Getting Organized with Google; an Experiment

Google wants to be the center of your day, work or play. It wants to organize your life! Google first intrigued me because it is fun to use a search engine with whimsical, colorful website artistry. Then I began to notice that I could move some of my daily work (at least my self-organization) online. Will Google become indispensable? I'm certain that is the company's goal!

For some time I have had an e-mail account with Google. And I began to look at other free conveniences to help me organize my work. First, I set up an iGoogle account and selected some add-ons such as "Google Notebook" and "Google Docs." I am also testing two list widgets (things-to- do lists): "To Do" and "Listy." I also have added "Sticky Notes," "Google Calendar" and "Date and Time" to my page. In addition to pages of add-ons from which to choose, there are a number of themes you can select and change as often as you wish to suit the look and layout you prefer.

How can Google help me get organized? I can open the page when I arrive at work in the morning and look at my to-do lists. I can keep notes in my Google Notebook, and working documents in "Google Docs." Let's say that I think of something when at home that I do not want to forget to add to my work the next day. Rather than write a note to take to work, as in the past, I can log on to iGoogle at home and make comments in the notebook or docs section, or add a line to my to-do list. Currently I restrict my Google accounts to tools that help me with organizing my work and my professional growth. In other words I do not place in-house documents in my Google page. When I attend a conference I can take notes in docs. Likewise, while surfing, I can post notes about useful websites in notebook.

I have not yet added events to Google Calendar. I had already created a reference staff calendar for our department through the service at Calendars.net, and upgraded it last year to CalendarsPlus. Therefore I will either attempt to link the this calendar to iGoogle or use my Google Calendar for a simple date and day reference. [Note: Since moving job locations, this calendar has not been maintained by me.]