How do You Stay Organized?

[madoctopus]

Simple question, not so simple answer I assume. I'm having a hard time staying organized and keeping track of everything. When you are dealing with just one site it is easy, but when you work on 100+ sites in several niches and you have hundreds of accounts on forums/sites/web2.0/email/etc, payments, link building campaigns, ideas, ToDo, notes, etc. it becomes a huge hassle.

I really want to hear how you do it and what advice you can give. What is your approach/methodology/framework, what software you use and how you use it, etc. Be specific, give links to resources, help us out. I am sure I am not the only one with this problem and everybody here will benefit from the teachings and suggestions of those who are more organized.

Personally I am still stuck with Notepad++, Excell, MySQL+phpMyAdmin, occasionally WikidPad and of course pen & paper. I tried stuff like TiddyWiki, ActionOutline, WizFolders, WikidPad (nice but too simple), TaskCoach (almost liked it but lacked some important stuff) but none is close to what I need.

I stay away from web-based/cloud-based services because I really like my privacy. Otherwise maybe I would use Evernote or even just the simple Google Notes.

 

[jon_xx_x]

I keep mine pretty simple. Here is what I currently have.
I have a spreadsheet open with 2 documents.
One I have a list of 100 domains I have for my niche. Has the site name, host, login and keyword targeting. Also has a 'done' column for when I complete the site.
The other one open is another 100 domains for a different niche.

Next I have a subscription at sescout.com (which as been crap lately), and have every single domain plus keywords I could be ranking for.
So these two things cover the basics. Site info, and rankings.

Then I have notepad++ open, and I have about 10 documents open in that. Though most are irrelevant. The most important things I have on there are
1) To do. Things I need to do. ie work on this site, put up that site, follow up on worker xxxx with this project, etc.
2) Services. A lit of services I currently have going, ie BHW services. In the past I've only done one or two, but now I have about 10 going at the moment, so I have the persons username, forum, sales link, which of my site I'm targeting, the keywords, and the current ranks.
3) Bank info. I have a list of transactions, bank transfers, etc for tax info.

That's pretty much it. I don't do a lot of low quality linking, so I don't have thousands of links to keep track of.

 

[DamageX]

I don't.

 

[arcantos]

I've been looking for a simple solution to this myself. For now I'm using lots of folders, txt files and excel docs. Pen and paper for what to do. Nothing to suit my likings found so far. And no I don't want to pay for this kind of software and yes it must be private so no online solution.
It's difficult to find till now.

 

[madoctopus]

I've been looking for a simple solution to this myself. For now I'm using lots of folders, txt files and excel docs. Pen and paper for what to do. Nothing to suit my likings found so far. And no I don't want to pay for this kind of software and yes it must be private so no online solution.
It's difficult to find till now.

I don't mind paying. I just found nothing to suit my needs, payed or otherwise.

 

[thetraveller]

Files and folders and notepad++. Simple as that.

 

[matei]

Keep an agenda. I can't do nothing without my papers. But it's much easier, as I know exactly what needs to be done, and what are my goals for a specific day.

 

[oblivionembraced]

Here's my solution, and I manage 400 blogs. I found simple tools to make it easy for me to run my stuff.

1. wordpress blogs. They have a wide array of tools, so that they can be fully automated, and with the amount of themes, and settings, you can use dynamic, or static all sorts of good stuff.

2. once you have setup your wordpress blogs, make them auto blogs. You can do this with simple tools, like managewp (currently use to good effect) wp-robot (allows me to drip content as i see fit), and manage wp-robot. managewp will allow you to group your sites into different categories, that way you can work on one niche at a time.

3. once all the blogs are setup, I use manage wp-robot to handle all of my day to day content, and change schedules, and then i work hard at having articles spun. I contract some of the work out on oDesk (you can find people there to write articles really cheap, then spin the bejesus out of them), and put all the stuff in the plr folders.

4. sit back and enjoy. I make about 50 dollars each day per site. With 400 sites, it's easy, and then i find tricks to do in my spare time., such as look at the commets that hit moderation from other spammers, approve them, and then get the info, then delete the commet. FREE PROXIES

That's the only way I have found to stay organized with that many sites. I hope it helps you, it can be a little troublesome to setup though, but once it's done, it's golden

 

[madoctopus]

bump
anybody else?...

 

[NapsteR]

I am breaking my head every day because of all these usernames passwords, client details, blogs, ftp...

I am thinking to develop a simple app in php with local database connection. We can create personally however we want. I think it would be more efficient.

 

[lobozebra]

I just use old fashioned spreadsheets to keep all of my ranking data organized.

It would be nice, however, if somebody programmed an app to manage campaigns.

 

[xlemosx]

spreadsheet holds everything. color code, sort, and prioritize everything with it.

 

[Baybo.it]

I have a small 3 x 5 notebook that I scribble stuff on and keep (within the day) (within the next couple of days) (within the week) todo lists.

I also have an organized folder with all of my businesses

/projects/
   /domain1
     /web
     /marketing
     /finance
     /...
   /domain2
   /...
   /domainn

I also have the all importance accounts.txt file that I keep with all of my various login info. Someties I'll just put the first few characters of a password which will make sure I remember it.

One cool tip. Come up with a unique algorithm from the url of the site you're on so that you can have a unique and secure password for each site (tip thanks hacker who knows his name )

 

[zai21]

bump
anybody else?...

i use basecamp and my ipad

 

[bertbaby]

Excel, Outlook and OneNote. It's not pretty!

 

[mantwo]

I just throw stuff on my desk... whatever the first thing I pick up each morning is, that's what I do that day.

Works for me.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

You mentioned Evernote but you did not want your data in the cloud. You can setup LOCAL folders in Evernote and just never sync them. That way you still get all the search capability of Evernote but on your local computer only. There is an open source client called Nevernote that is also pretty good.

 

[goinviral]

a good tool I use is call treepad look for it. it is free and looks kind of cheap and nasty but once you start using it is actually quite powerful. Not the perfect tool though.

 

[mxo69]

3 monitors helps.. but still not organized as id like to be.

 

[madoctopus]

One cool tip. Come up with a unique algorithm from the url of the site you're on so that you can have a unique and secure password for each site (tip thanks hacker who knows his name )

Yeah, that's what i do too