The Office Gal

Regardless of how you work – corporate, home office, or freelancer – the following items will be positive tools to add to your arsenal of productivity weapons.  I use each item on the list and together they perform to give me a solid foundation to handle projects and clients.

1. A must for a home office or freelancer – PC and Internet. I use a laptop and wireless cable. This gives me the most flexibility, so that I am able to move about in my home, as well as the advantage of taking my laptop on the go so that I can blog while I travel.

2. The loud thinker is what I call this tool, you know it as a whiteboard. Have you ever seen House? Well, Dr. House thinks out loud – he uses the whiteboard to write out thoughts and then creates a sort of flow chart with them. I use the same concept.

3. With the amount of blogs I work on, I have to keep a calendar of my schedule, what is being written, and deadlines. You can call it a planning calendar, many call it an editorial calendar, regardless of the name you want to use, the purpose is to keep track of every project going on.

4. Laugh all you want, but a simple notepad and pen is an awesome tool. When I am on the go, I usually have an idea, see something, or have people throw information at me, so I take out the notepad and jot it down. 

5. Another tool that I should use more than what I do is a timer. Timing is priority when you have deadlines to meet. Morning planning, reviewing e-mails, making telephone calls, reading sites and blogs, these are all things that need to be timed and monitored so that most of your time goes to producing quality projects for your clients or company.

Now of course these are my top 5, but a top 5 that many others may be using. What is your top 5?

Are you the organized pile filer that knows exactly where every piece of paper is until you need it? I am too, but no need to worry, it is easy to convert your creative filing style to a simple, basic filing system.

Filing products galore can be found virtually everywhere, from national chains like Office Depot and Staples to your local office supply store. There are also a ton of web sites that offer a great amount of office supplies including furniture that is both stylish and functional.

Choosing the best filing system all depends on how you work. Do you like to keep current projects in front of you? Do you like to have a clean, uncluttered desk at the end of the day? Using your personal preferences will help you determine the best way to file to keep you current, yet uncluttered.

1. Choose your filing system. Using a desk filing system will keep current projects or client in front of you at all times. This will also allow for easy access to your files. Using a filing cabinet will help you to keep projects as you complete them, as well as archive older projects and clients that are hardly to never accessed. Make sure which ever system is chosen, will stand up to wear and tear and constant abuse from opening and shutting.

2. Location. You should be able to easily access your files, but not to the extent that your system is in your way; your system should not interfere with your work. Pick a location in the corner of your desk or under your desk, so files are kept close, but out of the way. If you use a cabinet for only archiving, you may want to keep it located in a basement, unseen.

3. Filing. Instead of filing throughout the day have a drop location where finalized projects and work can accumulate. Then once per week or month, take your drop location and file. If you notice you are spending too much time at your scheduled filing time, you may want to move to a more frequent filing schedule.

4. Review & Recycle. Pick a schedule, maybe every two or three months – more or less – and review your files. Decide what really should be kept, the rest can go through the recycle program – shred it and then take it to a local vet or recycling center.

5. Archive. Again, on a regular schedule, remove those files that are a must keep, but are no longer looked at and move them to a drawer or cabinet reserved for archived folders. This is the out-of-the-way cabinet kept in the basement, unseen.

If you haven’t read The Right Tool For Blogging – Part 1 click here.

OK… so, I downloaded Windows Live Writer and gave it a whirl now it is time for Blog Desk.

Blog Desk Offline Weblog Editor

Well, right off the bat, the look is much different – very basic, but that doesn’t mean bad. I am using Blog Desk now to write this post and writing and formatting is not different then Windows Live Writer. You are still given the same excellent features – creating links, adding pictures, creating tags for Technorati, and even a space for trackbacks. Still a very usable, friendly format.

I do like that you are able to save your post as a file for future reference or to use as a backup, just in case. Windows Live Writer gave me the option to Save As Draft , but I could not save it as a file for backup.

One big that I noticed with Blog Desk is when you first begin set-up it does not automatically begin the process to set-up your first blog. You will need to manually set up your first blog by going to File – Manage blogs .

I did try the Preview view several times to see what my post would look like once uploaded, but it would not give me a preview on the actual blog page. Unfortunately, that is one reason why I might not continue to use this editor.

Honestly, there aren’t many difference between the two editors that I can see other than the visual and view options, both worked extremely well and I would say that it will come down to personal opinion which editor you choose.

So there you have it, a simple look at both the Blog Desk and Windows Live Writer offline weblog editors. Go take a peek at the sites for yourself and see which one will work best for you. I do suggest that you download them both and do a couple of test runs because this will be your best process to decided which one is best for you.

I do want to thank Jennifer Chait and Freelance Writing Jobs for discussing offline editors in her post Help My Post Vanished! Jennifer’s post gave me the idea to take this little journey.

Learning about a new tool for blogging is as wonderful as opening a present up on Christmas morning; exhilaration as you rip open the wrapping to find a box full of – gift cards. OK, so I am a bit difficult to buy gifts for, but there is nothing difficult about the choice to switch to an offline weblog editor.

Although offline weblog editors are not new, I just recently learned of this tool and so far I am pleased with what I am seeing. Currently, I use Word to write all of my posts and then upload into my blog. Formatting of pictures and links are usually always lost and re-working can become frustrating and time consuming. So, when I heard of the editors, I needed to give them a look see.

Two editors commonly used for Windows operating systems are Blog Desk and Windows Live Writer. I wanted to make sure that I gave them both a fair chance to win me over, so I have downloaded both to give them a test drive. This post – Part 1 – has been created with Windows Live Writer. See below for my thoughts.

Windows Live Writer

Downloading was extremely easy and the look is traditional Windows theme. I am actually using the Windows editor right now and so far, so good. One feature that I really like is the Web Preview view. Yes, you are given several view options in Word, but this particular view allows me to see exactly what my post will look like once in my blog.

There are of course all the bells and whistles like adding pictures, inserting links, videos, and tables plus you have the added feature of looking through additional plug-ins to gain more options. The wonderful thing about editors, you won’t lose formatting once you upload to your blog. Wonderful! Another great feature, Writer will publish your post for you directly into your blog, so no having to open up the blog editor to copy.

The only issue so far – the Web Layout view. When I chose this view to type in it skews the look of my post. I have yet to have a clear view of what I am typing. I thought this was a downloading issue, so it was removed and downloaded again, same results. After writing this post, I realized the view really depends on the theme that used for your blog. So, if you choose to use Windows Live Writer just be aware that you might have an issue with this view. All in all, I am very pleased with this editor.

OK…now on to Blog Desk.

Click here for The Right Tool For Blogging – Part 2. 

I do want to thank Jennifer Chait and Freelance Writing Jobs for discussing offline editors in her post Help My Post Vanished! Jennifer’s post gave me the idea to take this little journey.