The times they are a’changin’. There is new app or software invented every day that can help you with the daily busy work  at home and in the office.

Since the Internet boom, everything relating to paper storage has changed. When you’re accustomed to filing “the old” way, it’s difficult to change to a new system even if it has more benefits. The new basics of what to keep on paper, what to scan, and what to toss will make your life easier and less cluttered (and bring you into this century!). Here are some simple steps to update your tech-savvy.

Receipts
Then: Save paper receipts for everything to keep track of expenses. Match receipts with credit card and debit card statements.
Now: When ordering online, only save the electronic receipt. Create a receipts folder on your computer and save them there. Continue to file paper receipts for big ticket items, such as home and car maintenance receipts, in a filing cabinet.
Resource: NeatReceipts for scanning the keepers

Bills
Then: Wait for bills to come in the mail, then write a check and send it back via snail mail.
Now: Pay bills electronically through your bank or through each individual vendor’s Web site. Most vendors these days can bill you electronically, as well.

Important dates
Then: Write birthdays and anniversaries on a paper calendar year after year.
Now: Use an electronic calender/task manager on your computer or a free online reminder service, such as www.birthdayalarm.com, to keep up with these important dates.
Resources: Google Calendar, Springpad tasks and reminders

Passwords
Then: Write them down in a notebook or address book, and inevitably lose them.
Now: There are too many to count or remember. Track them in a Word document or spreadsheet. Or better yet, get a password program that can remember everything for you.
Resources: 1password, keepass

Personal documents
Before: Make a filing system to store your important documents.
Now: Receive electronically or scan them in and save them on discs or store with an online backup service, such as www.mozy.com. You still want to keep hard copies of legal and insurance papers in a fire-proof or safety deposit box.

Children's School Papers
We didn’t get nearly as much paper when we were kids. Children get so much paper these days it requires some serious organization-purge backpacks weekly. Use an open file box with hanging files to create an easy-to-reach storage area. Make one box or file section for each child. Then create a file for each year of school (14 folders: pre-k - 12th grade )in each child's section. When you get something save-worthy, drop it into the file. At the end of the year, toss the stuff that doesn't seem so important any longer.

For help on what to keep and what to chuck, see the checklist below.

What to File:

• Graded papers
  
• School information
  
• Activities and clubs
  
• Class notes-by subject, one per hanging file
  
• Papers for parents
  
• Awards and certificates
  
• Use a larger box for artwork (an under-the-bed box works well)
  

What to Throw Out:

• Only keep art and keepsakes that are the best of the best. Save about 10-20 items per year per child
  
  
• Keep graded papers until the report card comes home, then toss those you don't need as a keepsake.
  

Google Docs Tip-of-the-day

Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) is one of my favorite ways to keep back-ups of my documents without having to spend a lot of money on a back-up service.
And now Google has made it even easier to save copies of documents, spreadsheets, pdf’s, and even photos with drag-and-drop uploading.

You must have a gmail/google account to use this service.

1. Log into google / gmail

2. In the top menu, click on “Drive”.
If you are using a google apps account, you may need to click on “more” and find “documents” in the drop down menu.

3. You can find your file by going through these 4 steps.
click upload button, click files or folder, find file or folder on your computer, click on that file or folder.

OR DO IT THE EASY WAY:

Drag your file or folder directly into google docs and watch it upload! Magic!

After it is done uploading, be sure to add it to a collection (folder) to make it easier to find again.

Update 2013: You can now upload photos, pdf's and dozens more formats that were not possible to upload before. You can only edit those in a format compatible with Google's docs (presentations, word docs, and spreadsheets).

And now Google Drive is available for your desktop or mobile device so you can get to your documents anywhere, easily drop new documents in for back-up, and create documents without having to log into Google.

– Allison

I spent my July 4th day off taking care of some organizing business that I had been putting off because it was such a big job.
My digital photos have been saved in haphazard ways over time due to crashed computers and they needed to be re-organized.

I am very consistent about downloading photos from my camera and putting them into iphoto and labeling the folder or event as iphoto calls it,
but I rarely went to the next step – categorizing by they way I look for things. I had them sorted by year and event. But when I look for photos, I want to see all the first day of school shots in one place and all the birthdays in one place, etc.

So I set out to organize my photos into albums and these are the categories:

• Family Favorites
• Birthdays
• Vacations
• Holidays
• My childhood
• My college & 20s
• Art and other creations
• House and Home

It took me all day (and a few more hours) to upload all of my photos onto a new website I’m trying out called Linea (www.getlinea.com).

We (we is the Association of Professional Photo Organizers)  like this site because it makes sharing photos very simple and looks amazing on an ipad. It also stores your photos in full size. Online sites such as Shutterfly and Snapfish do not allow you to download the full original size. Google+ photo and Flickr do.
Linea is also supposed to also be able to allow me to make photo books… which is the end result I want… but I can’t seem to figure out how to do that yet.

The bonus for spending all day  uploading 3,000 photos into the internet cloud  is that I now have a complete back-up  and I don’t have to worry about computer crashes or fires.

Here are a few quick tips for getting your photos in order:

1. Get them off the camera and phone card. You can save a copy on the card if you want a back-up.  If you have lost misplaced your cord, get yourself a card reader. They are less than $20 and worth every penny.
2. Put your photos into categories based on how you would look for them in the future.
* Make the albums first, then put the photos into the album.
3. Delete any photos that totally stink as you work.
4. Make an album of photos to “fix” if you find a lot that need altering.
And by the way, you don’t need all day to do this. You can work in small bursts of 15 minutes, longer sprints of 1 hour, or do it in a marathon like me.

