How to stay completely organized in 2013 or What I’ve learned about the nature of organization
When I was 13, my mother and step father bought me a Handspring Visor PDA for graduating the 8th grade. I don’t think any gift before or after that had ever kept me as continually gratified. You see, I have been a tech geek for a long time, and I was obsessed with my step-fathers more expensive Palm PDA that I would steal away at every available moment to take notes, create useless calendar appointments and play games. I begged them for weeks for my own, I searched the web and Best Buy for the latest models available and when I found the Handspring Visor, which was more of a value PDA at the time, they agreed to buy it for me as my belated graduation gift. I didn’t get it until later in the summer, right before my freshman year in high school began, but I immediately began searching the internet for free applications I could download to my new device. Books, dictionary’s, note-taking and task management apps were my particular favorite. Go figure!
Once I got to high school, I ended up using my PDA to track everything from my homework assignments to my class schedule, extra-curricular events and social gatherings. I was particularly fond of tracking the money in my bank account, making sure to immediately input any purchases I made into a banking specific app that I used. The school newspaper even featured me in an article during my junior year that was all about students who use new technologies to keep themselves organized. I was certainly one of the few who relied so heavily on a PDA, in fact I only ever met a handful of other students during high school that even owned one. Eventually, I upgraded to a Palm Vx and then a Palm m505 (the later featured a color screen which I considered put me in the big time of PDA users!) during the course of high school. I loved my PDA so much and kept it with at all times. It stayed on my person or in my bag during the day, and after using it to read at bedtime (like the precursor to a kindle), it stayed on my dresser beside me as I slept.
I would say that this was definitely the most organized I had ever been and that was because for the only time thus far in my life, I used one dedicated device and method to organize my life. Once I got into college, something slowly pulled me away from my PDA. I think it was the lack of a rigid daily schedule. In college I had anywhere from one to three classes in a day. My wake up and bed time varied, and I was provided with a student calendar that was infinitely useful to me as a freshmen. So, instead of using my PDA, I switched to the pen and paper of the student calendar. Eventually, I wasn’t even using my PDA anymore and my entire system had been broken. Gradually, I was turning more and more away from the PC world I had grown up in and instead turning towards Apple products. One day, it eventually clicked in my mind that my PDA was the technology of a bygone era and it was time to search for the next big thing in personal organization.
However, after college ended, things pretty much stayed the same. I tried to get myself back into the PDA mentality when the iPod Touch first released. It seemed to me like the iPod Touch was the rebirth and natural progression of the PDA I had once known and loved. Almost like it was a PDA 2.0. But, alas, some mixture of lack of early functionality in the device and the touch based input never felt right to me. The Handspring and Palm devices used a stylus input method in which I could type on a virtual keyboard or, more frequently, write with the “graffiti” single stroke handwriting system that felt more natural to me.
After that, it was all downhill and uphill battles for me in the search for complete organization. I’ve learned a lot along the way about my own personal needs and about the nature of keeping organized so lets run through those ideas now.
I hope in the future I find a means of organization that feels as natural and exciting to me as my Handspring and Palm PDAs did at one time. Maybe its my fault for not trying hard enough to form a habit with one particular piece of technology, but it seems like everyday there is a more exciting and more promising option for organization that its often hard to focus on one means for too long. Perhaps thats the real problem though, a short attention span. These conundrums aside, I do know one thing for certain when it comes to personal organization. The best method for complete personal organization is the one you stick to completely. So, pick a method, stick it out and see what 2013 brings you!
1. Le Pen by Marvy
2. Sakura Pigma Micron
3. Sharpie Pen
4. Moleskine Classic Rollerball
5. Uni-ball Jetstream
It’s that time of year again! November has come and it’s the National Novel Writing Month in case you haven’t heard! Whether you are a NaNoWriMo vet or a newbie, there are many resources out there to help you get to 50k success at the end of the month. I have rounded up as many of these resources as I could find for you, so hopefully something or other down below will make the month a little easier for you. Happy Noveling!
For Mac Users
Macworld has a number of staff members who partake in nano, here is their article series for success!
Not to be outdone by Macworld, MacLife also has a mini guide to nano-ing that includes some iOS apps as well.
Here’s a Mac app that turns off the internet for a set amount of time, for those of you who are easily distracted by the Internet. Aptly named SelfControl.
For those of you who have an iPad and want to use that to assist you with your noveling efforts, here is a link to a site with some great app suggestions for iOS.
For Linux Users
For those of you out there running Linux, this is a link of 5 Essential Linux Applications for Nanowrimo.
For PC Users
Here is a link to writer’s software and resources for PC users, not nanowrimo branded, but still useful for wrimo’s.
Popular Applications
Here is the link for the Nanowrimo trial version of Scrivener. In case you don’t know, Scrivener is a great application for writers of all types. They are also a sponsor of NaNoWriMo and if you win you can get half off the software!
Here is the link for WriteRoom, one of the distraction free writing applications that full screens your manuscript so you can focus on nothing but writing.
Here is a link to Write or Die, one of the full screen apps that prompts you to write with settings that can prevent you from backspacing, and can even start deleting your work if you procrastinate too long. This also has an iOS app in case you are interested.
Other Misc Resources and Motivation
This link is for timeline-mapping software that may help you keep track of events in your novel.
