organization techniques?

This wont help your present situation, but you may profit from it anyway.

Many years ago l learned hypnosis, and studied it for several years. Many of my organizational tasks I leave to my unconscious to handle for me. Things always get done correctly and in plenty of time.

You might try picking a theme and then seeing how they each relate to it. Example:

Theme: Pets
- cat stories (2)
- dog stories (4)
- cats who rescue others (1)
- bird mystery (1)
- single people with dogs (1)
- kids and pets (4)
- pet grooming tips (2)

And so on. You probably already have the theme (a loose association) - what you don't have is the knowledge of what is most relevant and what is not.

MFM

After separating them by theme/subject, put them into a ring binder with tabs.

Your sticky messages, can be put into Word, broken down into the same theme/subject. When your are done, SAVE IT and print out the pages and put them into the ring binder. Or , if you're not that organized, just glue them on a piece of paper and put it into the ring binder under the tab they belong to.

I would start by figuring out what general sub-categories things fell under. Then I would take the big stack of printouts, sit in the middle of the floor in my office, and make piles by category. Put each pile into a separate folder or tray, then edit one category at a time.

sunandshadow said:

So basically, everyone thinks I should print it all out?

Click to expand...

not me - you'll prolly edit the stuff down anyway, so why waste the extra paper (and tree pulp)?

i would save all the files in folders and subfolders, work on it til i'm fairly happy with the stuff, and leave the printing to the end (if ever - i almost never print anything, the screen works fine for me).

I would say that printing it all out to organize is probably going to be the easiest way to start, so you can move and change groupings more quickly. Also, I would organize things in as linear a fashion as possible; giving the reader what they want to know in the most logical order you can manage, with the terms all in a glossary just before the bibliography and index.

Just my two cents,
Chac

Sometimes when you have loads of files, it can be hard to organize on the computer.

Maybe you should make yourself an index to it. If you did it in Excel, you could have a column for the subject heading, a couple of columns for other possible topics or subtopics it could fall under, and then a short description of the contents, and the file name.

Once you have them all in the file, you can sort by your headings and subheadings, make adjustments, sort, and so on. Once you've got it organized into groups you could start deciding what order to present the material in.

I'd probably put the files related to each chapter in separate folders and then start merging and editing them.