It’s the quiet before the imminent arrival of little Zane. We’ve bought all the gear, gone to the antenatal classes and now the waiting game begins. So I’ve decided (belatedly I’ll admit) to take some time and get my digital house in order.

I decided to take a step back and reviewed what software solutions I have at my disposable and start putting the correct kind of information into each bucket.

Dropbox

Previously I had relied almost exclusively on Dropbox to provide me with all of my synced document needs. Dropbox is amazing for so many things but it’s become clear that the folder structure keeps things hidden - to the point that I don’t even remember I had certain files and it’s definitely not the most secure of places for the more sensetive documents.

Active Projects - I’m using Dropbox as both a backup tool and a versioning tool as well (sure I should be using Github for that, but this works for me).

Sharing Documents - I share a great deal of files at work with different people in different companies. Dropbox has been a lifesaver for this sort of task.

Backups - Photos from my iPhone make their way into the photos folder in Dropbox. I’ve created a backup folder that collects my social media output (Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr) into one place. To do that I’m using IFTTT, which is a great little service for this sort of thing.

1Password

All sensetive information gets put into the vault. The feature that galvanised this solution for me is the ability to add multiple attachments to any account or item. As such all of my bank statements get added in there, fully encrypted and ready to be accessed on the go if necessary.

Evernote

Evernote is the latest addtion to my organisational workflow. I have to wonder why I didn’t try this suite before. Actually scrap that, I did try this suite out years ago but I just couldn’t get into the version at the time. The biggest advantage for me is the fact that multiple types of data can be combined into a single note. I can have a pdf, with a link, a note and a zip file all in a single note for easy review and access.

It’s going to take a while to get everything in here, but I have faith that once it’s done, I’ll be able to access things much faster.

Simplenote

This is my scratchpad. Simplenote is used for all those pieces of information that are not sensetive in anyway but that would be useful being accessed quickly.