How to Organize Writing Resources and Beat Overwhelm After a Writing Summit or Conference

I love attending and speaking at writing summits and conferences, be they virtual or in-person. Learning from fellow authors and writing coaches never fails to light me up, and of course, I collect shiny new resources like a magpie.

Naturally, I have accumulated dozens of unread PDFs and unwatched workshops over the years. It pains me to think how much knowledge is sitting in my Downloads folder, waiting for me to discover it. But how could I dive into anything, when there are so many resources and so little time? How do I choose what to look at first?

It was only after I collected my most recent bundle of resources that I realized I didn’t need to live in fear of losing valuable insights. And neither do you.

By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear plan to organize your writing resources, prioritize your next steps, and turn all that juicy information into actionable strategies to advance your author career.

Here’s your warning before we begin: this is going to take time. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to getting your links and downloads in order. (If there was, I would’ve put it in here!) But I swear to you, it’s worth it. Bookmark or pin this post for later if you need, but if you’re as ready as you’ll ever be, let’s dive in.

Step One: Gather All the Writing Resources in One Place You Already Use (And At Least One You Don’t)

Let’s break that title down, shall we?

By gather all the resources, I mean as many as you can find in one sitting. Set a timer and type into every search bar at your disposal the keywords you know are going to turn up forgotten files—terms like editing, for writers, finish your book, and so on. When that timer’s up, there are likely still going to be more slideshows and videos that you didn’t unearth. That’s okay. Write down keywords you didn’t get to search for this time on a sticky note, and commit to moving any resource you spy from now on to its rightful home.

But where is this rightful home of which I speak? Where are you going to stick those resources? That one place you already use description is crucial. If you are a die-hard Notion fan (same!) and visit your Notion dashboard every day, that’s a fantastic place to store links and embeds of your resources. You already live there. Likewise, if the first place you think to search for something is your Google Drive, then create a folder and a master spreadsheet or doc of links to your resources to keep things easy to find. (Psst, making a master spreadsheet or doc is also going to help you in the next step!)

The at least one you don’t part of Step One? Your backups. Should the unthinkable happen, you’ll want to have a copy or two of all your resources somewhere safe and sound. I recommend at least one place that’s off of the internet because any website can go down. Here’s a quick list of places you might consider to back up your work:

• Google Drive
• OneDrive
• Dropbox
• A flashdrive
• An external hard drive

I told you this would be time-consuming! But don’t you quit on me now. If copying everything over to a second location feels like too much for you, schedule an “admin day” for yourself in the near future and circle back.

Step Two: Categorize to Divide and Conquer

You expect me to tell you to categorize by topic or stage of the writing process—and you should—but I’m going to also advise that you consider the formats of your resources first and foremost.

Writing resources come in all kinds of file types: video, audio, and PDF, just to name a few. Even if we’re only talking about PDFs, there are worksheets and slideshows and ebooks (oh, my!). You are not going to be equally interested in scrolling through a slideshow as you are listening to a podcast on the same day. Organizing resources by file type helps you find the right information you need in the medium you are most prepared to receive it.

Now, when it comes to the PDFs, you might need to open them up and scroll through them to get a sense of what exactly they are, since so many things can be exported as a PDF. While doing this, you’ll discover some resources are not going to be as valuable to you as you thought they’d be. Maybe you already know the information. Maybe it’s an older resource and already out of date. Or maybe it’s not aligned with your goals.

Delete it.

Are you horrified? As an education nerd, I’m a little aghast myself.

I understand the impulse to try to absorb absolutely everything on every subject. Who’s to say that elements of writing horror workshop wouldn’t be useful to me—a romance and fantasy author—one day in the distant future?

But you have limited time on this earth, and you should spend that time focused on the things that you know will serve you. If a set of worksheets or slides are not resonating with you, don’t try to force yourself to see the value. Move on, so you can spend more time on the stuff that is for you.

Step Three: Schedule Your Learning

What stage of the writing process are you in right now? Where are you in your writing journey?

That’s the category of resource you’re going to focus on first. Why wait?

And in the spirit of not waiting, it’s time to make the time to learn the material you have so lovingly gathered. You may look at the list of links or grid of file previews and feel daunted. That’s understandable, but we’re not going to let that stop us, are we?

There are a few options for getting in your learning time. Depending on how you already plan out your days, you can choose your own adventure:

1. Block out an hour or two every day or week to sit down, pick one resource, and dive in.
2. Schedule a professional development day once a month. Make it feel special and important like you would for a mini writing retreat.
3. Use the video and audio files as your commuting or laundry-folding or dish-washing soundtrack. When it comes to those darned PDFs, consider copying and pasting the information into a text-to-speech website like NaturalReader.

Step Four: Take Notes and Store Them in a Smart Place

You’re more likely to remember and implement what you write down. You knew that already.

Of course, if you chose Adventure #3 in the last step, that means your hands are not free to take notes. In that case, I recommend dictating your thoughts on the subject matter as soon as you’re able. You could also ask your most convenient voice-activated virtual assistant (because every device has one nowadays) to record your thoughts.

Regardless of what format your notes take, they gotta go somewhere, and it only makes sense that they go where you will think to look for them. You know yourself and your tendencies, so use your best judgment. For me, the best place to organize writing resources is Notion, but I also have a physical journal where I’ve copied down notes on different story structure templates and philosophies. I regularly leaf through that notebook before I sit down to story coach writers, and it is my favorite gift I’ve ever given myself.

Step Five: Maintain Your System

If you’ve followed all of the steps so far, then you, writer, have created a thing of beauty. You have a database, a well-labeled treasure trove of information. And it would be a downright shame if you never visited it again.

From now on, when an invite to a summit or conference hits your inbox, I want your mind to jump to your writing resource organization system. I hope you’re giddy and giggling and kicking your feet when you think of adding to it

This is the neverending step. You will never be done learning because artists like us are never done innovating and teaching each other new skills and best practices.

And I think that’s amazing.

Now that you’ve got a system for organizing your writing resources, how about adding a few more?

I don’t just like to organize writing resources—I make them, too! You can find them all in my shop. Most of them are free or pay-what-you-want, and I’m always working on adding new things.