This post is for all the Pinterest plagued persons out there, like me…
Wait… let me rephrase that: this post is for all the Pinterest plagued persons out there, whose boards are a mammoth mess and you cannot find anything, like me…
I use Pinterest for many things…. I love it for personal ideas and home projects but I also use it for my freelance business as well. It comes in very handy when I’m hired to create “look and feel boards” for particular campaigns. Pinterest saves so much time and organizes everything in one spot.
Oh, wait. Organizes? Well, sort of. It gathers all my “pins” for a specific “board” that I name. However, before tonight, I had probably 50 boards I created (excluding the private ones). Nonetheless, when I first signed onto Pinterest, I was compelled to identify each board with a clever name. Well, that was my first mistake.
Because as the years went on, I could never find the board I wanted to pin items to fast enough and found myself searching up and down the long list OR I had a hard time trying to find an idea or image that I remembered pinning but on which cleverly-named board did I put it on? Ugh…
Anyone else annoyed that today, you not only have clutter to deal with in your actual ‘living’ life but you have accumulated so much online clutter that you are totally overwhelmed? (like me of course….)
So, today, I wanted to put a dent into my online cluttered life but needed to start with something easy… such as Pinterest. And it amazingly dawned on me that I should simply clarify my names and create a sort of “sub-folder” system since Pinterest has yet to allow this kind of online filing. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Due to my recent awakening, I thought I’d share it in case other people were just as annoyed as I was, when perusing their Pinterest boards! And in my vexatious tone, for those who already knew this eons ago, then you are really smart. No need to read any further and check back tomorrow or the next day to see if I write something more useful to you.
However, for the rest of the slow-to-adapt people, like me, this is what I did:
I divided all my 50-something, no-rhyme-or-reason-named boards into six distinct categories: Art, Reno (for renovation), Project, Style, Tips, DIY, Leisure and then A to Z (for all the misc. stuff that didn’t fall into the prior compartments).
But Pinterest doesn’t let you organize by categories, at least as of yet (Jan. 2015). So I ‘faked’ the categories in how I named each board. For instance, the first category is “art” and I have five ‘subcategories’ so I named my first five boards the following:
art: artists i like
art: upcycle
art: basketry
art: design: color
art: design: graphics
Now all art and design related items will appear up by the front because when pinning, the drop down menu is alphabetical (you can still arrange the boards on your page however you like). It is now so much easier to find the boards I need to pin to when I’m on a website or receive ideas from a client!
Below is my new, nice and organized public board on Pinterest…
Now, I still haven’t organized my “Private boards.” Yes, if you didn’t know this, you don’t have to have all your ideas out there for everyone to see. I have about 8 private boards that I don’t need y’all knowing about… like how I may do a juice fast or dealing with alligator-like dry feet or tips on getting the smell out of your dog’s coat when he rolls around in cow poop. Stuff like that, everyone doesn’t need to see…
It’s sort of like when you’re rushing around the house cleaning before company comes… clean up the ‘publicly viewed’ areas and then shove all the rest of the unorganized junk in the ‘private back closet’…. I’m sure many of you know what I’m talkin’ about!
Visit me on Pinterest.
Huh?
Very funny. This post definitely was not for you.