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What is the connection between organizing tools, which I'm going to discuss, and the topics of personal growth, enlightenment and spirituality?

Allow me to digress by way of an analogy:

Let's imagine that we're on a camping trip in some wonderful. idyllic spot in the Rockies. Our campsite sits beside a babbling mountain brook and has an excellent view of the surrounding snow-capped peaks. The weather is perfect, and we've packed in an abundant variety of tasty delicacies to enjoy in this mountain paradise.

This is where we have to be concerned: Humans are omnivorous meaning they can utilize several food groups. Most other animals are more specialized. But the ones we have to be concerned about will eat anything that we will, and their excellent sense of smell will detect it at distances much farther than one would expect. In the eastern part of the United States the smaller Black Bear tends to avoid humans and rarely causes a problem. The western varieties are much larger, unpredictable, and under some conditions, extremely dangerous. If you ever set up camp in their domain, it would be very wise to follow the readily available advice on organizing and securing the food supply properly, to minimize the risk of having them invade your campsite.

OK, so we know what bears eat. But what about Gremlins?

"Gremlins?", you ask.

Obviously you haven't as yet read "Taming Your Gremlin" which is presently the featured selection in the Explorations book store.

Gremlins are much more troublesome than bears. Their range is more extensive, since we take them with us wherever we go. They make periodic forays into our consciousness, to make us miserable and their attacks are also more likely if we leave food lying about for them.

What do they like? Well..... obviously, being a metaphor, they don't eat actual food. The type of cuisine they enjoy will vary quite a bit with the type of Gremlin you are harboring. But one commonality is a strong preference for things which have to be addressed in the future: uncompleted tasks, projects, deadlines, appointments, things that we must keep track of.

The author provides a good deal of advice on dealing with Gremlin attacks once they occur, but organizing well can be a good way to actually prevent some of these attacks from occurring.

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"Gremlins" are, of course, a hypothetical construct, a metaphor, but then, so is anxiety, depression and a gigabyte of other clinical terms. I know that some well-meaning person will inform me that some constructs are more "operational" than others and therefore more respectable. I will be forced at some point to address this popular delusion. But not now. I've digressed enough. Let's look at some tools for keeping the campsite a little cleaner.

Yahoo Calendar When I go into my e-mail inbox on Yahoo, it will almost always contain "reminders" of appointments, bills, and other events that I don't want to miss. I don't have to take the time to open them, as the time and date etc. will fit well into the inbox label. I have the option to insert a to-do list or other information but then, of course, I'd have to click and wait for the next screen. I have complete control as to how far in advance I'm notified, and keep these reminders in my inbox until the event passes.

The reminder function is an option when you add an event to your Yahoo Calendar. There is also the option to notify others of the event through their e-mail. The calendars can be printed out for any month or week, which can be handy if you have to leave your computer for a period of time. This on-line program is very quick and easy to use. Few of its features are available on the Windows accessory, which will not send advance notice of more than ten minutes, nor has it any place to post the reminder after you've closed it.

Yahoo Calendar is free, as are all of the services on Yahoo. There is no download required or anything special. You register for the Yahoo services all at once. This will take about five minutes. All of the features; chat, e-mail, classified, etc. work well and are easy to use. Their search engine is also excellent. Also, if you're running an antique browser or your system doesn't run very fast, this is a good site to frequent. They keep slow-loading glitz to a minimum and give you the opportunity to avoid using frames.

Corkboard Corkboard, for me, does everything (and anything) that Yahoo doesn't do. And unlike Yahoo Calendar, it does not require your being on-line to use, just down load it and run with it. Essentially, it's a screen saver which is an advantage, since it makes all of its features more readily available.

Corkboard is completely free, unless you also want to subscribe to their package of add-on modules. The program works wonderfully without them, and there are enough free add-ons to keep one entertained for months. The program comes in a self-extracting zip file, requires Windows 95 or 98, and occupies 2 megs + on your hard drive.

The alarms or reminders have the same limitations as the Windows calendar, but are handier to use, since the screen saver is right on top of everything. There is also a variety of entertaining sounds to accompany the pop-up messages.

The heart of the program for me is the to-do lists. With these, I have control of several separate categories; things I have to do, things I want to do, home things, office things, or just tidbits which I want to store for later. The initial download provides three or four styles to choose from. These allow one to instantly change the order of priority just by clicking and dragging. Size and position can be adjusted just as easily and also how many items the list will hold. The list can be stacked to save space and paged through just like a book. The font type, size, and color are just as easy to change. and once you get a list style you like, it is copied just as easily, either full or blank. The best part is that if you know how to use Windows, you know how to use Corkboard.

Another feature of Corkboard is the sticky notes. These work much like the to-do lists, but look just like real sticky notes and have only one data field. How much text they hold depends on how big you make them and the point size you've chosen for the font . I like to use them when I'm too rushed to use the to-do lists, or to remind me to bring something to work.

There is also an assortment of clocks and calendars which lock on to your system's time and date; phone dialers, decorations, animated gizmos, and more. All of these can be copied, enlarged, reduced, moved and modified and the ease with which this can be done makes the program very enjoyable to use. To make a long story short, the program offers a quick and easy graphic tool for planning, organizing, and prioritizing and a very important additional dimension --- FUN (or at least as much as your personal Gremlin will permit).

RJS/Zimmie

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