What Are You Doing to Get Organized in the New Year?

Sort, shred, recycle, file.
Rinse and repeat over and over, until my office doesn't look like a bomb went off.

MM

I've made a list of all my works-in-progress and their status (half finished first draft, second draft, manuscript, etc). Been trying to decide in which order to work on them and while many folks might say "Whichever one grabs you when you finish the previous one," I feel the need to be a bit more stringent with my organisation.

Also, on Monday I'm going to go into town to buy a pack of DL DVDs to back everything up once a week. £7:99 for 50, so that's one a week for almost a year...unless I suddenly acquire multi-gigabytes more files. Still, each disc holds over 8gb of information so well worth the money.

I want to get into the habit of writing every day. Even 500 words. Prefereably 1,000.

And submitting. I've got to submit in 2009. I will.

Finish my WIP before June 20 and have another one in progress. June 20 is a writer's conference in my area, and I want to be able to pitch to agents this year. It means I probably really need to have it done by the end of March to allow to for time to let it sit for about a month and then doing an editing/proofreading pass.

I cleaned my office.

I... ummmm...... I.... bought peter walsh's book about having too much stuff. does that count? I even read it. Except I don't have too much stuff, I'm just a slob.

Organize, you say. That's a radical concept. I shall give it some thought.

I cleaned the office, put some more shelves up AND I even found studs so this time they won't come crashing to the floor at 2a.m...

I need to reorganize the writing folder on my desktop and my physical filing cabinet. I also need to get one of those in-coming/out-going letter holder thingies. That would make life easier *stares at the large stack of mail on her desk* I have one for household mail, but not for writing related letters.

Wait a minute, hang on here... we're supposed to be *gasp* ORGANIZED?

I have come to the conclusion that I just don't have it in me to be organized. Why frustrate myself by trying?

I spent the last week building a custom closet for my wife and I. Now all the clothing is sorted and stored nicely in one room, and there's no money left for any schemes to organize my office.

Win win.

I'm already organised.

It doesn't really solve any problems.

inkkognito said:

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Anyone else trying for a more organized 2009?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I am. My main new focus is not telling everyone else what I'm doing writing-wise, so that I can actually get what I'm wanting to do, done.

Also, I'm in the process of getting some old computer files updated (specifically, Microsoft Works .wps documents) to a more widely-accepted format. So far, I've converted four complete manuscripts, one a short story and two completed novels. The fourth one is an incomplete novel WIP, which I stopped writing when the inspiration flew the coop (sp?).

Another thing I'm planning on doing, is backing up my files to more than one external drive. I'm thinking a CD-RW or two, and maybe even one of those fancy SD cards. I have a nice reader installed on my printer, of all things, and my computer reads it as a real removable drive when the printer is on. So I can feasibly gain a lot more backup opportunities if I just go out and purchase the needed blank media. I'll likely do that today.

That's basically what I'm doing to re-organize myself this year. The decision was, like yours, an informal resolution. I never planned on it; I just happened to decide to do this right around the beginning of the year.




--Sean

I'm at a crossroads. I have 1 full with an agent and 2 fulls with publishers and 1 full in the Delacorte Press 1st YA novel contest and I just finished 1st draft on a 5th manuscript. For the first few months I visualize myself doing almost nothing writing related. Like Kath, I cleaned my office space. I'm ready... and willing to sit in a holding pattern.

Quit generating new pieces of paper and new electronic files, as much as is possible.

Now I have OneNote 2007, I can waste lots more time while fooling myself into thinking I'm 'organising mah shizzle'.