And so easy to accumulate.

I decided to start organizing and purging my fonts and apps this week, and I wanted to share what’s working for me.

Organizing Fonts

Font Managers

First, you need a font managing program.

Jessica Sprague has a great article on organizing fonts using Nexus Font for Windows (free) and Font Book for Mac (already installed).

Categories

What are you looking for when you search for fonts?

That’s what I asked myself when I was trying to think of good categories. I usually search for things like: bold fonts to use for titles, skinny fonts to fit in a small space, handwriting fonts, etc. Some of my categories (so far) are:

• bold
• chalkboard
• condensed
• dingbats & doodles
• handwriting
• favorites
• typewriter

Jessica has a very good list of font categories to get you started.

I am using Font Book. To create a category in Font Book, go to File > New Collection, then drag fonts. Fonts can be moved to more than one category. I disabled (not deleted) the fonts I never use – I can always enable them again if I change my mind. All of the fonts can be viewed under “all fonts” even if they are in a category or disabled.

Here’s a screenshot of my progress (the categories PDF, Web and Windows Office Compatible were already on there so I just left them):

Organizing Fonts in Photoshop

Unfortunately, it appears that the font categories can’t be accessed in Adobe Photoshop.

One solution is to create a tool preset.

I like to just keep the font manager open and find my font there first.

***

Organizing Apps on iPhone & iPad

I did a little research on how others were organizing iPhone & iPad apps and discovered some good tips. Articles on Life Hacker and iPhone Hacks were particularly helpful.

Organizing the Dock

This is the bottom row that follows you on every screen. These should be your most useful apps (not necessarily the most used).

I realized that on my iPhone, I’d been swiping screens trying to find the camera every time I wanted to take a photo. Why didn’t I have it in my dock? Well it’s there now!

I also realized that I should not have Facebook on my dock. I see it, open it, and 15 minutes later I realize I’ve wasted 15 minutes.

Organizing the Home Screen

These should be your most used apps, but probably not apps that will consume all your time such as Facebook and games.

I hardly ever looked at the first screen because it had all the boring stuff that came with it: settings, clock, timer, reminders, etc. Some people put those on the last screen. Either way, it sounds like a lot of us have a screen where we send our seldom-used apps. Kind of like a junk drawer.

It’s time to clean out the junk drawer.

Organizing Apps by Action

These are the rest of the apps. Most can be arranged into folders.

Mine were scattered around and arranged by wherever the App Store put them when they were downloaded. A few were in folders, but they were named whatever iTunes called them, like “Productivity.” Productivity? I don’t even remember what was in that folder. I guess I wasn’t very productive.

Now I’ve got them organized by action. Think verbs.

Examples:

• cook
• draw
• film (video editing)
• learn
• listen
• look up
• navigate
• organize
• photograph
• play
• read
• scrapbook
• set up
• share
• shop
• socialize
• write

To help find a good verb, just ask yourself what you want to do when you’re looking for a particular app: “I want to ________.” You can even make them funny if you want.

To move apps into categories on an iPhone / iPod / iPad, touch and hold the app until it wiggles, then slide it on top of another app and let go. See this article for more info. FYI: “Newsstand” can’t be changed or moved into another category.

Apps I never use but can’t be deleted? I put them in a folder called Area 51. A little humor on my iPad.

Apps I never use? Deleted.

Apps only the kids use? I put them on a different screen just for them.

Apps that fit into more than one category? I put them where I use them the most. For example, I have Photo Editor by Aviary in the Scrapbook category, even though it fits the Photograph category.

For links to the above apps, see 12 Useful Apps for Scrapbooking.

Organizing Apps on Android Phone & Tablet

I did some research, but it’s hard to test out suggestions when I don’t have an Android phone or tablet!

Google has an article about arranging and working with apps.

Lifehacker has an article on organizing apps on the Android home screen.

Techie Buzz has an article on how to rename folders (see the iPhone section above for how I arranged mine by action).

Apps Organizer and Folder Organizer are some of the apps available to organize apps into folders.