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

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.

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.

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

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:

• Create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
• Customize and use business form templates.
• Hold live online meetings with customers and colleagues.
• Schedule events and reminders.
• Build your business plan.

You can even read and save articles from Entrepreneur.com as well as read free business related books.

The templates menu is vast including samples of accounting forms, starting a business checklists, sales receipts, business plans and more. The book selection is small but offers resources in retirement planning, project planning, marketing and more.

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.

To learn more or sign up, visit Entrepreneur Assist.

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

• Include the Word "Solved" In Your Searches to Troubleshoot Tech Issues [Search Techniques]
  Source Lifehacker
  It happens to all of us: we run into a bug in a program, a feature you want that isn't there, or something other software issue. Reader protiki offers some tips on finding a solution using Google....
• RD Mute Mutes Your Phone When Face Down and When You're Driving [Downloads]
  Source Lifehacker
  Android only: I like to mute my phone when I'm buried in work, sleeping, or driving my car, but turning on my phone and fiddling with the sound isn't ideal. RD Mute will mute your phone whenever you...
• Flightlite Tracks Airline Flights on a Map, in Real Time [Travel]
  Source Lifehacker
  Flying comes with all kinds of unexpected delays—and of course the occasional early arrival—that can throw off your plans to pick someone up . Coordinate your next airport pickup, to near perfect...
• Cookmate Suggests Meals Based on What's in Your Pantry [Video]
  Source Lifehacker
  iOS: Cookmate helps you come up with meal ideas based on what you've got in your pantry, and when you need one or two extra ingredients, it creates a shopping list you can pull out at the store....
• Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

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

• 65% of Web Users Buy Digital Content: More Music, Fewer E-Books
  Source GigaOMTech
  Nearly two-thirds of Internet users are paying for some form of digital content as more information, services and media continue moving to the web. The numbers, resulting from a Pew Internet survey of Internet users, skew towards dollars spent on dig...
• Turn a Projector into an Interactive Whiteboard with a Wiimote [Video]
  Source Lifehacker
  If you teach or have to make a lot of presentations, you can make your life a lot easier with an interactive whiteboard like a Smartboard. Instead of an expensive piece of technology, though, you ca...
• RoboForm 7 Expands Password Management to Chrome and Opera [Updates]
  Source Lifehacker
  Windows/Mac: RoboForm, a fairly popular all-in-one password manager, has updated to a version 7 that includes support for Chrome and Opera (10) browsers, adds bookmark syncing, improves and clarifies...
• Resolved: How to Keep Your Computer Safe, Clean, and Backed Up in 2011 [Resolutions 2011]
  Source Lifehacker
  Those important computer tasks—like securing, cleaning, and backing up—are like any other resolution: we all say we're going to do them but rarely keep up with them all year. Here's our simple g...
• Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

• Five Ways to Not Suck at PowerPoint [Power Point]
  Source Lifehacker
  It's hard enough standing in front of a crowd delivering a presentation. To ease the worry, here are five mistakes that are easily avoidable when creating PowerPoint presentation. More »...
• Cars With Wi-Fi Hitting the New Information Highway
  Source GigaOMtech
  Consumers don’t want to leave home without their wireless devices, allowing connectivity to be offered in places today that seemed unheard of just a handful of years ago. The trend will only accelerate as car makers see an “option-tunity” for W...
• The Autofocus Productivity Method: Stop Maintaining To-Do Lists and Start Getting Stuff Done [Video]
  Source Lifehacker
  Looking for a personal productivity system that doesn't suffer the rigidity and unwieldiness that have thwarted your best efforts to adopt other systems? Autofocus offers simplified task management a...
• Plugin by C. Murray Consulting

I recently read an article that indicated technology was giving attention deficit disorder. I have to agree that while it has made communication faster and easier, it definitely creates interruptions that make the flow of work difficult. Part of the problem is that there are so many places one needs to check… email, Twitter, Facebook, news feeds etc. But now there is Gist, which not only manages all your social contacts in one place, but you can choose the place you’d like to manage them.

With Gist you can manage everything from the Gist dashboard online, or through your email (Gmail, Outlook, Lotus Notes), Salesforce or your iphone or android phone. It offers a one-stop shop to find out your latest news as well as to update your own status. You can learn more and sign up for free at Gist.

To do lists can keep you focused and one task. But if you’re involved in a project that has many steps and to-do’s, it can be difficult to keep track and on target. There are many good online project management programs you can use for a fee, but if you don’t need to coordinate with colleagues, a simple free project management software can help.

Gantt Project Management offers a free easy to use chart-based project management tool.  With the Gantt Project Management tool you can create tree-heirarchies to help track tasks within projects, create dependencies between tasks (complete task A before completing task B), create PDF or HTML reports and exchange data with Microsoft(R) Project(TM) and spreadsheet applications.

The software can not only help keep business and work-related projects in order, but it can be used for personal projects such as home improvement plans.

Visit Gantt Project Software to learn more and download your free copy.