The Art of Organization {Business & Blogs}

Keeping Your Blog and Business Organized

I'm Ashley over at After Nine to Five. Organization for my business (which includes my blog) is really important for me. I have a lot of things always going on so knowing that I can easily navigate through the to-dos, already dones, and everything in between at the end of the day is a big stress reliever for me. Today I thought I'd share the easy (and free!) tools I use to keep myself organized:

Gmail

By far the most useful tool I use. I have over a hundred labels that I use in Gmail to keep my emails organized. Ones for sponsorships, products I need to send out, inquiries, and my most used label: Need To Do. Any email that I get that needs an action associated to it gets moved there away from all the clutter. I check it on a daily (usually multiple times) basis. I also am a big fan of the stars and the colors you can tie to your emails. I use three star colors on a regular basis: one for tasks/emails that need to be done that day, one for the next day, and ones that are beyond that. At the end of each day, I change the colors and add anything I didn't finish to the next day's work list.

I also have two folders for my orders for my business: Need to Send and Already Sent. As soon as I get an order, it goes into the need to send folder. Once it's mailed out, I move it into the already sent folder. That way if someone asks the status, I can easily find out without much effort.

Cozi Family Calendar

 

I don't use this for family organization like it suggests, but I'm a big fan of it because A) it's free and B) can be synced to my Kindle Fire/almost any phone. They have a calendar feature along with to-dos, shopping lists, and a journal if needed. Although not business related, I use it to help plan out the meals for my family and for grocery shopping as well.

Notepad

One of the most boring programs ever, but that's why I love it. With Notepad, I can keep lists and blog post/business ideas with no need to try to make it pretty with the formatting. For some reason, if I use something that has fun features and pretty colors, I get lost in the formatting part of my list making and forget what I need to write down so Notepad works for me.

Google Documents

This is something that is still fairly new to me as I'm a pretty big creature of habit. But it's been so helpful with working with my assistant and soon with my sponsorship. The ability to share documents such as Word and Excel documents is absolutely amazing. I love being able to view them everywhere as well. My favorite feature is the "form" section where you can create a form for people to fill out with a few clicks. SO easy.

Good Old Pen and Paper

There's nothing quite like being able to scribble out with as much force as I feel necessary a task I didn't want to do, but completed. I love being able to cross things off my list, watching my list become smaller and smaller as I do more. It's a sense of accomplishment that makes my to-do list much less stressful for me.

That's it! Nothing fancy, nothing expensive. Nice and simple, but it works!


xoxo,
ashley wagner
about.me page

“The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly.” - Chuck Palahniuk

**Thank you so much Ashley for stopping by and sharing all this wonderful knowledge with my readers! I know it's super helpful for me as I prepare for 2012 and all the new things I'm planning!