is compatible with Windows, Apple, Linux and your mobile devices. Once downloaded you register for a free account, which entitles you for a free 5 GIG of space on the World Wide Web. The neat thing about this application is that once Dropbox has been installed on your machine it appears like any other folder and you simply save work that you would like accessible from anywhere where there is Internet access. If you happen to be out or at work, you simple login to your account and you will have instant access to your files from your computer at home. Don’t worry about security issues as Dropbox uses a secure web access, which prevents data theft. You can also use similar free solutions from Apple, Google, Amazon and much more.

Hopefully we have tried to organize your thoughts, brainstormed your ideas, sorted your to-do-list and backed your data with easy access from anywhere. All you have to do now is find the motivation to try out these great Apps.