I find being organised incredibly difficult, and it's been getting me down recently, so I'm aiming to make 2017 a year in which I do much, much better at it! As mentioned a few days ago I'm definitely going to try and keep track of my reading better this coming year. I started using a fab spreadsheet earlier in 2016 but it was perhaps a bit too detailed for me and I gave up on it in about May. For 2017, I've downloaded the Goodreads app (having avoided GR for AGES for various reasons) and will be trying to keep on top of what I'm reading as I'm reading it and when I finish it. I'll also be aiming to upload reviews there and on Litsy around the time of a book's release where possible (if I have an ARC) or soon after I've read it otherwise. Fingers crossed, I WILL manage to write Litsy reviews of everything I read and enjoy next year!
I also want to get smarter about using stuff I've written in several ways. I started writing reviews on Litsy and tweeting pictures of them which seemed to work well - I'm planning on using them on Amazon and Goodreads as well, to make sure I'm spreading the word about books I love to as many people as possible. Similarly, I've changed my @jimsprofile Instagram to @yayeahyeah to match up with the blog and my Twitter feed and will be aiming to post book hauls there. (Yes, I'm HOPING to do book hauls to keep track of what I've actually got!)
To help with the blog I'm looking at Google Keep and Google Sheets. I started using Google Keep a month or so ago after my friend Julianne recommended it and it's been really awesome - in particular making my Twenty Things I've Read feature so much less time-consuming! Rather than go through Tweetdeck once a week as I used to and see what I've RT'd or tweeted about, now I paste links into a list in Google Keep when I tweet them. Then when it's time to write the post, I open up keep.google.com and it's there ready for me to copy and paste into a blog post and write around it.
And to help with life in general I've downloaded the Habitica app - Your Life The Role Playing Game. This looks really fun; you can set yourself targets and gain experience points for checking them off. So I've set some blog-related targets like uploading reviews and taking photos for Instagram/Litsy, and others for things like drinking enough water in a day, going to bed (rather than falling asleep in my chair, a terrible habit of mine!) Oh, and after taking my friend Julianne's fabulous Planning Your Work Wardrobe course I've started planning out what I'm going to wear ahead of time and it's amazing how much time it's saving me in the mornings!
I'm also planning on making better use of Google Calendar (for some reason I've always used the web version of the calendar before but I've just downloaded the app and I'm loving it!) And after working really hard on it yesterday, I managed to clear my inbox COMPLETELY on Gmail by moving things into folders and deleting stuff that was no longer necessary!
Finally I'm hoping to make better use of my time. I've spent much of the last two months playing Two Dots on my journey to and from because it's incredibly addictive - but also because I normally read at that time and I was going through a horrendous slump. I THINK (fingers crossed!) that the slump may be over for now so I'm looking forward to reading a lot more in the coming months!
What are some of your best tips for organisation? Do you consider yourself to be super-organised, or do you struggle like I do?
Really good to read this. Having had two months where I've barely blogged (partly because of big commitments elsewhere) I have been doing lots of planning over Christmas - I miss the writing that comes with blogging. For me I've been thinking that only being on social media two or three times a day might be a way to go - but am not sure I can be brave enough to commit to that!
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