CT: keeping track

[mum2gnt]

Just thought I would share a method I use which since I started it has been unbelievably helpful!!! You probably already do this but f not - I suggest you do! It saves a lot of time as well!!!

I am on a few CTs so it's hard to keep track of what I have d/l, release date, which page for which kit, etc. You know!! So I created an Excel spreadsheet called "CT STUFF". Each designer/store has it's own colour so I can instantly see that designer in the list. I also put the link to the layout forum post where you put your links so I can see that that "project" is finished.

Anyway here's what it looks like:

http://i51.tinypic.com/vwse12.jpg

The 0-jan-00 is because the kit is released. I have made each date column a date formula so just put "22 jul" and it puts "11" on the end and keeps it in date format. I only started it in March and am just sorry i didn;t do it earlier!

So you can get an idea of what I do. It truly has helped me organise things.

or maybe share what you do?

[justk]

oh my word SUzie you are just simply amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! i am always getting lost...first I did the dry erase board but my kids love to just wipe out a few things and then when each of them did that there was nothing left:biggrin8: so then I did the recipe cards and that just took way too much space but i did use that a bit but then I got sick of buying the recipe cards so now I just do the notebook and was just yelling at one of my kids and dh about cutting with a scissor the corners of my pages just bugs me but now this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hmmmmm I may have to really check this out and use this because then no one is going to touch it....serioulsy girl you are brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How come you can't live closer to us here in Alberta?!?!?!

[heathert]

Suzie. You are magnificent. :worship::worship::worship::worship:

[nativescrapper]

that is cool.

[mum2gnt]

oh my word SUzie you are just simply amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! i am always getting lost...first I did the dry erase board but my kids love to just wipe out a few things and then when each of them did that there was nothing left:biggrin8: so then I did the recipe cards and that just took way too much space but i did use that a bit but then I got sick of buying the recipe cards so now I just do the notebook and was just yelling at one of my kids and dh about cutting with a scissor the corners of my pages just bugs me but now this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hmmmmm I may have to really check this out and use this because then no one is going to touch it....serioulsy girl you are brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How come you can't live closer to us here in Alberta?!?!?!

Well at least you had something hun! I had nothing!! Just my teeny tiny single brain cell! :25r30wi:

[France]

Cheryl!!!!! nice to see you. I haven't bumped into you lately :)

Suzie! Banned from Shabby Pickle??? How on earth????? :rolleyes:
*****************************
How I do it?

Suzie, I'm only on NRT here, EHstudios, and JimboJambo (Asali's templates), my needs are very simple...so I can get away with using a table in Word.

I have a two column table, on one side the photo (about 4cmx4cm) of the LO to remember what it is, and in the other column, the galleries where I want/need to upload the page. I also have the credits with links ready to paste in the descriptions in the galleries (including anecdotes/explanations/translations and fonts if I remember to list them).

I know at the moment, which galleries allow and don't allow linking, so I edit as I paste (as I go).

I also copy all the new LOs in folders and the names of the folders are the release dates (so the name of the folder is the date when I can upload to the galleries) and when I'm done uploading any given LO to all required galleries I delete the photo from that UPLOAD folder. I can easily see at a glance, what still needs to be uploaded (just looking in the folder), and can refer to my Word document to see where it needs to be uploaded. (In the example below they are all completely updated... but if I hadn't uploaded to some of the galleries, you'd see the name of the gallery but no link next to it)
If I used my Blog or FB to upload as well, I'd have a line for those as well... if I'm lucky enough to get a GSO, I would put it in there too (and if I need to update anything on some of the CT Threads on some forums, I highlight in yellow as I add new information).

I also put the most recent pages at the top so I don't have to endlessly scroll when the list gets too big. I will probably start a new Word Doc every few months, depending on the # of LOs.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w178/acanuckinoz/Digiscrapping/showandtell-1.jpg

I'm just starting this system but it works well for me so far. (I'm showing a Jimbo Jambo page here as I have just started this week, to do this with my MScraps/EHstudios stuff and there's not much to show yet!)

I thought of using Excel as I love Excel but I thought for this it would be easier for me in Word (though if I get asked on any more CTs, I might have to revise my plan! :giggle:).

Little tip for those who use Excel, a great way to be able to sort easily by date (thought perhaps your dates get sorted nicely too Suzie) is to format the date so it's YYYY-MM-DD I found this to be failsafe. And it works well in Word. (Though I'm sure Ona knows more about Excel than I do!!! :giggle: )

Hope this helps give someone ideas on how to get organised. Thanks for this thread Suzie! I like seeing how others are organised.


Another tip.....
I have a program called CLCL (http://www.nakka.com/soft/clcl/index_eng.html)and in there I have all the URLS of all the kits I own, so when I need to paste something (in my Word document, or in a gallery) all I have to do is a few clicks and the whole URL with the shop link is there! Easy peasy! I made folders for each designer, and links are right there at my fingertips! I keep that updated each time I buy a new kit or get a kit for a DT.

Ok, I've probably put most of you to sleep by now...... :glis:

[mum2gnt]

Thanks France! Interesting how others keep track! I am sure I D/L something before and never did anything with it! I so needed something!

I work with the release date order. You can see I still have a Fanette kit as that is released 1st August.

Oh and it wasn't me that was banned from Shabby Pickle - it was the designer! Perhaps shouldn't have shown that! I warned Joyce about her anyway!

