Another edition of Works for me Wednesday. Welcome back, Shannon! All the blogging about the work of Compassion International and sharing Shannon’s heart about it has really blessed my socks off and given me so much to think about. I hope y’all have taken the time to catch up over there!

But, on to the WFMW topic at hand… You computer-savvy folks are probably well ahead of me on this one, but I just wanted to share my recent discovery of iGoogle. It has revolutionized my desktop and totally enhanced my productivity in working from home, homeschooling, and optimizing the few “personal” things I do on the Internet.

I downloaded the iGoogle software a couple of weekends ago and spent a couple of hours setting up my own personal Google homepage. Here’s what it looks like:

You can see that it has the Google search box up top. Note also the black arrow I put in–this points out one neat feature that I really like. You have a basic “default” or homepage, but you can create tabs for other categories. I have my home page with the regular tools that are helpful, then I have a tab for our book business/ministry, and a tab for my personal stuff.

The graphic is a template and there are many to choose from, depending upon your style and taste. I like the country theme. There are a couple of neat ones with sunrise/sunset that change throughout the day. After choosing your basic theme, the fun begins.

You go into the “gadgets” section and add in things that you use frequently. I have a clock and calendar, news stories, a daily Bible verse, and local weather. I also included “Art of the Day” and “National Geographic Photo of the Day.” This is a really easy way to remind myself to integrate the arts into our homeschool consistently (this is a subject area I don’t tend to emphasize–but again, the gadgets provide just one EASY way to do so, and on a daily basis!)

That’s the top half of my page. Here’s the bottom:

See that yellow notebook page? It’s my to-do list–I LOVE IT!! There are many other styles as well. This one lets you easily move items “up” or “down,” and others let you prioritize (high, medium or low). I also have gadgets for White Pages, Wikipedia, and “How Stuff Works” (intriguing questions-and-answers on topics of all kinds; again, great for homeschooling!)

Other tools that I’ve found incredibly helpful (and which are in use on my “personal” tab, pictured below…) include the Google reader (which is, of course, for all your blog/RSS feeds–you might already be familiar with that); and the Google Bookmarks. The Bookmarks gadget keeps my favorite Internet sites organized by category and I can view one list at a time, instead of looking at that long (and disorganized) drop-down list of sites that I was used to.

I find the bookmark setup incredibly helpful because I have one category called “Kids,” where I’ve put in all of the Internet sites that the kids are allowed to access (all for educational/homeschooling purposes–no games.) When I ask them to use these sites during school time, they know they can just open the browser, click on my “personal” tab, and select the “Kids” label to access the site they need. Easy enough! I have my favorite shopping sites bookmarked, online banking and bill payment sites as another label–Wow, I’ve never been this cyber-organized!

One more feature that has been helpful in an unexpected way (which is not iGoogle, but just another Google tool) is the Google Desktop. You can see it here as a sidebar, but you can also collapse it down onto your taskbar:

This has a clock, weather, updated news headlines, an AWESOME Scratch Pad to make quick notes, AND…the coolest feature (see it there at the orange pointer?)…a SLIDE SHOW that scrolls through all the photos in “My Pictures” folder. That was the unexpected BEST thing to help us “integrate” and meet multiple objectives in our home.

I was working on our book business/ministry Web site and trying to balance that with homeschooling–so my older boys were sitting alongside me at the desk while I talked out loud about the Web design elements I was using, the concept of WYSIWIG, and some basic HTML. But of course, I have little ones, too, and I don’t want to feel like I’m neglecting them–either for work or for the older kids’ academics. But suddenly my toddler was in my lap, looking at the slideshow and squealing with delight. She’d see a family picture and start naming everyone in it, or ask, “Who’s that?” about one of their baby pictures that she didn’t recognize. Then my preschoolers wormed their way in behind their big brothers, and everyone was reminiscing about fun family times, talking about places we’d been, and so on. And since it’s a slideshow, it was like a movie–a rare treat and a real attention-getter in our house! 🙂 So we did Web design, loved on each other, and got some needed work done, all in one!

We are firm believers in integrating as many “life elements” as possible, so that we can make the most of every opportunity. iGoogle and the Google desktop feature have just become one more tool in our ever-expanding toolbox to make our days function more seamlessly–and more peacefully.