MommaSaid Office can keep you organized

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

(Guest blogger Jen Singer is the creator of MommaSaid.net, a Forbes Best of the Web community for moms, and ParentingWithCancer.com. She's the mother of two middle-school boys and author of several parenting books. Jen's work has appeared in American Baby, Family Circle, Newsweek, The New York Times, Parenting, Parents, Woman's Day and more.

Anderson Cooper has a pile of stuff on his desk that he probably should have taken care of months ago. He told me so, on the set of his daytime show "Anderson," where I appeared today, thanks to my partnership with the Microsoft Office team, in a segment about moms who are entrepreneurs.

 My job was to help Rebecca McCamy, the owner of the Florida-based classic candy store Sassafras Sweet Shoppe, ditch her Post-it Note and plastic bag organizational system, and find a better way to keep her work and home in order.

 I suggested that they both use the three-basket system, placing the pile from their desks into baskets entitled: "Throw Out," (which could include Recycle), "File Pile" and "Do Yesterday," the latter for those things that make you gasp because you forgot about the bill/birthday card/bag of chips.

I also shared some ways I keep my MommaSaid.net empire running from home (and my car, and soccer practice) with the help of Microsoft Office. Here's what I couldn't fit into my three-minute TV appearance with the lovely Rebecca and the wonderful Anderson:

Outlook: I'm never completely at home or completely at work, so I rely on Outlook to keep track of my (often conflicting) calendar events. As a result, Outlook calendar alerts tell me that one of my sons has soccer practice while the other has a piano lesson while I have a magazine interview.  And it reminds me when I have to dash out to pick up a kid (or four).I also use Outlook's Signature feature to highlight media appearances, clips and new projects.

OneNote: I just started playing with OneNote, and I think I might have a little crush on it. It's like the super cool binder with the Velcro close you got at the beginning of a school year:  You just know it's going to get you organized. I've been using it to compile my to-do list with links to research for articles I'm writing and notes from e-mails and more.

SkyDrive: I am often working on a book manuscript or a magazine article while waiting to pick up a child from band practice or track. With SkyDrive, I can pull down documents and photos and work on them on my laptop, and then save them back in SkyDrive to access from my home office computer later. This means I can work from anywhere.

Word: I've written five books in Word. I love it because it works as fast as I write, which given my busy schedule, is quickly and in bits and pieces. My kids use Word for their homework and aren't (too) afraid to have Mom edit their essays! Word also helps me proof and track changes to show my editor what's been edited since she last read it. I can add boxes with comments to explain or ask questions.

PowerPoint: My kids and I both use PowerPoint for presentations. I use it for new business, to sell MommaSaid and my services to clients. My kids use it for history and English presentations.If you’d like to watch the Anderson segment for more tips, click here: http://bit.ly/Jih75m. (I kept the fake eyelashes on until I got home.)

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