[gonewiththewind]

Here's the method to my madness:

When you download a kit, sometimes it needs to be created with immediately, but some designers are on the ball and have a kit ready a week or two weeks ahead of release date. In order to determine priorities of getting layouts done in a timely manner, when I download the kit I try to immediately unzip in ACDSee and the folder I name has the date of release. So for instance, if Joyce Paul has a kit called "The Greatest" and it's due for release 8/16, then when I unzip, it goes in a folder named 8-16_The Greatest - Joyce Paul. Then once I've created with that kit, I rename the file to The Greatest - Joyce Paul and then it gets moved from the Layouts to Do folder into the Joyce Paul designer folder and tagged. The CREDITS (with and without HTML) are included in the file info for the layout.

The layout I created with The Greatest kit doesn't need to be posted until 8-16. So I name the file with the date of release, the main store to post in, the layout name, person in the layout and date of photo. So my file might look something like this: 8-16_MS_TheGreatestDaughter_Olivia_8-11. When it's time to post the layout, I rename to TheGreatestDaughter_Olivia_8-11 and once it's posted in all the required galleries, I move the layout from my main layouts folder into my 2011 Layouts folder. I started naming my layouts this way so when I'm ready to print, I know what layouts include Olivia and/or Daniel or are other types of layouts. So when I'm organizing for printing, it just makes it easier.

Of course, life gets in the way and sometimes this system doesn't work so perfectly ~ but for the most part it keeps me in line. Hope it helps someone else!

And I use my Google calendar to remind me of things as well.

Suzie ~ you are so organized!!!

[France]

Fun tips Cheryl (GWTW) too! Yeah, Suzie, I'm not at the point where I can't keep track of what I have downloaded, yet! Lucky for me I get reminded of EHStudios stuff as part of the NRT here...
as for the templates for Asali, I keep count in the folder name of how many pages I've made with each template set, so I know which templates need a bit more love, but so far so good! I am amazed at all the people who, like you, belong to so many CTs..... you are very organised!! Indeed!

[veer]

Thank you for the tip :agree:

I kept it in a notebook, but this is much more convenient

[mum2gnt]

Cheryl - sounds interesting. I like the sound of organising the pages at teh same time. TFS! :flower2:

[veer]

I've just created an Excel file and put it on my desktop :agree:

[jennyf92]

Of course I do that Suzie! Doesn't everyone? I have a table like that for all the books I've read, all of my meal planning and what I'm going to wear each day!
:25r30wi::25r30wi::25r30wi:

Actually, at first I was keeping track of gallery links and stuff, but then I decided I didn't really need it. I simply put the name of the layout in a word table with the credits next to it in black when I create it. Once they are uploaded, I change the color to red. After a while I just delete the line in the table. As for keeping track of the kits I need to work with, I don't d/l the kits until I am ready to work with them.

[mum2gnt]

Of course I do that Suzie! Doesn't everyone? I have a table like that for all the books I've read, all of my meal planning and what I'm going to wear each day!
:25r30wi::25r30wi::25r30wi:



:25r30wi::agree:

Oh hun - I do have one for tax. I have so many incomes being a single mum and some are taxed and some not! So I have columns for family tax A/B, Single parent pension, Salary, Child support and interest (all of 8 cents now! Was $2,500 a year ago before I bought this house!!!) It's based on the same as this but the formula "sums" are for taxable income and non taxable income and the whole lot!

- hmmmmmm wardrobe for the week................like that idea! :25r30wi:

[heathert]

Heather's wardrobe for the week.xls

M T W Th F S S
Jeans x x x x x x x
T-shirt x x x x x x x

:25r30wi:

[mum2gnt]

Heather's wardrobe for the week.xls

M T W Th F S S
Jeans x x x x x x x
T-shirt x x x x x x x

:25r30wi:

:25r30wi::rofl2::agree:

[mum2gnt]

Mine's a little varied........I have a colour chart for the tracky dack colours! :25r30wi::rofl2:

(tracky dacks are the ultra comfy T-shirt fabric pants) - only at night I wear 5 pairs - yes truly! Too flippin cold!

[DoggiNo]

I also keep track of my CT stuff in excel. I use one sheet per CT.

Each sheet includes the name of the layout I created, the designer name (for store CT's), the product name, additional products, fonts used, download date of the main product, dates for when I posted the LO on the CT forum and when it got posted on the different galleries I post on and on my blog.

I used to keep a link to the product url's too, but I stopped doing that. Now when I post the LO on the CT forum, I create a draft blog post too which includes the store links if already available (and if not at least the name with product, designer and store).
This blog post is also a bit of a reminder which LO's need to be posted in the galleries (which I do at the same time as much as possible and finish off with publishing the blog post).

I do a similar thing with the dates of kits : immediately in a folder with the date that I downloaded it.

France, excel shouldn't have any trouble sorting your dates correctly IF you have them as real dates. If you put them in as text, then it can be an issue. I do use the YYYY MM DD format too for my folders etc though 'cause that doesn't sort correctly either if you don't.

[Scrapporreia]

Work has been topsy-turvy for the past few months (plus my internet was down for nearly 2 months) so I have bowwed out of most of my CT commitments but all of these spreadsheets and helpful hints are awesome for when I can devote more time for my hobby and less stress to my job. :)

These are all very cool.

[sas-uk]

these are great ideas, i really should do something myself and that way i wont keep confusing myself :)

[Helen]

hey cool! wish I had known about this earlier!
I cut a few CT's down due to being preggy :( wanted the main focus to be on the store's because you have to do a lot more. Thankfully a few CT's are in m store CT's :rainbowf:

My system is I have a map for each store and in that map a map for each designer and a CT map. I d/l my CT kits to that map.
I also have a map called 'uitwerkingen' (creations) And in that one a CT map and then maps in there with all my CT's.
I save my LO's in there.

Then each month I have 2 wordpads. 1 is for the kit name & store link and the other is for the LO links :flower2: