Truly, in the top three things you need when working online is organization. You need an organized file system on your computer, an organized schedule and an organized game plan for making money, i.e. an automated system.

If your files are disorganized on your laptop/desktop, you spent a lot of valuable time looking around for things. Even with a search function, online bookmarks, and search history online, it can get hairy when you’re looking for a document that had a quote in it you’d like to use — only you can’t remember who said it, what the context was, or any particular phrase from what was said.

For your computer file system, you can file by type of document, the purpose of the document, author, there are many choices that all depend on what you’re attempting to do. For example, the movie review site I’m starting needs its own organizational system within this system. I find it most useful for a site like that to organize by genre, then actor, then director. The small market we’re going to serve typically likes three specific niches, which each have two or three sub-niches. So since we’re mostly going to post by niche, we organize information by niche as well.

If you’re not organized yet, sometimes Google Desktop can help you get sorted out. Once you install it, and it’s done indexing your drive (which may take a few days, depending on your system and how much you’ve got on it.) It’s available on the three most common platforms, including Linux. Of course if you’re a privacy stickler, you’ll have to weigh convenience against privacy.

[ aside ] I am personally not as concerned about Google having access to what I’m searching for, or what is on my computer, as I don’t see them as nefarious or evil - I’m really not so important that the contents of my computer will change the world as we know it. Of course, I’d be mortified if the information eventually got passed along to an entity I did see as malevolent.. but on the other hand, if dark forces that come to rule the world eventually want to control my laptop, they eventually will figure it out.

See? Nothing to worry about either way, and this comes from a fairly paranoid person. [ /aside ]

Once you have Google Desktop, it’s important to organize what you already have - do searches by file type, and by keyword to help you file the documents you find.

As far as keeping track of what you’re researching and studying online, that’s a bit harder. Again, if you’re cool with Google poking around your insides, you could go for Google search history. That way, if you know you accessed a page, but don’t remember the details of it, a bit of digging will help you find it if you can remember approximately when you used it.

Furthermore, you can get yourself into the habit of using social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us. There are literally dozens of these sites, and if you find yourself gathering news for different sites or varying purposes, you could use different sites for different types of bookmarking.

The game plan part? Not as simple, particularly for an online business.

You need a business plan, a system for traffic generation that is compatible with your site, a financial plan (for both incoming and outgoing funds - which isn’t always directly part of your business plan), and a way to automate your sales process so that, if you’re successful, you don’t have to dedicate your own time, or other human resources, to manually accepting and processing orders.

Everything outside of the business plan will have to be another article for another day, so consider this a head-up on that end. However you decide to take action, organization is key because time is often critical. Being highly organized will save you a lot of time.

[tags]organize, get organized, getting organized, online organization, google desktop, using google desktop to organize, [/tags]