How do you keep organized in this business
 

Any advice on how to stay organized in the biz. With so many LL's to submit too, link exchanges, sponsors to keep track of, it seems difficult to keep track of everything and everyone.

Do you keep spreadsheets with everyone you submit free sites too??

Thanks all,
Marc

what's organization? :D





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Since most of my info on tgps linklists etc is in my submitter programs, its just about keeping my backups regular :)

However I hire a book keeper to sift through and record my $ stuff. If you are pretty busy its a good way to go.

I just bought a Swingline stapler today.

My sense of organization involves having a compound miter saw sitting on the floor about one foot behind my chair. It has been there for several weeks and I have no idea why I brought it in here.

As far as online goes, well, I build very little and submit even less. I don't exchange links very often, so it's not a big deal. I update my main TGP everyday, my small shitty TGP every so often, and my link list every couple of days, except for when I forget I that I own it. Then it's every few days.

I keep a simple spreadsheet of income and expenses. I try to stay on top of my stats, who's sending me traffic, where I'm making sales, what's working and what's not. Keeping records and analyzing statistics is obviously important, but it can easily become an obsession that steals time from what produces money, in my case building and submitting.

As far as sponsors & link exchanges go I'm sure if a sponsor wanted to cheat me out of a check or a link partner pulled my link, they could both get away with it without me noticing.

I think it's related to something I've heard people talk about called weekends. ;)

I heard a strange word the other day... vacation. Still trying to figure out WTF the guy was talking about.

Seriously though... there isn't enough room on this board to detail all of my organizational procedures. My day job is a work-at-home gig also, so recordkeeping is a huge deal for me and I have tons of things in place that most other people probably don't have and probably never even considered.

A simple spreadsheet in Excel would be my first suggestion if you're just starting out and looking for something easily customizable in order to add forgotten or new items at a later date. |thumb

I think that's when you go to a convention and spend a few days socializing with other webmasters.

Organization...well, I think my most important piles o' crap are almost within arm's reach. I don't get along well with paper anymore. Never did, really. If it's stacked, it'll probably end up trashed; if it's filed, that means I hope I never have to look at it again.

For keeping track of online stuff, I depend on Excel. Granted, I think I have a few dozen duplicate spreadsheets, all tracking more or less the same data, but at least it's all in there somewhere...

if it wasn't for my lady, i wouldn't take vacations.... i feel u all!



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I use Finder labels to mark what has been submitted, what is in progress, what content has been used, what needs to be archived, etc.

Excel to keep track of sponsor payments.

iCal for places that don't take submits every day like The Hun so I know when it is ok to submit again.

Bookmark in Safari, I put my username and password in the bookmark title and then have 3 levels of bookmarks to keep track of which sponsors I'm actively promoting and which I'm not. This is also how I keep track of which places accept which niches of the stuff that I'm promoting when doing submits.

Umm, is anyone else hearing the Twilight Zone theme playing softly in the background while reading this topic? ;)

Flow Chart >>>database>>>Excel..

oh and dozens of post-it notes to remind me to put it in the flow chart, database, excel. |cool|

I could tell you my plan but...
Before we go any further, all right, we have to swear to God, Allah, that nobody knows about this, all right? No family members, no girlfriends, nobody.

It's all in my head along with the 100 voices telling me to stalk some celeb.

Alex

lots of text files and about 5 excel spreadsheets.

Watching that movie always cheers me up.
:D

Hahahahaha..I'll send you a list of the celebs I don't like. LOL

Organized?? I have a note book with every site I've made and the url to it. My daughter keeps track of the money, which keeps her very busy. About once a month she actually has to type something...... :D

I use a couple of spreadsheets to track sales and income numbers from month to month, for comparison sake, but that's not really an organizational tool. For the most part the folder structure on my hard drive, where I have content saved at a given time, how I have folders named, the status of the files in those folders, and a better than average memory get the job accomplished. I wouldn't recommend this method to most others, it usually only works for someone that would come up with it in their own anyway.

Even if i am not organised this forum makes me organised

To stay organized, I try to focus on the most important info which for me is my keyword, ranking and traffic data. The Hitslink tracking script logs most of the information I need, and I love it for that.