Or you can hire a Professional Organizer (me) to do it for you! [see coupon below]

Digital Life Organizing TM Launches in Atlanta
The Professional Organizer is having a re-birth of sorts. We are now focusing more on getting your digital life organized.What is your digital life?
It is your photos, recipes, financials, social networking, and just about anything you lose track of. It’s also about regular back-ups and syncing.We can do it for you or just show you how.Examples of what we do:
Organize your photos- digital and print – so you that you can enjoy them! See them online, on your computer, or turn into photo books.Organize your  passwords in a simple format you can find them and use them from anywhere.

Organize and back up your documents and computer  - we get your files in sync and can set them up so you can view them from anywhere if needed.

Scan and organize recipes. Get more shelf space by scanning your favorite recipes and dumping all those books.

Organize your ideas. We show you how to use programs such as Evernote to categorize your projects, ideas, notes and much more.

… That ‘s just the beginning.
We are also great at training you on the mac, ipad, and iphone/ipod touch apps and syncing.

After summer vacation, or any vacation for that matter, take a few minutes to organize your photos so you will be able to find them when you want them. You can also cut down on clutter by digitizing other items:

1. Scan your receipts if you need to save them, or want to use them as reminders of where you stayed, ate, shopped, etc.

2. Scan your memorabilia such as ticket stubs, brochures, information guides. Just snap a quick photo or run through a scanner and add to your photo collection.

3. Upload your photos from your camera to your computer, and then to an online site for printing. Put photos into albums or folders for each event.

4. Use a program to organize your photos if you are not already. Iphoto (mac) and  Picasa (google) are some of the easiest ones to use.

5. Label your photos with location, date, names of people, event, etc.

6. Tag photos online. Photos online can be tagged for future searches. Tag is like a label for the search engine. Enter who, what, &, where as tags. This way when you want to find all the photos of “Cindy” you can search for “Cindy” and they will all come up in a search.

7. Finishing touches – if you want other people to enjoy the photos:

• Print them and put into a photo album
• Put them onto a photo card and into a digital frame for viewing
• Put them into an online album for sharing (Picasa, Shutterfly, Getlinea.com, etc)

One of the best ways to use cloud storage is as an extra back up for your photos.  There are a slew of websites that allow you to upload photos, share the images, and print photos and other gifts from the photos. But not all sites are equal. They generally fall into two camps. One kind of site will store your photos in full quality and you can retrieve them in full quality. This is the kind of site you want to use for back-ups.  Some sites that fall into this category are:

Google+ photos (formerly Picasa) is free and easy to use. It is certainly easy enough for the average home user. The interface with Picasa desktop photo organizer is a little overwhelming at first. But if you can get used to it, it makes for easy syncing. The program automagically uploads your new photos to the web.

Flickr is free for limited use. Sharing is easy via links to other social networks. Privacy is easy to set. It’s doesn’t provide enough free storage for an avid picture taker but you can go pro for only $25 per year.

Linea is free for limited use. Sharing is beautifully designed for ipad and mac desktops. It is still new and adding new capabilities everyday. The big wow factor is the ability to create photo books on your ipad. I’m testing out this product now. It took a little time to figure  out how to edit the photos on the ipad, but once I did it was pretty exciting to be able to do on the fly with photos taken on the ipad.

Snapfish is free and unlimited. The site allows downloading in full resolution. It has tons of products to buy and cheap prints  which you can pick up instead of shipping if you prefer. I’ve been using this one since my kids were babies and have always been happy.

The other kind of photo site stores your high resolution photo, but doesn’t give it back to you as-is.  There is often no option to download it. You have to buy a product or download the low resolution, compressed image you see their screen. These sites are usually connected to retail stores (Walmart, Walgreens, Target) or camera companies. Shutterfly also falls into this category.

Use these sites for photo books and other products, but I do not recommend them for true back-ups.

I’m pretty skeptical about all website companies as they keep getting eaten by bigger fish. So in my opinion, you want to save your best photos on an external hard drive or flash drive as well as a copy on your computer.

This question was sent to me today by my cousin Suzanne (thanks Suzanne!)
She liked the answer and suggested I share with my blog readers.

Question: my mom has a bunch of recipes on 3×5 cards. Any suggestions on how she can reorganize them. She’s not a computer person!

Answer:
She can organize them in a card holder or a book made to hold them.
Categorize them by type of dish (entree, dessert, appetizer). Then alphabetize within the category.
This way she can find recipes based on the type of recipe.
You can save the cards digitally for you to share with your sisters as well.
Next time you see her, bring a camera or iphone and take photos of each card front and back.
Then you can upload the photos to Evernote (yay evernote) and it will read the writing and make the recipe cards searchable.
If they’re in handwriting, you may have to fix mis-read letters.
Then you will also have a history of your mother that includes her handwriting which is cool to read in the future.
I use Evernote on my ipad as my only cookbook. (You can view Evernote on any smartphone, tablet or laptop as well). I sort the recipes into notebooks/categories (soup, entree, dessert, etc) and I also tag them by main ingredients (squash, chicken, artichoke) so I can also look up recipes based on the main ingredient.

If you want help getting started using Evernote, just give me a ring or email. I can help you get started in person (in Atlanta area) or by phone or video chat.