Multiple Sites - How do you juggle em?

DDixon

DDixon

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So, I know a lot of us are working on multiple properties at the same time.

I know I have trouble keeping everything organized, between email and social accounts, passwords, etc.

So far - I've learned to love lastpass. It just gets better and better.
I use at least two or three different browser instances depending upon what I'm working on.
And at least 2 "main" and completely separate email accounts that others feed into.

How do you guys do it?
Your best tools for staying organized on multiple properties?
How separated do you ultimately keep everything?
 
When I feel like I'm at a point where I need to start juggling, it means I'm holding too many things so I start to take inventory.

1) List all of your current and on-going projects.
2) Cross-off everything that's good to go. (If a project is waiting for you to do anything to it, don't cross it off.) If there's a site that doesn't need me to do anything to it for at least a month, I take it off my plate and let it do it's thing.
3) Work on making this list smaller and smaller ASAP. All the shit that needs a couple hours until it's ready to cross off, I tackle that right away, cross it off. My list is smaller, and my mind is slowly becoming more organized.

Once I've got the fat trimmed away, focus will come a lot more easily and things will naturally start to be more organized because there's less overall to deal with period. Nothing will clutter up your entire life and kill all productivity like a bunch of half-finished projects mucking up the gears.

Obviously a lot of projects are going to consist of more than one site, so you can group them together as necessary. I like to take cue cards and reporter's pads and group together my projects. Just organizing things on paper really helps to organize it in my mind, and when you have things organized the same way on the computer then it's smooth sailing. Here's how I do that...

  • Pinning tabs to my browser that I use a lot for a particular project. They take up less space, and they're always there like "Work on me. Work on me. Work on me." I'll use different browsers for different projects like OP does, and I'll keep all the essential stuff pinned for easy-access...
  • I try to organize everything in whichever way leaves the LEAST space in-between me thinking about a project and being able to immediately start working on it. Everything relating to a project is stored in the same folder so it's all always together and easy to find. If I find myself doing some little task too often for any given projects, I find a way to simplify it. It's ALWAYS worth the effort to find the smoothest path. The less little shit in between me and my project = the more that gets done, the more exciting I am to work on it, and the more creative I have room to be.
  • ORGANIZE YOUR DESKTOP! I use a system of folders labeled DESK / DRAWER / SHELF / GARAGE. Desk = Stuff that would be on my desk if we didn't use computers. Stuff I'm working on right now, programs I use all the time.
Drawer = Stuff that you don't use every day but you still use often enough and want to have in arm's reach without cluttering up your desk.
Shelf = Stuff that you'll use every now and then, but rarely enough that you don't mind getting up and walking across the room to grab.
Garage = Stuff you barely use, maybe your tax program that you fire up once a year, storage of old files and documents, work you've completed and don't need anymore but don't want to delete either.

That's how I keep everything organized. If anything has any tips or advice on how I can improve that let me know.

TLDR: Get rid of as many things as you can, finish up as much as you can for what's left, then create systems that make it easier and easier to stay up to date with everything that's on-going.
 
I agree. A small to-do list, a clean desktop, etc... all of that leads to a clear mind that can focus.

I use Excel and Wunderlist right now. I have a "master' excel file that has all of the pertinent URLs, logins, passwords, sites, notes. I have Wunderlist as a to-do program that I don't use as much as just a text file. I've yet to find a to-do program that's really that good. I'd like to start using the Kanban system and test that out too.
 
Are you guys worried at all that one of these cloud password platforms will get hacked at some time?
 
Samwise89 said:
Are you guys worried at all that one of these cloud password platforms will get hacked at some time?
Click to expand...

No, not in the slightest. Here's a decent article about how LastPass works. Nothing is 100% secure, of course, but LP has features that are really useful, it will audit to make sure I'm not using the same PW on multiple sites, etc.
 
How do you guys do it?
Learn to manage your projects, buy planing them like an appendix, or an index, put big steps and sub steps arranged with tools and notes you need to use or do.

Arrange all of that in a time schema or tables maybe you can use mind maps works well for me when I do my projects, make sure to have some level of control on your time if you don't do that your projects wouldn't complete or even advance to a minimal scale.


