Mitch Joel has tagged me (and several others) after responding to a query from Kevin Behringer, author of the Fly-Over Marketing blog. Here’s Kevin’s question:

How do you manage it all?!?

You read a lot of books, blogs, etc. How do you record it all or track it to actually use it? One of the things I’m struggling with right now.”

The easy answer is that I don’t manage it all. Undoubtedly, stuff falls through the cracks. I’m not aware that I’m letting them fall untilI try to recall them later and can’t find them archived anywhere. As a result, I either spend too much time tracking them down or just give up.

That’s the exception, though, and not the rule. Here’s what I do to keep track of, if not all, most:

FeedDemon

Mitch offers his unqualified support for the Google Reader. Despite regular pressure to adopt it, I remain a committed FeedDemon user for RSS feeds. I haven’t found anything Google Reader does that FeedDemon doesn’t; then there are the benefits specific to FeedDemon, mainly the synchronization feature. I have a copies of NewsGator’s software on my desktop and my laptop. I maintain a NewsGator Online account. And I have a copy of NewsGator Go! on my Sprint Mogul. Whenever I do anything to my account on any one of these platforms, it automatically updates the others. I’m also able to select items to include in my link blog and can store others in a bin that will remain available, exclusively for my eyes, for as long as I want to be able to refer to them.

Evernote

I’m becoming more and more hooked on Evernote, which is like having a memory that doesn’t fail. Anything I want to remember—a web page (or a snippet from the page), an email, an image, a note I create myself, you name it—goes into Evernote which I can access from a web interface or an even more useful app on my computer. Want to make sure you don’t forget anything? Evernote’s the answer.

del.icio.us

The big drawback to any feed reader, whether it’s the Google Reader, FeedDemon, or some other utility, is that you can only manage items in the feeds to which you subscribe. What do you do with links you find elsewhere? For me, del.icio.us is the answer, primarily because of its tagging foundation.

Jott

While the tools above are great when you’re on your computer, what do you do when you want to remember something and you’re nowhere near a computer? I call the note into my Jott account, which is programmed into my cell phone. I hear something on the car radio or read it in a book while sitting at an airport terminal, I just call Jott and dictate what I want to remember. It shows up as an email reminder right away, so I can then save it to del.icio.us.

The Bat

For a variety of reasons, I gave up on Outlook some time ago. The Bat is a simple, fast, clean email client that still gives me the ability to create folders and subfolders to manage the flood. Three key folders for me are REPLY NOW, RETAIN, and READING. Their functions are exactly what the labels suggest.

I Want Sandy

The Bat, as great an email client as it is, has a lousy calendar/scheduler. But that’s okay, since I use I Want Sandy anyway. Sandy gives me my day’s agenda and reminds me as appointments are coming up. Sandy also stores my to-do’s, all of which can be accomplished by sending Sandy an email or CCing her on an email to somebody else. I can even forward my Jott reminders to Sandy and they show up in the right list. Couldn’t be easier.

Cell phone notes

Finally, I keep about a dozen notes on my Sprint Mogul, items to which I may need to refer from anywhere. For example, I have all the login information to the two servers I manage, and the sequence of actions for addressing a database meltdown on my primary server.

Passing the tag along

Since Mitch tagged me, I feel obliged to tag others. So, how do you keep track of it all…

• Pete Blackshaw
• Neville Hobson
• Dan York
• Katie Paine
• Mike Manuel