Getting Organized

 According to Ezine, New Year's resolutions began back in 153 B.C. when Janus – the mythical king – was placed at the head of the calendar – hence the name January.  Because of his particular physical characteristic of having two faces, Janus could look both backward and forward and assess both and presumably judge what changes needed to be made.   

Looking back, it is easy to see that keeping organized is an ever demanding task.  There is increasingly more stuff, more noise and more things coming at us every day.  And if one does not keep it all organized, one has the sense that one is falling behind those who do.  Emails, Twitter-feeds, Wave In Box, RSS Feeds, etc.  It is all a lot to check in on – a lot to follow.  

Looking forward, it is apparent that one needs to employ as many tools as possible that will help us keep up with what is going on in the world.  

But there are a lot of tools to help us keep organized.  Smart phone applications add a lot, though you also must learn how to use them successfully.  Beginning an iGoogle page will allow one to aggregate all sorts of things onto a single page.  One can put one's RSS Feeds, Gmail, Twitter feed, Google Wave In-Box, News Alerts and just about anything else you are following onto a single page.   An iGoogle page is practically essential to anyone involved in communications today.  

And Twitter is also offering tools that help us keep track.   Recently Twitter offered the capacity to make "lists" – groupings of micro-bloggers on Twitter that are a subset of those you may already follow, or may include those you don't follow at all.  What purpose does such a list serve?  Well, it can help you follow a specific "genre" if you will of people.  For example, last month, Eye on FDA created a list of pharmaceutical companies that are on Twitter.  

And this month, a New Year's gift.  Eye on FDA has created a Twitter list of government agencies that are connected with health care and are also on Twitter.  FDA, for example, has about four different twitter feeds – one for food recalls, one for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, for example.  The Centers for Disease Control has several very specific Twitter feeds on a number of topics, as does the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  The new Twitter list includes these government agencies as well as HHS.  With this list, one can see what the Federal government is tweeting about health, all in one spot.  It is just a little effort at getting more organized at the behest of Janus.