Your best tools for staying organized on multiple properties?

-Desktop : Notepad ++, Lastpass, Openoffice, klokwork (Time management software)
Producteev (Project management software ) you can find alternatives. I don't use social platforms, or email (only to register sites or pay for something).

-Notepad and a pen.

-Phone: I don't use it much only if I have an appointment.


How separated do you ultimately keep everything?

Time is the key.
 
I agree with Hitman above. You can create a very detailed and sophisticated time table of events based on +1 day, +1 week, instead of October 4th. This way it doesn't matter when you start the project. What this also does is let you create a rolling roll-out period.

You can start a site a week and let them all flow through the time table. You'll be rotating through all of the different actions you've laid out, improve upon them as you go, and always have new projects getting out there with a foundation laid.

The thing is, all sites are different so it really only works as a foundation unless you know that you're targeting a certain level of competition where this will take you to the top each time.
 
The most effective way of managing multiple sites/projects/etc for me has been chrome and excel and DropBox.

I keep EVERYTHING in different master excel sheets. Logins, hosting, metrics, rankings, links, etc etc. I also use Trello.com to organize my different projects. I'll use different boards for clients, personal projects, VA to-do's etc. and various to-do lists within each board for my various projects. And I use DropBox to share files. I then have separate Chrome Logins/profiles for each of my sites/clients so I have easy access to anything I need per project.

The reason I like excel is because i want to SEE what my password is, in case I ever need it and don't have access to MY chrome or lastpass/etc.

It's a bit intense, but makes it easiest for the way I work. I may switch it up, but for now it's been fine.
 
Have you taken a look at something like keypass? http://keepass.info It's a pretty decent password manager I've been using for several years and it works well for me. It has plugins for Dropbox, SCP/SFTP, WebDAV, etc or you can keep the password DBs on a portable drive, network drive or locally. Definitely worth a look.
 
I actually purchased a project management system off of CodeCanyon for this. The best part is that as my projects grow so the does the software, which is handy.
 
Im in agreement with the excel tracking - I have sinced move from G mail over to outlook email account and there onelive accounts are great. You can save all Excel files, Word files online, Edit them online and View them online through your browser! Like google docs, but without the prying eyes!
 
Clint Butler said:
I actually purchased a project management system off of CodeCanyon for this. The best part is that as my projects grow so the does the software, which is handy.
Click to expand...

Could you share with us which one you purchased? I'm highly interested in seeing this. I'm always on the hunt for better organizational software.
 
@ddasilva Would you be willing to share some insights into what your workflow/setup is like for Excel and Asana and how you use them? Just vaguely would be really helpful to me. Thank you in advance!
 
Vernon2014 said:
@ddasilva Would you be willing to share some insights into what your workflow/setup is like for Excel and Asana and how you use them? Just vaguely would be really helpful to me. Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...

There is some overlap for what you can organize/track via excel and Asana. But here is how I typically organize things.

For excel, I create a new tab for every web site that I launch. Within each tab, I'll keep track of all the links I've built/purchased in separate rows.
  • Column 1: Type of Links I Built or Purchased From Provider
  • Column 2: Price
  • Column 3: Date Started
  • Column 4: Anchors Used/Pages Targeted
  • Column 5: Date Completed
Excel basically just gives me a birdseye view of the links I've built for the site, when they were started/completed, and anchor usage. If I'm using a private PBN, I'll also input the exact URLs to the posts pointing to my site, so I can boost them with more links.

For Asana, it just helps me stay organized and keep track of what I've already done and what I need to do. So I'll create a project for each site that I work on. And I'll come up with a to-do list for everything that I need to do to take the site from idea to reality. Example tasks would be:

  • Keyword Research
  • Setup and Configure Wordpress
  • Setup Site Structure/Layout
  • Setup CDN and Get Page Speed Above 90
  • Order Base Content For Site Launch
  • Order Press Release
  • etc....
So Asana is basically my to-do list, and helps me keep things on track while juggling multiple projects. You can also break down tasks into sub-tasks, add notes to each task, etc.... So you can also use it to keep track of the links you've built as well, like I do with excel.

Hope this helps.
 
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