Today, in this last article, I'm presenting a list of other great web services that, while not “essential” to everyone, are highly recommended and many people will find extremely useful in their own online organizers:

1. Payment Processor

   While not an absolute “essential”, payment processors are great for just about anyone because it can be used for so many different purposes. From paying a friend back for a split dinner to collecting credit card and EFT payments from sales of your home business's products, a good payment processor is easy, secure, and can be used by anyone. Of course, the number one payment service that comes to mind (and my personal favorite) is PayPal but there other great services out there that serve the same purpose.
   
   A few that you might want to check out are Obopay, Neteller, BidPay, and TextPayMe). Of course, always use common sense and be sure to read all of the terms and conditions before using any online payment option.

2. Project Planner

   Especially for business folks, a good online project planner should be easy-to-use, a cinch to read and understand, and support multiple projects and multiple ways of viewing timelines and tasks on those projects. They should rival more traditional software such as Microsoft Project and Primavera. Though I don't personally use a project planner very much, some of the really impressive ones I've seen include ViewPath, BaseCamp, and AceProject.

3. Quick Reference

   Everyone needs a quick answer to something once in a while. If you find yourself wondering “who is…”, “what is…”, or “where is…”, you need a good source to go to for quick, accurate answers. My favorites are Wikipedia, and Google. Often with either of these services, just typing in what you want to know instantly brings back exactly the information you need.

4. Notebook/Web Clipper

   Sometimes, while we're surfing the web, we come across a piece of information that's just too valuable to let sit. Or maybe we don't have time to look at an article now, but we'd like to later. A good web clipping service will let you do just that. Just select the article, right click, and viola! The entire article or information (images and all) is saved to your online web clipper, which you can organize, prioritize, edit, and read at your leisure. And, even if the information changes or is removed on the website that you clipped it from, the data in your web clipper/notebook never changes.
   
   A good web clipper is also a notebook, allowing you to store your ideas, notes, recipes, drafts, or anything else that you need to keep in electronic form. A few good ones are Google Notebook, Clipmarks, and Zoho Notebook.

5. Reminders

   Sometimes, you just need a reminder without cluttering up your calendar with all the reminders you've set. The web abounds with these services, but my favorite is Jott, because it lets you simply call a phone number and speak (yes, speak) your reminder - the Jott system automatically translates it and will send you both a text message and e-mail with the reminder at the set time. This is awesome, especially for on-the-go people who may not be in front of a computer at all times. Other choices for reminders can be found by simply Googling “reminders”.

6. Online Bookmark Service

   You have a computer at home and at work. You have a computer in the bedroom and your laptop is in the living room. How do you keep all of your bookmarks and favorite sites synced on all of these devices? Simple: you don't, you let an online bookmark service do the work. These services allow you to store all of your favorite site on their server that can be called up from any web browser and used just like the favorites on your computer. This way, there's only one set of favorite sites to keep up with.
   
   My personal favorite in this category is Spurl because of the handy add-on for your browser that puts your bookmarks in a separate pane to the left of your screen. However, there are many other great bookmarking services out there: del.icio.us, Backflip , and BookmarkAll are just a few. Google “online bookmarks” for more possibilities.

7. Virtual Assistant

   No matter how helpful they are, however, none of the services above can do what a person can (at least not yet): interact with other humans or make reasoned decisions. Sometimes, you just need another human to help you stay organized. Having a personal assistant used to mean big dollars and was only for big executives with six-and-seven-figure incomes. No more. Now, having your own human “virtual” assistant is more affordable than ever.
   
   For example, Sunday will, for just $29 a month, allow you to have a personal assistant perform up to 30 tasks on your behalf per month. “Schedule an oil change for me”, “Find a supplier for that new Elmo doll that has them in stock, place the order on my Visa and have it shipped overnight to me”, and “Find the number for customer support at XYZ company. Please call and when you finally get a live person on the line, transfer the call to me so that I can speak to them” are all tasks you can have your personal assistant do.
   
   Other companies that provide these same services (at varying rates) are GetFriday, DoMyStuff) - actually more of a "task auction" site, and TasksEveryDay. I found my personal assistant, Jill, at DoMyStuff and she has helped me loads already by taking away mundane tasks, organizing data, and leaving me more time to do what I love to do - write (you can use the link to check out her DoMyStuff profile - she has great rates and fast turnaround).

There you have it: my recommendations for your online life. Not every suggestion will be appropriate for everyone, but once you find that perfect mix of web services to save you time and keep you organized, you'll feel much more in control than you did before.

You probably have a few services yourself that I didn't mention that you use everyday to save you time and organize your life. You're welcome to give your personal recommendations in the comments section below.

It would be absurd to believe that the days of us heaving around physical organizers are not numbered. And it's equally preposterous to think that any one web-based service (or company) could reliably, effectively, and adequately serve the growing organizational, planning, and digital needs of the business professional or busy family today. It is probably best, then, to choose web-based services that do only one thing (and do it really well) for each category that we need covered in our online organizers.

Today's guide delves into what I believe are the “must-haves” - essential services that should be included in everyone's repertoire of online services, regardless of whether they are a busy, overbooked real-estate agent or a frazzled, overworked soccer mom. There are four services on my list of must-haves, starting off with what I believe to be the most important of all:

1. Calendar/Scheduler

   The cornerstone of any personal organizational system is a way to manage your time. An online calendar should be able to keep track of your time in a way that makes sense to you so that, at a glance, you know what's coming and how best to manage your day, your week, and your life. It should also be able to alert you via e-mail or cell phone text-message prior to events and to remind you of important tasks and allow for collaboration with other people on your team or in your family to set meetings and view schedules.
   
