Living an Organized Life

Organize Online Part 1

Let Your Fingers Do the Walkin

It dawned on me that I haven't really talked about the advantages of the Internet, in relation to living an organized life and making life easier. There are so many incredible resources on the Net to streamline our activities and help us save time, so I'm going to break it up into a 3-part series.

For those who don't have computers yet, there is always WebTV where you can access the Internet using your television and phone line.

Although many of these may already be known to some, I'll make reference to them anyway...

1. Banking - pay your bills and manage your money online. Your bank will help you set this up, but you'll need a financial software program ...Quicken (www.quicken.com) is a popular program for home or business use.
2. Grocery shopping - shop for food and have it delivered. Check with your nearest grocery store for this service. I believe Albertsons delivers (www.albertsons.com) and NetGrocer is nationwide (www.netgrocer.com). In some areas, there are Safeways and they deliver (www.safeway.com); and Vons (www.shopvons.safeway.com).
3. Shipping - register with UPS and get a UPS account (free) to get packages picked up at your front door and shipped out. www.ups.com You can also track your shipments online at UPS. The US Postal Service (www.usps.com) also has a free Courier pickup service (see tab for "Schedule a pickup").
4. Postage - don't stand in line to buy stamps ... sign up with Stamps.com (www.stamps.com). You can even get Priority Mail postage. The postal service (www.usps.com) will send you free Priority Mail envelopes, any quanity, with preprinted labels. Call 1-800-275-8777 to order.
5. Movie rentals - save yourself a trip to movie warehouses and sign up with NetFlix (www.netflix.com) or Blockbuster (www.blockbuster.com).
6. Movie tickets - save yourself time having to wait in long lines at the movie theater and purchase your tickets online. Movietickets (www.movietickets.com) is the most popular way to buy tickets online.
7. Get the news - save paper clutter around the house and read your local or national newspaper online.
8. Printing - avoid a trip to the printer by ordering online. You can email or fax your print job to most printers (Kinkos is nationwide at www.kinkos.com), or design cards or stationary online with places like Fine Stationary (www.finestationary.com). You can also order labels with places like Avery Labels (www.avery.com) or VistaPrint (www.vistaprint.com).
9. Reservations - there are many places that provide online reservations. You can book an airline flight; a hotel room; reserve a table at a restaurant; arrange for a spa visit. Although a phone call does the same thing, it's sometimes nice to see a restaurant's menu, or the way a hotel room looks, or which seats are available for your chosen flight.
10. Service quotes / bids - if you're looking for a handyman, carpenter, electrician, plummer, general contractors or other special services, you can find them with full information online (unlike the Yellow Pages) and get quotes. ServiceMagic (www.servicemagic.com) is one resource for finding these services near you.

All these things just help make our lives a little easier. I welcome your comments.

posted by Cyndi Seidler at 10:08 PM