Oh, My Spinning Head!

I am in serious need of organizational help for my genealogy research and business. I have so many individual threads I am working on that I am afraid that they are going to get all tangled up soon if I don't come up with a workable solution.

I have been using Evernote on both my laptop and smartphone. I like this program because it allows me to keep my notes synchronized if I happen to be mobile. I have a genealogy folder, a good naming system for the notes, and it's easy to use. The problem is that I have many notes but no master summary of what I'm working on.

And I'm working on a lot. I'm researching my husband's line. I'm learning new family tree software. I'm reading genealogy books and magazines. I have a website to design. A blog to keep active. All the while trying to keep house and raise a toddler and a pre-schooler. I know, I know -- I need to have my head examined.

Part of my problem is that I'm a visual person. I need to see things, have them written down, preferably on paper, and right in front of me. That in itself is not conducive to an organized desk. I would, if I didn't have said toddler climbing all over the place, post sheets to the wall above my laptop for each category. Instead I will have to find a neater (and hopefully more permanent) method to getting organized.

File folders, binders, which method to use and how to use it seems to be the age-old issue genealogists of all skill levels continue to wrestle with. Just yesterday I was digging through a portable file box and came across a folder with assorted family data, a good portion of which was missing from my database. These scraps of paper dated back to 1999!

I think I will bring a notebook and pencil out to the wading pool this afternoon. I'll use a page per category and write down what I'm doing on each one and/or what I need to do. Maybe all my spinning head needs to slow down is a good, old-fashioned data dump. Surely it can't continue to spin without the weight of all of the items I'm trying to remember -- at least not as fast, anyway.

I'll let you know how it goes.

~ Niecey