Find a Planner that Fits Your Style

With the New Year, comes resolutions and a commitment or recommitment to goals. To keep all your new tasks organized requires a planner that fits your needs.

I’m organizationally challenged, which causes problems because I’m also a multi-business entrepreneur. I’m always on the hunt for the perfect planner system that fits how I work. My preference is to see the whole week at a glance and have all my to-dos (personal and professional) listed along side any appointments. I don’t want to have to turn pages to manage my day because I’m more likely to not turn the page and therefore miss something. The problem has been that I’ve never found just the right planner.

If you’re having the same problem, visit DIYPlanner which has tons of different planner styles…for free. These planner templates are created by DIYPlanner or its members and uploaded for anyone to use. Planners come in a variety sizes depending on your needs.

The site also offers articles and other resources related to planning. The best way to find the actual planner templates is to click on “DIYPlanner.com” or “Time Management” in the left hand side bar. But do take some time to read the articles and other information. There is an interactive community with lots of great tips and ideas.

To learn more, visit DIYPLanner.com

Goal Setting Using Google Calendar

I love web aps that make my life easier. How ever too many apps can confuse things. That’s why I love resources like iGoogle in which many of my tools can be accessed in one place.

In my hunt for a great goal setting tool, I was concerned about how I would manage yet another app. Resources like 43 Things are great not only to set and manage goals, but for the support and social aspect. But I don’t tend to go back to them once I set them up. If you don’t use it, it can’t help you.

So I was intrigued when I found this post from last year on We Do Creative on how to use Google Calendar to manage goals. I love this idea because I do check my calendar on a regular basis. You can not only set your goals, but break them down into milestones and tasks as well. If your goals are a group effort, you can share that particular goal’s calendar with others as well.

Check out this article, “Google Calendar as a Todo List & Task Management App” and see if it works for you.

Organize Receipts with Shoeboxed.com

If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. If you run a business or freelance in which you need to pay estimated tax payments four times a year, you may want to check out Shoeboxed.com, where you can mail-in or upload your receipts to organize them and get rid of clutter. The information can then be transferred to programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV formats. If you scan and upload your receipts yourself, the service is free. Or you can mail your receipts and Shoeboxed will scan them for you. You can even scan and upload using your phone. Fees for expanded services depend on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.

To learn more or get started for free, visit ShoeBoxed.com. Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.

Better Living Link Roundup

Here are some great tips and news on digital tools and resources.

• How to Get Better Battery Life from Your Android Phone [Android]
  Source Lifehacker
  If you have a modern Android phone, you know the pain of turning on your phone at 5 PM only to realize it's deep in a low-battery coma. Here are the simple manual changes, and clever automatic tweaks...
• Diagramly Is a Quick Online Diagram, Mind Map, and Flow Chart Creator [Webapp]
  Source Lifehacker
  There are plenty of apps for creating flow charts, mind maps, and other types of diagrams, but Diagramly is ready to go the minute you visit the site. It's remarkably similar to Microsoft Visio, but...
• Smartphones Are Local Search and Shopping Devices
  Source GigaOM
  There’s a reason why search companies, advertisers, payment processors and local merchants are so interested in smartphones. It’s because they’re turning out to be powerful and popular tools for people looking to search locally, act quickly and...
• Keepsy Brings Instagram to Your Bookshelf
  Source GigaOM
  Keepsy, the Menlo Park, Calif.-based scrapbook startup, has launched its first product, “Instant Album,” a way to order physical scrapbooks made from Instagram photo albums. Keepsy is just the latest in a spate of new startups, like Sincerely and...
• Google Docs Brings Native App with Editing, Optical Character Recognition to Android [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  Google Docs has been available as a mobile-optimized webapp for a long time, but it always left something to be desired. Today, Google released a native app for Android devices that makes it easy to...
• Make Notepad++ an Even Better Editing App with Powerful Plug-Ins [Text Editing]
  Source Lifehacker
  You don't have to go hunting to find plug-ins for the excellent, lightweight text editor Notepad++—there are a whole bunch already installed, and the others are in one big pack. There are, however,...
• Avoid Frequent Discharges to Extend Your Phone or Laptop's Battery Life [Batteries]
  Source Lifehacker
  People spread a lot of information about smartphone and laptop batteries these days, but we get a lot of mixed messages, some of which are just incorrect. Here's how to take care of your battery for...
• TravAlert Wakes You Up Before Your Train or Bus Stop [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  iOS/Android/BlackBerry: People fall asleep on public transit, whether intentionally or otherwise. Mobile app TravAlert keeps track of your location without killing your battery, and then wakes you up...
• How to Make a Web Site Part I: Understanding and Writing HTML [Video]
  Source Lifehacker
  Everyone lives at least a little bit of their life on the web, and whether you develop web pages for a living, want to create a nameplate web site, or simply want more control over how your comment...
• Keep Your Pickup and Confirmation Receipts at the Ready with Your Smartphone [Organization]
  Source Lifehacker
  When you receive an online confirmation for a movie ticket, an air flight, an in-store pickup, or anything else where you may need to present your receipt, here's a quick way of always having it easi...
• Use Multiple Online Cloud Storage Services for Free and Organized Backup [Backup]
  Source Lifehacker
  We recently reviewed a few popular cloud storage services in an attempt to help you choose the best one, but why should you necessarily have to choose just one? Instead, use them all to create an or...
• CalendarBar Keeps Your iCal and Google Calendars in Your OS X Menubar [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  Mac OS X: CalendarBar is a really handy menubar utility that stores your calendars in your Mac OS X menubar. It syncs up with Google Calendar, works with iCal, and even Facebook. More »...
• Taskforce Adds Lists and Upgrades Its Gmail Task Management [Updates]
  Source Lifehacker
  Chrome/Firefox/Safari: Taskforce, the task management system that tucks itself neatly into Gmail or Google Apps mail, has grown up quite a bit since its beta. The webapp supports more browsers, has a...
• Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

Entrepreneur Assist Offers FREE Tools for Your Business

When I first started my business, I paid a fortune in tools and services to get it up and running. MS Office Suite cost hundreds of dollars. Then there were the planners, form templates and a host of other tools and services each with a fairly hefty fee.

Today the Internet offers many of these tools and services at an affordable price. Entrepreneur offers most of them for free. Entrepreneur Assist is a one-stop virtual officer where you can:

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The appeal of Entrepreneur Assist is the ability to have a variety of office tools and service all in one spot. In a single sitting you can print out an invoice, write a letter, read and save an article, create your schedule and host an online meeting all from one site.

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