CHRISTA M. RENSEL

This is a portion of an email newsletter I get from Copyblogger… It’s great information, and gave me some good ideas about how to take things on in stride, and not get overwhelmed. Definitely a recommended read. 

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m working on a new project I seem to get completely disorganized. As a result I get frustrated because I can’t find information I know I’ve seen, it’s harder for me to show others what I’ve found, and work probably doesn’t get done as fast as it could.

Luckily for people like us, there’s TONS of apps and web apps available to fix this problem! It took me quite a while to find a flow of gathering and saving information that worked for me - so I thought I’d share the apps I use (and would be a disorganized mess without!) and my workflow. I hope you find this information helpful, and that I can save you from a bit of frustration of looking through hundreds of bookmarks and links for small nuggets of information.

1. Pocket

 This web app is great! It allows you to save blog posts, articles, and web pages and add them to your queue to read later. The interface is great because it strips away all the ads and extras on sites and lets you focus on the information you really want to see.

There is a browser extension available for Chrome (I haven’t looked into other browsers, but I’m sure it’s available for most), so you don’t even have to leave the site you’re on. Adding the extension on Chrome also adds it automatically to Google Reader, so you can save articles from all your favorite sites.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention… Your Pocket reading list is available anywhere by using the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps. Handy, huh?

2. Diigo

Diigo is a bookmarking app, that blows the majority of bookmarking apps I’ve used out of the water! You can create lists and tags to keep information organized. You can make lists private, or public. But my favorite features are the sticky notes and highlighter.

Add notes to any web page - which will show up anytime you visit that site. Same goes for the highlighter… Highlight a block of text, and your annotations will show up on the site, and in your Diigo bookmark list. It makes finding those little nuggets of saved information so much easier.

3. Evernote

I really don’t know what I would do without Evernote… I’m pretty sure I would lost and confused at the best of times without it (I’m not even exaggerating here). I’m sure I’ll be talking about the wonders of Evernote again in future posts, but for now, I’m just going to focus on how I use it for bookmarking.

With the Evernote Web Clipper, I can save a link, article, or portion of article right to my Evernote. Add tags, comments, and send to whatever Notebook is most relevant. Evernote and Diigo are quite similar, but I choose to use Evernote over Diigo when I’m working on a specific project and want to include those articles with all my other saved info and work for that project.

My Usual Workflow

Ok, so I realize this isn’t exactly rocket-science… but I was feeling ambitious, so I created this awesome infographic! ;)

What are your favorite bookmarking tools to use? Share them in the comments section.

Photo courtesy of Jeri’s Organizing and Decluttering News.

Original Article