Learning technologist Aaron Silvers shares tips on how to deal with a lot of things going on at one time.

If there’s any consistent feedback I received all year long from different parts of my PLN, it’s that I always had so much going on — not chaos or “busyness” — but a lot of things going at one time. It’s not entirely an accident. I’ve really tried this last year to wring out as much life as I can. Here are some things that help me. Not by any stretch a complete list, but enough to start you asking questions. Ask me for details; if I can share them, I will.

1. Capture (almost) everything.

It looks incredibly nerdy, but I always have a Moleskine cahier pocket-sized notebook in my front left pocket. If I’m wearing a shirt that doesn’t have a pocket, I put it in my front jeans pocket with the iPhone. I almost always have a nice Cross ballpoint pen with me, too. Once a list goes past two items, or anytime the lightning of insight strikes — I write it down. Capturing it, even if I don’t do anything with it, keeps me from spending energy and time trying to remember what it was that got me thinking earlier.

I usually have a larger Moleskine with me for meetings and I use that to write things down when a laptop isn’t possible. When a laptop is avalable, I use OmniOutliner, Twitter or Google Wave to annotate things even while I facilitate online events. I use a Moleskine of some kind just about everyday, multiple times a day.

Read more of How I Got Through 2009 at AaronSilvers.com.