Many of us on the internet these days, whether we are on HubPages, Blogger, WordPress, or any number of blog or article sites, originally signed up with a specific idea of what we hoped to accomplish.
You know what they say, (those people who are always saying those things).
You have to have a goal.
So, let's just say you are the other side of the equation.
Perhaps you were just going through your usual morning routine one day, sitting down at your computer to check your email on AOL.
So you go to aol.
com, hit the email button, and the login page appears.
On this page, there is a little blurb with some suggestion or other on it--in this case, a suggestion that you visit a site called about.
me and create your very own "splash" page, to tell everyone a little bit about yourself.
So, feeling expansive at that moment, you do that.
It is kind of basic at first, and you come back several times in the next days to tweak it.
Then, somewhere else along the way through your normally brief morning web routine, you come across another page suggesting you sign up for AOL Lifestream.
So, being in the same creative frame of mind, you set up an account on there, too.
Then you do the same for Facebook, Blogger, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, WordPress, Gather, She Told Me...
yada, yada, yada, yada; blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now remember, you have had no real goal in mind this whole time.
You are unfocused, but busy.
You've been winging it, flying by the seat of your pants.
You've now 'biographied' your story 15 times, uploaded half again as many photos of yourself.
You've even been convinced to order free business cards, yet you don't even own an actual business.
You just ordered these business cards, using some cheesy little name you pulled out of the air.
Perhaps in the past you had a vague idea for a business and it just came back to you now.
Who knows? You set up an online business card, so potential clients can learn more about your non-existent business.
You even go so far, on a suggestion from a search engine, as to build a free website for this same fictional business.
Let's not forget, the system reminds you to monetize all the blogs you signed up for, using AdSense or HubPagesAds or whatever.
Not to mention that your email box will be overloaded with promotional emails and companies trying to sell you this or that product or service to help your business get noticed on the web.
Mail that will undoubtedly take up even more of your time to sort through.
But, maybe you can make some money, right? Hey, maybe that was your goal for this morning, or even this week! Yeah.
This could work--right? Well, that "instant goal" idea would be okay, if you did not, in fact, already have one goal--a goal that you set for yourself months, or maybe even years ago--one that you managed to forget about because your focus was split and scattered.
A goal that somehow did not tie in to any of the seemingly inane tasks that you spent so much time on this morning; so much time that you forgot what it was you wanted to do more than anything else--to be a writer, an EzineArticles Pro, a well-respected and sought-after author.
Does any of this sound familiar? So, how does one change the circumstances under which this wasting of time occurred? Or, maybe a better question is, having performed all these other things, what would then be the best way to organize all these functions? Maybe, in hindsight, you decide you don't want to eliminate them all completely, because you did, in fact, just invest many hours of your valuable time into these tasks.
How can you become better able to manage your tasks and your time? There are several options available to help you organize the information you use every day, and several little tips to help you utilize your time a little more wisely.
One of these options is a bookmarking site.
A fine example of a good bookmarking site that is helping people to organize all the websites they deal with on a regular basis is called EasyBM.
com.
On their site, you can name your own topics, for example: Bill Payments, Emails, Credit Cards, Blogs, even Article Writing, and you choose which web site addresses to list under each topic.
You can even choose the number of columns you want to use, and the font color for the topics and the web addresses.
This is not a money-making bookmarking site.
This is strictly for your own personal use, a one-stop shop for maintaining a list of all the sites you use regularly--keeping you from having to enter the same url addresses repeatedly.
You could compare it to your "favorites" menu that you may keep in your browser sidebar.
But only in the most basic sense.
With your favorites bar, you can click on the website you want to visit, and your browser has probably remembered all your login and password information for you.
Well, that means that someone could inadvertently stumble on to your personal information by simply clicking through.
EasyBM.
com is different because you first have to sign up for an account, and then you choose a password, which their system does not offer to remember, so once you have entered all the websites you use regularly or ever, their links are all there in one place and you simply click on them.
A time saver indeed and a safeguard for your personal information.
***Update from the author 8/1/2011:Easy BM does now, in fact, offer to remember your password now.
The safest way to avoid someone accessing your bookmarking account is to NOT check the "Remember Me" box!Still an excellent and secure way to store all your web browsing information in one place.
I do!Good luck everyone! Another way to get organized would be to set up a calendar for yourself.
You could set it up however and wherever you wanted, on an old-fashioned paper calendar, or one of the ready-made ones available through Windows, Google, Yahoo, or any number of different places.
You could arrange your tasks by time of day, day of the week, date, whatever.
Let us suppose, for example, you decide you want to check your email every morning at 6:00 am.
Then you figure you'll check your eBay auctions and respond to any inquiries there.
Then you'll go to The Animal Rescue Site and make your daily click donations.
You see, if you plot your morning routine on a calendar and follow it, you will have visited 3 different sites and it will have taken you approximately 20 minutes, at the most.
Next, you figure you'll be ready to write some articles and check your hub activity or blog posts, and update your status on the various networking sites you signed up with.
So, figure you'll devote yourself to those tasks for the next hour or two.
Are you normally concerned about household tasks you need to get done before you become stationary for several hours during the afternoon? Make a list of the chores you'll need to take care of and get started.
Follow the list exactly and you will likely finish faster than if you had no list, without forgetting anything.
Stop and have something to eat, perhaps have a cup of coffee, too.
Ok, now what? At last, you are finished with all your morning tasks.
You have organized all your self-appointed tasks and made them much easier to manage.
You've taken care of the house and your personal needs.
Now you are ready to begin.
It is so freeing to approach your desk and your computer, gathering notes and research as you go, knowing that you have taken care of everything else, have neglected nothing, and are now sufficiently equipped to get down to the work that is most important to you, the work that has been your dream for a long time--your writing.
Your mind should be free at this point, free of the chaos that was all that distraction you had created and have since organized and dealt with.
Now it is time to be a writer.