Author: Munro Stewart

Add separators to your taskbar to keep them organized in groups, help you focus, and keep your mind clearer, possibly in groups of 6 apps together.

Three useful tricks for organizing your messy Windows taskbar - Lifehacker

If you've ever wanted to group your apps into separate spaces on your taskbar, you actually can - with a little help from this workaround we've talked about before. All you need to do is create a shortcut to a fake EXE file, give it a transparent icon, and add it to your taskbar. You can separate your office apps from your games, or even your slow-loading apps from your fast-loading apps - that way, if you accidentally click on the wrong button, you don't have to wait 60 seconds for the wrong app to load before you close it. Check out our original post for the full rundown on how this works.

Consider using simple text files to help you get things done and keep track of your tasks, todo lists, projects, and goals, instead of using a complicated tasks app.

Amazing Mac apps for getting things done (plus a custom-rigged setup) - Zen Habits

While I love the apps mentioned above, I personally look for super simple. So I’ve settled on a setup taken from Gina and Adam’s articles on Lifehacker (read the tutorials: Geek to Live and Hack Attack). Text files: Basically, I organize my tasks in a series of text files. That’s because they’re super simple, easy to manipulate, and small. My four files:

• @today: my three MITs for today, along with calls, batch tasks, and an inbox for new things added to the list.
• @ideas: any ideas for projects, posts, or anything really.
• @errands: includes regular errands and my shopping list.
• @todo: my list of 3 projects I’m working on and any other todo items I’m not going to do today.

Simplify the amount of folders you use by organizing your documents into folders by type, and only creating albums, groupings, or project folders when necessary.

Geek To Live: Organizing my documents - Lifehacker

There are a million and one ways to arrange files and folders on disk. Some might argue that spending a moment even thinking about it in the age of desktop search is unnecessary. That may be true, but some semblance of order will clear your desktop and your mind and make you "ready for anything." Over the years I've come up with a six folder structure for "My Documents" which I create on every computer I use without fail. This scheme accommodates every file I might come across, keeps my desktop clear, smoothly fits in with an automated backup system and also makes command line file wrangling a breeze.