If you are having trouble naming characters, this website is very useful.
Here is Written? Kitten! Which appears to be a web app where you get a new picture of a cat/kitten once you have hit the interval word goal of your choosing. Helpful for those of you who require a dose of cuteness as positive reinforcement.
Found this series of articles from the Guardian on how to write a novel in 30 days.
A few weeks ago, Apple held a press event. No, not that event, the one about the iPhone, but one a few weeks later that completely escaped my notice. I came home one day from work to find that Apple had done it, they announced the release of a gadget that many had guessed at and I completely dismissed as a figment of our collective imagination. The iPad mini, however, is real and I almost immediately knew I would have to own one. So, I preordered two at 3 o’clock I the morning on October 26th; one black, one white, both 16gb Wifi Only. My fiancé and I had decided that he would sell his first gen iPad and unused 2nd gen iPod Touch to make way for a black model for him, and I would just go all in and get myself the white one. No, I didn’t sell my now outdated 3rd gen iPad that was preordered and delivered in March, only a few short months ago. In fact, I am writing this article on my max-iPad as I have come to call it, and after a weekend with my new iPad mini I know I want to keep this big guy around!
The iPad mini really is a very advanced and very amazing device. Size wise, it is perfect, as even I can hold the device in one hand with my freakishly small hands! It is so well built and sturdy compared not only to other tablets on the market but also the larger iPad, as I feel no compulsion to wrap the iPad mini in a protective case. It really feels sturdy and so well built that it clearly is a high end device worthy of the price tag. The screen is so large on this little guy too! It really doesn’t feel much smaller than the full sized iPad screen, but I attribute that to the thinner edges that give the screen more real estate on the device. One thing that is surprisingly smaller, however, is the home button. It appears to be about two thirds of the size of a home button on an iPad or iPhone. Why is the home button so different? Well, it appears to be proportional with the lower bezel of the device which is thinner than a iPad, but appears to be the same size as an iPhone 4S. Since I don’t seem to have any logical answer for this mini home button, I am going to leave it as one of the mysteries of the world and to the proportion of the display which is really something to be in awe of. After all, the iPad line is all about the display, so lets get to the heart of how the mini stacks up against its bigger brother.
The display is surprisingly bright and vivid. I guess one would expect no less from Apple, but it surprised me mostly because in-hand the device felt like a kindle or e-reader with its thin body and ultralight frame, and to see this beautiful, bright screen was a bit of a surprise. The resolution on the display isn’t bad, either. It certainly isn’t retina quality as going from a retina iPad or iPhone to the mini shows a drastic difference, but in its own right the resolution is not unacceptable. The major flaw of the screen however is very evident when using iPhone applications on the mini. I do use a few iPhone only apps on my iPad, for example Instagram, and on my retina iPad the app isn’t too bad scaled up because of the high quality display, but on the mini the app looks terrible. It’s not completely unusable but the pixels are so obvious that using the app is not the same as on my phone or iPad. Now, this of course could be cured if Instagram had an iPad app, and I am still hoping that they create one to fix this issue and to give iPad and mini users a better experience when using the app on larger screened devices, but the issue remains that iPhone only apps just look bad on the mini.
When running iPad apps, however, the mini does an excellent job and looks great. I have enjoyed using some of my usual iPad apps on the mini, specifically games because I get the best of both worlds when it comes to the screen quality and size of the device itself. I can play action games with more ease because of the size and weight of the mini. Even non gaming apps are easier to use because you can hold the device in one hand and use the other to select or scroll. That was always a little difficult on the iPad because I needed two hands just to hold it sometimes.
As to the size of the device and weight, I think Apple hit a home run. Although there are many similarly sized tablets and e-readers on the market, none quite have the iPad mini’s perfect proportion. Yesterday, I was incredibly excited when I put my mini down for a rest on top of my agenda to find that the device was a perfect match to its dimensions. I know this may seem like an odd thing to be excited about, but when you think of it, these large sized agendas and notebooks have become a standard size for a reason, they fit in well on a desk or in a bag, and in the hand! I think it was great that Apple went with this proportion that fits well in everyday life. It helps that the side bezel is much thinner in portrait mode, because it gives the mini the illusion if a wider screen than it would if the bezel was proportional like the full sized iPad. Personally, I have not had a problem with the thinner side bezel of the mini causing my fingers to make accidental selections. I know Apple improved the finger rejection aspect of the software and it seems to be working as I make far more accidental taps with my iPad than I have so far with the mini.
Overall, the performance of the mini is on point with what we have come to expect from an iPad. Apps run great, web pages load in good speeds, and despite the fact that the home button is inexplicably tiny, it fits in well with Apple’s portable device line up. I did, however, mention that I would not be trading in my retina iPad anytime soon, and that speaks to the biggest flaw of the mini, the resolution. It really seems like a step back from the products apple has been putting out lately and I feel as though Apple made a mistake failing to give this little guy a retina display that all of the current devices use. I am certain that next year the iPad mini will come with a retina display standard, but this first generation has been slightly crippled by this oversight. It is a high end device, however, and it really feels like this was the device the iPad was meant to be all along, sturdy, lightweight, and ultra portable, definitely worth the price and an Apple product none the less!
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