Building and tracking your affiliate niche sites can get very confusing without a way to organize things. People use different tools and methods to organize the creation and management of their sites. There’s a lot of tools you can use to manage your sites. The key thing is to use these tools.

If you’re already organizing your work using spreadsheets or even just writing things down on paper, that’s great. Whatever works for you is just fine. I really just wanted to present another tool. Specifically, one that I’ve been using for the past 5 months.

My primary selection criteria for a Personal Information Management (PIM) tool was portability. I could use things like the tasks feature in Microsoft Outlook and then manage projects using Microsoft Project. However, my situation involves using different computers in different locations. I needed the portability… meaning I needed it to run on my USB Flash Drive. Because of this, I was using Portable Thunderbird coupled with some selected extensions to manage my sites.

Although I had a workable solution, I wanted more features that weren’t available. At least I haven’t found any. That’s when I went into “research and test” mode and scoured the net for an alternative. A great tool I found was ActionOutline (actionoutline.com). The only problem was that it wasn’t portable. If you don’t need the portability, I suggest you take a look at ActionOutline and its features. It might just be the thing you’ve been looking for.

I needed portability… so I searched some more. Finally, I found EssentialPIM (essentialpim.com). EssentialPIM is an awesome tool. It’s portable and free. There’s a PRO version available, that has more features such as being able to assign tasks to people, editable categories, hierarchical to-do lists, and unlimited field length. For my needs, the Portable Free version was enough.

With EssentialPIM, I’m able to schedule and map out my tasks, insert pictures/tables in my notes, and implement tree-like structure to my notes. There are times where the PRO version would make some of the stuff I’m trying to do much easier, but I’m still on the fence about purchasing it. By the way, the PRO version costs just as much as ActionOutline. If you’re thinking of buying a PIM, these are the ones I’d consider.

EssentialPIM Pro portable costs $39.95, while the regular desktop version only costs $29.95. Head on over to essentialpim.com and take the free version on a test drive. I’d also like to know if you’re using a similar tool that’s better (and in the same price range) than EssentialPIM.

Technorati Tags: Personal Information Manager, PIM, EssentialPIM, ActionOutline, Project Management