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Blogging Workflow and Productivity: Alternate Bookmarking Tip

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If you have a Mac or PC computer, there’s a simple way to locally bookmark Web pages that you’re browsing or researching en masse that keeps you browser-independent: file folder shortcuts. This method keeps you from having to open multiple Web browser tabs or bookmark all the URLS or worse, copy and paste links into some sort of list. It is a simpler former of bookmarking, but avoids some of the other methods’ limitations. Note: I haven’t tried the following tip on a Linux system, but it might work similarily. I tested on a Mac (10.6.x Snow Leopard) and a PC (Win Vista).

First, let’s look at the objectives we’re trying to achieve:

  1. Browse lots of pages daily, to find ideas and references for blogging.
  2. Locally bookmark web pages independent of any browser, to preserve them for that day and beyond, if necessary.
  3. Minimize the number of open browser tabs, to save the amount of RAM memory your computer is using at any given moment. This saves an immense amount of wasted time.
  4. Reserve the ability to group links as necessary, and move links around for regrouping.

Sources that I refer to daily for finding blog post ideas and references include:

  1. Favorite sites you’ve previously bookmarked.
  2. RSS readers (e.g., Google Reader).
  3. Portals and aggregators (Alltop, Techmeme, Megite, WeSmirch, etc.).
  4. Social voting sites (Digg, Mixx, etc.).
  5. Social bookmarking sites (Delicious, Stumbleupon).
  6. Microblogging sites (Twitter).
  7. Social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning).

Typically, I’ve used mind mapping software and other tools for bookmarking or recording interesting links for later use. Specifically, I’ve tended to favor Mindjet’s MindManager on a PC for about three years, and particularly love this tool. However, when I switched my main laptop to a MacBook Pro last December, I was hugely disappointed to find that not only is the interface for MindManager different than on a PC, but the workflow is different. That’s also true on the Mac for all the other mind mapping tools that I tend to use regularly, such as XMind.

I still love MindManager and other mind mapping tools, but for now, they don’t work for me on a Mac. After wasting a lot of time going back to opening up multiple browser tabs while researching, I managed to crash my Mac (yes, a Mac!!) too many times. Purely by chance, I accidentally discovered a simple trick: drag Web page links from your browser to Explorer (PC) or Finder (Mac) applications to create a link shortcut. I’m honestly surprised that I never knew this before, and actually have Mac OS X’s general interface to thank for the discovery.

What happens is that both apps store link information in the form of a “shortcut,” which you can later either drag into a browser or double-click on to open the content page. It’s really quite simple and I’m actually surprised not to have discovered it in the past. Note that with Macs, clicking on a link stored in a Finder folder opens the Safari browser, and that as far as I know, this cannot be changed. If you prefer a different browser while using a Mac, you can use your mouse to drag shortcut links from Finder folders and drop them into your browser of choice. With PCs, you can configure the default browser, so clicking a saved shortcut will open whatever browser you’ve configured.

Caveats
You can end up still accumulating far too many link shortcuts that you’ll never use, and create multiple daily folders, thus finding yourself just as overwhelmed with information overload as with other blogging research methods. So discipline is independent of blogging workflow, and something you’ll need to discover for yourself.

The fact is, I still open far too many browser windows and tabs. For example, at the time of this writing, I have probably 60 tabs open overall in Firefox, Chrome, Flock and Safari. It may seem like a bad habit, but is often a necessity when working with multiple clients and using multiple Web profiles for social media and other services. Using the “bookmark-within-file-folder” trick simple reduces the number of browser tabs I need to open. As a result, I’ve managed to be more productive again for two key reasons. One is that my browser windows hang less often because of more free memory. The other is that I now focus on one browser tab at at a time. Overall, this means less time spent researching/ browsing and restarting browsers and more time for writing.

5 Things Your News Posts Should Cover

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A couple of weeks ago, I came across a post detailing what every news article should cover. I unfortunately can’t seem to remember where I encountered it (if you know what I’m talking about feel free to leave a link in the comments), but the tips shared there make a useful foundation for writing news posts that are very useful for your readers—regardless of topic or niche.

Martyn Lewis presented the first One O'Clock N...
Image via Wikipedia

In order of importance, here’s what I think every news post should include:

What Happened

Reporting on what happened is a given in any kind of news reporting, whether formal or not. In fact, the point of the source article was how all news articles cover this, but not the following.

Who Was Involved

Another given: no event is free from the influence of personalities or entities, nor are people or companies totally free from its influence. Yet with tight deadlines and lack of pertinent details, it’s easy to overlook this crucial requirement. Many events are significant enough to overshadow those who are involved, or those with the potential to be affected, but forgetting to include the who may leave readers wondering why the news you report is relevant to them.

How it Happened

Amazingly, most news reporting is content with fleshing out only the what and who, failing to mention how things happened in detail. The easiest way to cover this base is to zero in on a significant cause, and discuss how that led to a significant effect. Again, this is another way of making the news relevant to your readers, ultimately making it more relevant. People have an easier time relating to events when they understand how things happened.

How You Found Out About It

The source article said that journalists usually leave this out, based on the possibility that revealing their methods and research will diminish their “institutional authority”. Yet detailing how you found out about the news not only adds flavor to your post, it also helps convince readers of its accuracy. What would you believe more, a post based solely on the opinions and perceptions of the writer, or a compilation of perspectives and insights from various sources?

Background

It’s easy for a blogger to assume that readers automatically know everything about a given event or topic, especially if a blog enjoys a large regular readership. Yet detailing the background—the history and long-term implications—makes it easier for the reader to understand the news and put it into context. This also provides opportunities to link back to previous posts covering a particular topic or event. That’s always a good way to attract the traffic that authoritative sources enjoy, as the links lead visitors back to older posts.

It’s necessary to include all of the above when sharing news with your readers, if you want to establish your blog as an authority that people can rely on for detailed and updated news. The best part? Only your creativity limits how you can present these. Got any tips on how to represent current events to your readers? Hit the comments below.