I have recently run into an odd situation at work i never expected. I work in a silica sand mining plant as a night shift supervisor. recently one of our other plants close by ran into some hard times and they reassigned its manager, superintendent, and several others to other plants. As i worked there 24 years before transferring 4 years ago to the silica plant, They have reassigned me there to cover all the vacant positions as needed. To say i am overwhelmed is a little bit of an understatement. I am meeting with and overseeing all the plants contacts with vendors, customers, regulatory agencies etc. etc. My to do lists are growing exponentialy. I have been jotting down notes and such to try to keep up with everything. but i need something more. Does anybody have any suggestions for personal organizors or software that would make things easier? Most of the time i have access to a pc. but a lot of times i dont. I think i can handle the job okay if i can keep track of everything. Its kinda like multi-tasking while multi-tasking. haha

 

Do you have a smart phone?
Most of them have some type of organizer, scheduler, task reminder etc....
Put everything in it and be sure to sync it to your PC or laptop.
I would probably go through it at the end of your day and write down everything on paper to be absolutely sure that you don't miss anything.
Sounds like the company is on hard times and cutting cost. You don't want to make a mistake and inadvertently become one of those cuts because of it.

 

I have a similar situation as I have to track 20 rigs. I have a dumb smart phone, but it has a calendar with an alarm. I use the calendar to set appointments every day and to put deadlines in. I usually set alerts for deadlines a day in advance. I then take a tally book and write down my days activities and then at night after dinner I update my phone calendar. In my tally book I have a couple of small sticky notes for tabs. One is due today, one is notes and one is to be entered into the phone. Daily meetings are repeated so they only get entered once, and put on a repeat cycle with a 15 or 20 minute lead alarm.

I do use my computer, but only for large items, i.e. presentations, meetings with the brass, and conference calls where I need to have materials prepared in advance. Other than that, my phone and my tally book are my mainstays.

The biggest thing I have found helpful is to schedule yourself into your day. Take 10 or 20 minutes everyday to plan and schedule everything and to update your calendar. I have also found it most helpful to do that at the end of the day while things are fresh. Then the next morning, everything is set up and ready to go. Make your calls and hit the ground running.

Honestly I have found most calendar programs are way to detailed and you loose to much time entering in stuff. They can actually be a waist of time. I have found there is no replacement for a tally book, and a pen. I basically use my phone for the alarm feature to give me a heads up so I can at least seem prepared.

There are book type organizers that have paper that you can print from the computer and put in the book if you like. but you have to synch constantly and if you get behind, catching up is a real pain. I just try to keep it simple and straight forward.

HTH!!! Sounds like a significant vote of confidence by your superiors!!! You must have done a great job and made a great impression!!! WAY TO GO!!!

 

Thnx for the tips guys. I too was thinking maybe some sort of smart phone. I have started today in writing down the days events in a small calender book and recording future events on the day they will be due. be a good idea to sync a phone calender to it for at least a few days warning. Staying organized will be the key to suceeding in this. I am just gonna have to take the time neccesary to do it.
I got a kick about your comment on my superiors wyododge. They have blown a lot of sunshine at me to take this job. mostly because i dont think they wanted it. haha The company as a whole is doing good, we have over 60 plants worldwide. This particular one has really deteriorated. lost a lot of customers as its product is used in the housing market mostly. I have increased its business (at least in the short term) by about 40% since late january. I think their original plan was to evaluate whether they wanted to keep it open or not. If things keep progressing, i think we can save it. The wildest thing about this whole mess is the supervisors there used to be my boss when i was there before. Now the roles are reversed and that has made things very interesting to say the least. But things are going better than i expected. I used to pray corporate would send someone to fix the problems there when i worked there. Never in a million years would i have thought that it would be me they would send. The old saying is true. "be careful what you wish for". But the best part is i have a guaranteed ticket out of there if it all goes south.

 

Have you looked at the small netbooks like Asus, Acer, Dell, etc.?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-805-_-Product




-Kris

 

Actually HMX-1 i intend to look at that option this weekend, Just hope i can find a salesman who knows a little something about them and what they can do or not do. The ability to use excel files and word in the field on the go would be great. thnx

 

On my smart phone I can make voice memos, as well as lists and calendar entries. Just thought the voice memo function may be handy for you to record an idea quickly before it is lost. It's faster than writing and you can do it while driving or walking.

 

I use my work phone (Crackberry) and my personal phone (Droid) calendars daily to make sure I don't forget things. I have daily, weekly, and monthly reminders. Mostly like what has been said above.

 

I'm not a salesman, I'm an IT guy by trade (build desktops, laptops, servers, currently providing network security for USF-I at a COB in Iraq) and have been doing this since I joined the Marines in 1991.

The Acer netbook I posted from Newegg will do what you need it to ..... Outlook, Excel, Word, internet, etc.. It doesn't come with a CD/DVD drive but that's because none of them do, so you'll need to get a decent thumb drive (USB stick) or an external USB 3.0 DVD drive.



Whatever you get, make sure it has more than 1GB of RAM or you can upgrade it. Most of the models out there can't get a RAM upgrade and Windows loves having extra memory to run right.





-Kris

 

I have an iphone and have also used a android for work they are great and sink up to pc's and macs. You can look at word and excel files with both, as well as keep up with emails and scheduling without making several trips back to the office (increased production). They also have notepad functions that you can use for quick notes if you don't have a pen and paper handy, I use mine often for keeping track of codes and part numbers for all my vehicles and forklifts. My first smartphone was a crackberry(as rockcrawler called it) and i hated it, NOT user friendly at all compared to the others.

In any case a good smartphone will save you a lot of headaches.

 

As others have said get a smart phone with a calendar that is compatible with your email calendar.
As I tell the one's I work with, if its not on my calendar, I dont know about it. I keep my lunch hour plus thirty minutes blocked out. I use this time to get something to eat and to make any adjustments to my calendar.
Honestly, whether its electronic or a pen and pad, its discipline to keep everything up to date. Atleast electronically, others can see your schedule and plan around it.

 

Thnx for the tips guys, they are dang good ones. It looks like i will be going with the iphone coupled with a traditional calender. I hung out with the night shift last night for a while and found that one of the greaser guys has a iphone and he literally blew me away with what it is capable of. And i was also very impressed with this employees technical capabilities. He is definatly being wasted by pushing a shovel and grease gun. But not anymore. I think i found the help i needed.

 

I have an ipod touch, and Im amazed at how much and how well it does as much as it does. If it had a decent keyboard, the iphone would be the ultimate all in one gadget.

Windows live (hotmail) has a pretty good calendar. Im not sure what integrates well with the iphone. I think the iphone will work with an exchange server and give you the functionality of outlook. I have a windows mobile phone so I have outlook on it.

 

Love the iTouch, but the need for an internet connection is the only drawback. I've done some teleconferences with the family with them, and the FaceTime app is sweet!

Google Calendar is really good, much better than Yahoo's but for business stuff I haven't been able to beat Outlook's calendar integration into e-mail.




-Kris

 

I haven't tried face time, but skype works well on the itouch if you have wifi available.
One of the local news stations got all their field reporters Iphones and have stopped using their vans for on site, live, breaking news broadcasts, they just skype now.