I talked yesterday about the importance of keeping up-to-date and organized bookmarks, but didn’t get to really address the organization side of things. Most modern browsers have a “bookmarks bar” option. My suggestion for you is that you utilize this feature for organizing your most oft-used site resources.
Now, for me, my bookmarks toolbar in Firefox looks like this:
I have a few folders starting on the left for WordPress resources, then web development, general design, and a way too ambiguous “church” folder. This is followed by icons for the sites that I hit the most (news and Apple nerdery mostly) and I also use this area to drag things that I don’t want to keep long term, but may need in the next few hours or couple of days.
A lot of the sites I mentioned yesterday are dumped in the “design” or “church” folders. I would recommend while you’re learning the design ropes, or if this system is used by multiple people, that you organize the resources in multiple folders in your bookmark bar based on type of link. Like my following setup in Safari:
Using a folder setup will place everything just a little closer to your active mousing area (I think I just invented a term there — I mean the portion of the screen you most usually utilize in a design workflow without having to reach). Folders also make more efficient use of the space you have on the toolbar. If it gets too cluttered it doesn’t do anything but slow you down.
There you have it! Step 7 on its way shortly…
