Productivity Tools for Bloggers

Barb Dybwad at Mashable: The Social Media Guide offers "20 Simple Productivity Tools for Bloggers," which guides readers to resources for improving blogging workflow. She groups her recommendations into these categories:

• Multiple Clipboard Tools
• Blog Right from Firefox with Scribefire
• Save Typing Time with Text Shortcuts
• Firefox Extensions for Working with Text
• Site-Specific Browsers
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Edit Images Right In Your Browser

Happy blogging!

15 Essential Web Tools for Students

A recent Mashable post by Josh Catone offers a guide to 15 Essential Web Tools for Students, plus links to the tools and tips for using them. With all the tasks everyone manages every day, these tools are very handy.

• Stay Organized: web applications to help you get and stay organized.
• Evernote -- note taking tool that lets you sync notes between the web, your phone, and any computer
• Notely -- solution for taking notes and staying organized
• GradeMate -- organizer for creating to-do lists, managing due dates, and collaborating
• Backpack -- tool for keeping research organized
  
  
• Study Better: web tools to help you get the most out of your study time.
• StudyRails -- for people who have trouble blocking out distractions when it comes time to study
• Diggo -- web-based highlighter and sticky note system for annotating your web research and sharing work with classmates
• Delicious -- tool for collecting web resources for a class, project, or paper under a single tag
• Mindmeister -- organize your thoughts and research through mind maps
  
  
• Work and Collaborate: web-based and social tools that help you get your work done and collaborate with others on group projects.
• Google Docs -- online word processing and spreadsheets applications that let you work together on group assignments
• EtherPad --collaboration tool that lets a group of people edit a document at the same time and see what everyone is writing as they write it
• Sliderocket -- online presentation building tool for creating multimedia presentations that are accessible from anywhere
• Wikidot -- a simple, wiki hosting solution for creating an unlimited number of wiki pages to organize projects and group research
  
  
• Cite Right: tools to help you keep track of your sources and cite them properly.
• CiteMe -- search the world’s largest library catalog by title, author, subject, or ISBN and get formatted citations in APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Turabian style
• EasyBib -- automatically create citations in APA, Chicago/Turabian, and MLA styles
• Zotero -- automatically collects your research sources and lets you create citations in any of one of over a thousand different styles

Check 'em out!

Tips for Managing Social Media Profiles

If you have several social media profiles (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc.), you've no doubt discovered how time consuming it is to

• make sure your pictures and personal info stay current,
• keep spam deleted,
• update contact lists, and so on.

To get some tips for efficiently dealing with these tasks, check out Ben Parr’s How To: Manage Multiple Social Media Profiles post on Mashable: The Social Media Guide. He notes that creating consistency in your web presence and keeping content updated and fresh are vital. However, with "a little upfront effort, the task of maintaining multiple profiles can be less tedious, freeing up time to better connect with other people."

In his post, Parr outlines five steps in this process:

1. Understand your Current Position:
   Find out where you have and don't have profiles using Check User Names,
2. Choose Your Platforms Realistically:
   Figure out which ones work best for you.
3. Organize!
   Find a system and stick with it.
4. Automate and Combine Your Profiles
   Use services such as Ping.fm, Twitterfeed, and Atomkeep to update your profiles.
5. Keep it Fresh
   Use tools like Shareaholic to make updating content easier.

Get Tips for Managing Email

With the campus switching to the Microsoft Live@Edu email service (more information), now's a great time to learn ways to better manage the ever-increasing number of email messages that hit your inbox.

Several online forums offer tips for managing email. For example, TechProse offers Managing Email, which gives suggestions for

• breaking the pattern of continuous interruption,
• organizing emails, and
• writing emails.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders offers Five Fast Email Productivity Tips that will help you "take back your day" from the email barrage.

Finally, you can get lots more tips from the 13 brief articles listed and linked on Helium's Time Efficient Tips for Managing Your Email.

Time Management

Are you having trouble with time management? Would you like some pointers on organizing yourself? While David Allen's site on Getting Things Done offers individual or corporate coaching services, there is also plenty to be learned for free! One favorite tip is if a task takes two minutes or less, get off the couch, and DO IT.

Another personal favorite is a weekly plan. Make a two-column file. On the left side write your plans for the week, and on the right side write what you did. Add to the to-do side as things come up during the week. Move undone todos to the following week.

If you have *time* to get into this into more depth, the library has books! Use subject headings such as 'Personal Information Management' or 'Time Management'. Be sure and use the dropdown list and select 'Subject'--it will save you....time.

Note to instructors: the Student Counseling Center gives presentations on Time Management and the library gives presentations on Research Time-Savers (contact Yvonne Mulhern at X9934).

Share YOUR favorite tips!