Whoa! Where Did I Put That?

Whoa! Where Did I Put That?
By Susie E. Caron  © 1/13/16

Maybe you don’t have difficult organizing and finding things like I do? If you do, read this.

I file everything,
but I'm not very good on retrieving.  My daughter assured me that alphabetical order really works, but I seem to forget what category I used or what I named the folder. This is true whether it’s on my desk top or in my paper filing cabinet or even in 3 ring binders.  So when I look for a paper, document, photo, phone numbers, addresses, instructions, and other tangible paper products, I struggle to find them. Likewise, if I suddenly need a URL, my user name, passwords, descriptions, bios and other things I may instantly need, it takes me a lot of time to search for them. 

Paper was not sufficient, so I added web sites and took on-line courses.
Over the past three years I’ve opened a few web sites, more than a few domains (which directed readers to my web sites. or Amazon (where they hide my picture books). I’ve enrolled in free, cheap and way too expensive on-line courses that promised to teach me how to learn to be successfully social, write books, publish on kindle, send emails, give speeches, build infographics and podcast. They were mostly all good and I can prove it, when I find the URL’s to lead me back to them. I stored them somewhere,because once paid for, they promised to be available for me to complete or review anytime. I’m certain it’s true, but…..

Then, I became "Social".
Besides ‘administering’ (apparently, I don’t really own these) 2 Twitter accounts, several Facebook pages & groups, Pinterest boards, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others, I’m also active on many Facebook groups and I've “liked’ more pages than I can count. During my experience with these I’ve also gathered a number of Apps. (However, I really don't know what that means unless I get them for my iPad from the App Store.)

I got excited when I discovered Web Services.
Somehow, in all of this, I’ve found and lost many of the things that helped me produce some really cool stuff. Early in my 3 years, I began writing a blog. When I ran out of photos that family members, friends and my pets would allow me to use, I needed a new source. So, like the perennial student I’ve become, I looked for photos. Royalty free sounded nice, but I could never get used to the sites and sometimes they made you promise your first born. My kids were grown  ups so I figured they were no longer useful for payment (and I’m pretty sure that was illegal anyway.)

One visual web service helped.
Next I found Canva.com and dove into the free version. It was easy to use and I liked the photos they provided. To my delight I could upload drawings or photos of my own to add to backgrounds, add text, frames, and designs. Most of the items were free, but I was happy to pay the $1.00 per item that I really liked. It answered my need to create photos to accompany my weekly blogs and pin them on Pinterest. Since that time I’ve used Canva for headers for Facebook, Twitter, and my web site. Three years later, which is right about now, I created my first podcast cover. WooooHoooo!
I like Canva because I just type in Canva.com (no special personal URL needed) and I’m instantly there and can do what I want. But it doesn’t help me with my retrieval problems. I’ve tried Notes, Sticky Notes, OneNote, and many others. The problem is that I’m a visual organizer. My piles of tangible stuff really means something too me, but I cannot rely on the pile system any more for my work.
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Canva saved me time so I could use it to organize, finally.
As a result, today I made the decision to begin anew to find and organize my important internet information and log it in a better way.
Let’s see…….I’ll call the first folder Susies Stuff. That’s good. Now the next folder will have all my URL links to things like Canva.com. I can put those into a-b-c order on a Word Doc. After that, I’ll make a page called Paths, that will tell me what I need to do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, to get the next email news letter out…….What was the name of that email web service gain…….where did I write that password ?
Never mind. I need some dark chocolate.
Whoa! Where Did I Put That?
Somebody HELP!!!!!
 

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