Keeping it all Organized

Posted 9/4/08 - Joshua

In my profession, sports blogger, I come across a dizzily amount of information each and every day. Much like the guy from Memento I have to come up with a system to help me remember it all.

What I have is more like a hybrid system where I use a few different techniques to help me organize information and recall it quickly.

My main job in sports is covering NASCAR. Now that would seem a pretty easy thing to do but really it is a lot more involved then anyone really realizes. There are 36 Sprint Cup races, 35 Nationwide Series races, and 25 Truck series races each year. That is a grand total of 96 races every year and I essentially cover them all.

Now given enough time I could probably remember a key factor or a solid run in each and every one of those races, but that method is horribly inefficient. Especially when we consider I have been watching NASCAR races since 1990, and sometimes it gets hard to separate a race memory from California that happened in 1998 from one that happened in the spring of this year.

That is why each race that happens all year round gets its own index card in my ever growing collection of note cards and holders.  On each note card I have the top 10 finishers, top 10 qualifiers, and all the other important race information. I use this information every day and it also enables me to be able to watch trends.

For example, last week the Sprint Cup series was in California. Now I know who won this race over the last few years’ right in my head, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson. However in reviewing my note cards I found that Jimmie had won this race last year, finished second here in the spring, and finished third here in the spring of 2007. Based on that I can write a nice feature piece on how this race is Jimmie’s to lose.

Now I know what you all are thinking couldn’t I find all that out on the internet? Yeah, I probably could, but in note card form I can find it all a lot quicker. It is a system that works for me.

Other then that, I use a notepad to write stuff down when I read the newspaper or various magazines daily.  I use this system for all my research in sports business stories.

Generally I find something interesting in the paper and make a little note about it, and where I found it and then search the net for more information. For these stories I write down all the facts and all the sources just in case somebody wants to debate me later, and that happens more often then I care for.

Recently, I had a huge argument with some unknown internet hater about how Mark Cuban made all of his money. All the information I had said he was an original investor in Yahoo. This internet hater said he sold broadcast.com to yahoo and that is how he made his fortune. Since I had written down my source in this case Forbes.com, I went and rechecked and Yahoo did indeed buy broadcast.com but I could find no mention of Cuban with that transaction.

In fact of the Forbes list of American Billionaires it listed Cuban as yahoo and sports teams as his job and this other guy as the founder and seller of broadcast.com.

Not that I care to win fights on the internet with intellectually unarmed people but as a serious writer getting the fact right is of the up most importance.

My system works for me, and that will be different for everyone, but it is important to have one and to get the facts right. That way we can finally put my nemesis, Michael Wilbong, out of business.



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