Becoming An Organizational Genius: The Tickler File

Want to organize your blogging? Try using a tickler file. The Daring Novelist writes:

A tickler file is made up of 43 folders, always.  It doesn't matter how big or small, or how complicated the jobs it is designed to take care of.  It's always that length, because it's actually a physical manifestation of a perpetual calendar.  It helps any production office keep it's editorial calendar in order.

There are 31 folders representing the days of the month (numbered 1- 31), and 12 more folders representing the months of the year.

As you come up with stories and material, you schedule them by dropping them into the appropriate folder.  For things more than a month away, you don't worry about the exact date, you just drop it in a month folder.  For things coming up in the next 31 days, you drop it in the days folder.

Each day you begin by pulling out the folder for the day, and taking out the items to be worked on.  Then you cycle the empty folder to the back of the stack of days, so it's ready for next month. When you're ready to schedule a new month, you pull that folder, distribute what's in it to the right "days" folders, and then stick it in the back of the "months" batch, to be ready for next year.

Productivity gurus (such as David Allen of Getting Things Done) love to use tickler files to organize their whole lives.  It's designed, after all, to make simple order out of the chaos of a busy production office.  However,  the tickler file was designed for deadlines, and that's where it really shines.  With a newspaper office you have to put the issue out every single day -- so it's not just a to do list, it's a must do list.

This emphasis on publishing and deadlines makes it a natural for a blog.

Read the rest of this wonderful article here: Organizing the Blog - The Tickler File.

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