Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Planner Organizer Crazy!

I'm supposed to be looking for ways to teach kids about running their
own planner and getting them organized and self-sufficient.

Instead, I ran across the improvements in Google Desktop. WOW!
There's crap in there that I didn't know I needed. Did you know that
you can tell your computer when you toss in a load of laundry, and
it'll tell you when the washer should be done!

Google Desktop http://desktop.google.com/

Google Gadgets http://desktop.google.com/plugins/sidebar/
So far, I like the sketch pad for notes, the to do list, and the photo
thing (not sure what that was called), and I have to restart to get
the laundry one going. (I wonder if it tracks how many loads? Maybe
it'll buy me a drink when I hit 100 )

I did remove lots of things that I won't use - Stocks, weather, email,
network monitor. But, it looks like a very cool idea. I do happen to
know that one of the reasons that make Google a great company is that
employees are encouraged to take a certain percentage of their time to
work on "their" projects and interests, and they encourage independent
people to submit their projects.

First, I forgot to add that there is a "Google Pack" of good stuff to
download like Google Earth, Picasa, and Norton. (Symantec is better,
but free is good too) at http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ (the
pack is at bottom right)

And, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx is the
address for the templates that I was looking for. There's a new
"Student ID" under the education section, and I use the Fitness Chart
for Women and the weekly meal planner quite often. I took a chart
that looked like what I wanted (Project To Do list?) and made it into
my chore chart that I've offered to share.

If you know how to save your form every so often, and use control Z to
kill the things that aren't working (it means back up one step) - then
it's pretty easy to change things around and make it fit you better.
I like using the templates because I'm not so good at starting things
from scratch, but I can set up nice things pretty well if I have
something to start with.

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