Tuesday, January 04, 2011

NOW I'm Ready For The New Year

I finally made my annual organizational trek to Staples and Office Max, so now I’m ready to start the New Year. Never underestimate the importance of the right organizational tools to make your life smoother and help you get a handle on all the paper and stuff one must keep track of.

I am now the proud owner of:

  • A pretty, brightly colored notebook with matching dividers in which to organize all my royalty statements since 2003. (And I will be doing a post on royalties here in a little bit, so stay tuned.)
  • Five (Yes! Five!) calendars. (I may have a bit of a calendar addiction, truth be told.) Two small size pocket monthly calendars, one wall type calendar, but without a hanger, and my indispensable, holds my life together, At A Glance Weekly Calendar (with Quick Notes!) which is my main, keep track of everything organizer. I use one of the pocket calendars to schedule and organize my posting schedule over on Shrinking Violets, and the second one to do the same for my posting schedule over on GeekMom now that I’m a core contributor. The third one is to track my personal health stuff—list what days I exercised, for how long, make a note of when I have a migraine or insomnia, try to track (and therefore give myself the illusion of control!) my physical life.
  • Three packages of colored post it notes.
  • Another three packages of the tiny post it note flags.
  • A totally old school type budget ledger that I use for household budgeting. (And no, I’m not a Luddite, but I like the act of laying it out each month by hand—it makes me feel very present and in control of my finances.)
  • A big, brightly colored envelope to hold all my business receipts.
  • Four ‘hard-backed’ spiralbound notebooks for journaling and drafting.

My next step is to organize my writing nest. I am trying to decide if I’m brave enough to take a picture of the massive notebook spread I’ve got going in my workspace. It is seriously scary, but I don’t have anywhere else to put it all. This year I want to buy a big credenza thing, one with at least three and possibly four doors, one for each series I’m working on. That way I can just stack up all my research books, series bibles, old journals and notebooks behind each door and voila! Everything I need at my fingertips.

I mean, if I’m juggling three different series, it seems as if one little ol’ credenza isn’t too much to ask...

What about you? What are your Must Have Organizational supplies?

3 comments:

Becky Levine said...

I just drool as I read your shopping list and think about that credenza. I pretty much use binders--lets me do my writing on the computer (so I can read it!) and have hard copies in case, you know, every single electronic backup I have gets stolen by aliens.

This year, I'm trying out Scrivener--the best electronic version I've found of your colored index cards. As much as I love notebooks and folders, I typically lose them or don't use them, so I'm hoping this will be what I need to take their place.

Robin L said...

I'm laughing at those story-hungry aliens you've got lurking around. :-)

You know, I am not able to write a first draft on my computer. I can do it my hand or on my netbook, but I can't achieve the depth I need on my iMac. Don't know why.

Part of what happens on any keyboard for me, is that my brain feels like it must keep my fingers moving, so I come up with stuff quickly rather than the RIGHT stuff.

I'm seriously toying with the idea of getting Voice Recognition Software so I can just read what I've handwritten, as opposed to having to type it in.

And sorry to make you drool. :-)

Anonymous said...

*laugh* I love new office supplies and have collected rather an astounding array of folders, notebooks, colored pens, binder clips... they're almost like candy. :) And they do inspire me! There is nothing quite as motivational, to me, as opening a notebook to a fresh page. I've tried drafting stories on the computer because it's so much faster, but somehow I think more clearly with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper before me. I've decided to go with it rather than trying to force myself to type everything first, and so far I am loving it. (Now if I could just figure out a way to relieve hand cramps! :P)

Happy New Year!