By Karen Blum
There is no magic secret for writers when it comes to organizing your materials and time but there are a number of tools that could help, said panelists at NASW’s session on “Online and Offline Tools for Mastering Your Workflow.”
Keep it simple, and figure out how you work best when it comes to exploring options to manage your workflow, said Christie Aschwanden, a freelance journalist and managing editor of The Open Notebook. Organization tools can become procrastination tools if you spend too much time tinkering with them, she said.
Aschwanden said her favorite work tools include a timer and a Planner Pad organizer (plannerpads.com). She uses the timer to set specific chunks of time for email, social media, or writing. Using the Planner Pad, Aschwanden organizes her to-do lists by priority and can view a week’s schedule at a time. Don’t try to schedule too much, she advised, and make sure to set aside time for pleasure reading or other activities you enjoy.
There are several computerized tools available to help writers, said Seth Mnookin, author, freelance journalist and co-director of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing; and Maryn McKenna, author, contributing editor to Scientific American and blogger at wired.com. They recommended a range of tools, some of which are for Mac computers but have PC equivalents, including:
- Divvy (Mac application) – a tool to divvy your screen into exact portions to view different applications without having to toggle between windows.
- Path Finder (Mac application) – a tool to access and manage files.
- BusyCal (Mac application) – a customizable calendar that incorporates to-do lists.
- Call Recorder for Skype (Mac application) – an add-on tool for Skype that records conversations and can replay them as movies or sound files.
- Pear Note (Mac application) – a note-taking utility for Mac that records audio, video and slides while you take notes.
- ReadCube and Sente – academic reference tools to organize .pdf files and other documents.
- Scrivener – a word-processing program for authors that provides a management system for notes, documents and data.
- OmniOutliner – Mac software allowing the creation of comprehensive outlines.
- DEVONThink and Evernote – applications to organize and archive assorted documents, video and sound files.
- FileMaker – software that can be used to build spreadsheets or chronologies.
- Aeon Timeline – a Mac/Windows timeline app.
Although we all want something for free, Mnookin and McKenna said good software is worth the investment. And, for a small fee, Skype can be used to call landlines, avoiding the dance of exchanging Skype IDs with your interviewees.
But don’t become too reliant on technology, said Robert Lee Hotz, science writer at the Wall Street Journal and distinguished writer in residence at New York University. With rapid evolution, you may or may not be able to read digital files a decade from now, or even sooner, he said, citing the progression of data storage tools from punch cards to floppy disks to flash drives and clouds. And, he added, “We have not mastered our clutter simply because we have made it digital.” Out of sight means out of mind, and it may be difficult to retrieve your stored notes later, out of forgetfulness or incompatible technology.
Writers have to create their own paper trails, said Hotz, who, in addition to storing information digitally, prints out anything crucial to his stories after finishing them and puts it into file folders. It’s easy to re-visit information in paper files, he said, and that often spurs new story ideas.
As evidence, Hotz closed with a slide of one of the oldest pieces of science writing --- the Edwin Smith papyrus, an ancient Egyptian medical document dating to 1500 BCE that provided a rational, scientific approach to the treatment of wounds and traumas: “It’s 3,500 years old, and we can still read it.”
Also see: Storified tweets from this session.
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