Okay, so the marriage of technology and organization is not a new thing, but being able to readily access that technology while you’re organizing is new to me.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that this is Day 25 of my Iphone 4s ownership.  I remember the sales guy asking me if I was excited about my new phone.  My response:  “I’m embarrassed to say how excited I am about this phone.  I’ve been waiting months for this day.”  I’ve been playing with the phone and all the features, taking the lion share of all my photos with it and exploring the limitless apps out there.  It’s been a lot to take in, but man has it been fun.

So what does this have to do with organizing?  One of the first apps I downloaded was called Wooly.  It’s connected with Ravelry, a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.  With Wooly I can keep track of all my projects, know what yarn I have in my stash and what needle sizes I own.

As well as having a yarn stash to rival most yarn stores, I (and Mike) also love books.  I’m also notorious for forgetting which books I own and purchasing multiple copies.  Lame, I know.  I found an app called BooksApp that will keep track of all my books.  AND, it has a barcode scanner that looks up the book online and transfers all the information into my phone.  I was definitely doing the happy dance when I discovered that feature!

Krafts is an app that keeps track of all your crafting supplies.  It also has a barcode scanner that will scan in all the particulars of an item.  You have no idea how helpful this app will be.  As well as buying multiple copies of books, I routinely pick up craft supplies because “I think I ran out of that”.  I get home and find out that I have four of said item.

And finally, I’ve mentioned previously about my love of lists.  I found a list app (and there are 1000’s) called Paperless.  I used it today to make a list of all the recipes we like and the ingredients as well as a grocery list.  I organized my grocery list by areas of my store, decided what our meals would be for this next week and systematically went recipe by recipe adding the ingredients to the appropriate areas of the store.  Now I know you’re thinking, “This girl is nuts!”  and you’d be right, but I was able to do my grocery shopping and be home in less than 45 minutes.  It normally takes me an hour and a half.

Now, are these all organization methods that could be accomplished with pen and paper.  Absolutely!  But it wouldn’t be as much fun.  And being organized shouldn’t be dependent on technology, but the technology is available and as long as the electricity doesn’t fail and I keep paying my phone bill, I’ll take advantage of it to keep me organized. 

“Trust me.  We know how much she likes this phone.  It comes on our walks!”