Recent Thoughts about Personal Information Management

One of the great things about writing for WebWorkerDaily is the exposure I get to the latest technologies and thoughts about Web 2.0, productivity, and web working. Professionally, it has helped me think deeper into some of my own personal information management issues and approaches.

Growing up with dyslexia always made personal organization a challenge for me. Also, I found out years ago that I am better organized electronically than I am in a traditional paper and filing cabinet method.

The rise of PDAs (now smartphones) and software like Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Organizer gave me a level of organization I could never have reached on my own. So I guess you could say I got dependent on electronic to do lists, calendar

Now, software like Microsoft Office OneNote and Evernote give me an edge when it comes to my organizational skills and help me better access the bits and bytes of information I need to stay organized and keep the multiple plates spinning the comprise my personal and professional lives.

Right now, my main personal information management tools include:

• Evernote. I have a Premium subscription and use Evernote for such things as capturing ideas; archiving screen captures and post drafts; archiving project artifacts and research; and general note taking. I like the fact that information I capture is accessible from my iPhone, Windows PCs, and Macs. My latest steps forward with Evernote including getting more efficient with tagging notes and perfecting how to scan in documents directly. My ambitions for using Evernote is to have it become the main archive for my ideas, project notes, and related items.
• OneNote. My OneNote usage predates Evernote and I haven't retired OneNote as of yet. In fact, I am encouraged by what I saw in the OneNote 2010 Technical Preview when I reviewed it for WWD. If OneNote 2010 meets the potential I see in its technical preview, I could very well reconsider it for the first chair especially if the OneNote Office Web App is slick and usable. Right now, I use OneNote for more project tracking tasks versus notetaking.
• Yojimbo. I use YoJimbo as a repository for more important information that I don't want to put in the cloud like passwords and PDF copies of important personal documents. While I like how YoJimbo handles bookmarks and Web archives, I am more partial to Evernote because I need to be able to access my research from any of my PCs or iPhone.

These applications help me pull all my needed professional and personal information into a secure that I can search upon

Personal Information Management 101 (for me at least)
I find my level of personal information management always to be growing and while some may say to settle on one tool -- I am partial to the mix I've found because it works for me and look forward to seeing it evolve in the future.

What do you use for managing the bits and bytes of your personal and professional lives?

Comments

[twitter.com/gordon]

I recently blogged about my various apps, although one I missed is my use of Evernote for 'longer term' storage of information that I don't need to access often.

http://www.onemanblogs.co.uk/index.php/archives/2009/09/17/all-is-not-me