   My personal favorite in this category is Google Calendar (calendar.google.com) because of its strong collaborative features, beautiful easy-to-read design, the ability to create and combine multiple calendars, and feature-rich alerts - plus, it's free. But there are many more online calendars out there that may suit you or your situation better. For a few other ideas in this category, just Google “online calendar”.

2. Web-Based E-Mail

   Communication by e-mail is fast supplanting more traditional forms. Many non-critical tasks that you would normally perform by phone can be handled with more leisure via e-mail and with less room for mistakes because what transpired in the conversation is right in front of you in black and white.
   
   For best results from your e-mail, you need a web-based solution that doesn't tie you to one computer and gives you powerful options for managing your communications. You should choose a web-based service that has plenty of storage space for your e-mails, can pull e-mail from multiple accounts (work, personal, etc.), has a strong search function, a sleek and intuitive design, a strong interface for filtering and sorting incoming mail, and preferably one that does not append advertisements onto the end of every e-mail you send out.
   
   In this web mail category, Google once again shines. Their free GMail service (Gmail.com) does everything a web mail service should do and more. As an alternative, your ISP usually provides web mail of some sort to you and your family members at no charge - some of these are actually quite good.
   
   Other good, free, possibilities in this category include Yahoo! (mail.yahoo.com), MSN Hotmail (hotmail.com), and AOL (webmail.aol.com), or simply Google “webmail” for more choices.

3. Stand-Alone Contact Manager/Address Book

   Often, a very basic contact manager is included with your web mail service, but often these “address books” fall short of being able to supply a robust solution to your contact and addressing needs. Plus, if you ever want to or must change e-mail addresses, the fuss involved in exporting an important your web mail's address book can be a nightmare, not to mention that all fields may not be imported/translated to your new provider.
   
   A good online, stand-alone address book should save multiple physical addresses per contact, allow multiple phone numbers and e-mail addresses, be sortable, searchable, allow the creation of categories for your contacts, and store other important information such as birthdays, anniversaries, and notes.
   
   I, personally, use a stand-alone service for this part of my web organizer that does not require me to be logged into my webmail to use: Yahoo! Address book is my personal pick in this category. Although it isn't as pretty as the slick “Web 2.0” interfaces that are popular right now, it's functional, fast, free, allows multiple physical as well as e-mail addresses, allows you to create user-defined fields, and has contact printing, searching, and sorting, as well as the all-important Birthday, Anniversary, and “Notes” fields.
   
   Plus, clicking on an e-mail address in the address book automatically opens Yahoo! Web mail for sending an e-mail to that contact. Other contenders in this category include Plaxo (Plaxo.com) and Zexer (Zexer.com).

4. To-Do/Shopping/List manager

   Everyone has lists of things that need to be done, projects to be worked on, shopping lists to fulfill, even subtasks on other tasks that need to be completed. Rather than carrying around a pocket full of scraps of paper, a robust online service should be used that allows for multiple lists, subtasks if needed, easy organization, mobile access (it's a great convenience to be able to pull up your shopping list on your cell phone when you're at the store), and easy options for printing when needed. It should also be fully collaborative if desired so that multiple people can add, cross off, and modify lists when needed.
   
   I currently use a by-invitation-only service for my to-do lists, but my favorite for shopping lists is a new free service called Knotler (Knotler.com), which allows multiple users to be collaborating on a list at the same time and also has a mobile-phone version of the site for accessing your list while away from your computer. As for every-day type lists, popular choices are Tadalist (Tadalist.com), Remember the Milk (Rememberthemilk.com), and Todoist (Todoist.com). Choices for to-do lists abound, however, so you might want to try some out for a while until you find one that fits your lifestyle and tastes. Just Google “online to-do list”.

These four categories are the essentials. These are the services should have a prominent, separate, and easily accessible location in your “Favorites” folder, on your desktop, or on your links bar to give you fast, easy access to all parts of your busy life.

In the next and final article in this series, we'll explore some more services that are highly recommended but may not be needed by everyone in every situation...these are the “optional” recommendations for your online organizer. Until then, check out the services listed here and give them a try. You just might be the next to convert to a completely web-based lifestyle.

But times may be changing. According to a 2005 Report by Pew Research, more and more professionals may be moving away from using such physical devices and relying, instead, on services that can be found on the internet. Increases in the last 5 years alone in speed, reliability, availability, and cost of internet access has made it more and more beneficial to working professionals to move more and more of their important data online.

So it's not much of a stretch to say that an online (rather than physical) organizer may soon become the norm for most business professionals, not to mention busy families. But rather than a single, all-encompassing website that provides all of the functions of a physical organizer, professionals and families alike may find it both more cost-effective and relevant to have several sites serve this purpose. From professional contact managers and address books, to web-based calendars, to-do lists, web-clippers, feed readers, payment services that make your checkbook obsolete, online file storage and backup services, and shopping lists that can be collaborated on and shared between an entire family, the digital organizer may finally begin to overpower the more traditional binder in the last, and most important, category: user adoption.

My own physical day-planner sits neglected now on an ignored shelf in my bedroom, possibly reminiscing on days past when it stayed glued to my side, its leather nearly tattered from daily constant use. It might now eye my computer with envy from across the room, where sits amongst my internet bookmarks a folder called simply “Organizer” that contains bookmarks to all of my most important services that I use everyday to keep my life, my finances, and my sanity in order.

In Part 2 of this series, we take a look at some of these services and find out which ones your digital organizer should not be without.