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Do you have the same feeling? Time goes so fast nowadays. I don’t know whether the Earth’s rotation speed has changed. All I know is 24 hours is not enough for me as a full time employee and a part time blogger. Therefore I always think about increasing my productivity and efficiency in order to hit my daily blogging targets. I know success in blogging comes when you take little steps everyday consistently.

I discovered iGoogle last year when I was playing with my Gmail account. From the first moment I had the feeling that iGoogle could be my blogging command center, a center where I could reach everywhere related to my blogging topic.

It took me about an hour to make the necessary adjustments. Since last December, the first thing I do every morning is to open my iGoogle. This way I can easily keep track of my favorite blogger’s recent posts, recent news about my blogging niche, and read my Gmail/Yahoo mails from a single web-page. As you can imagine this is a huge time-saver for a blogger.

What you see on the top is the most recent version of my iGoogle. Google recently started to offer hundreds of good quality themes for your iGoogle. iGoogle is composed  Gadgets. Gadgets are very similar to widgets. They are simply information boxes.

Well, I assume that you haven’t heard or fully utilized your iGoogle yet. Let’s start with the benefits, and then continue with how to setup your iGoogle to look similar to mine.

Benefits of iGoogle for Bloggers

• Saving incredible amount of time
• Easy track of Google News related to your blogging niche
• More structured and organised blogging
• Taking notes with Google Notebook and having a content archive
• Many more…

How To Create your Own Blogging Command Center?

• You need to have a Google Account to login to iGoogle. If you haven’t got already, you may sign up by clicking here create a Google Account now
• Click on http://www.google.com/ig
• Click on “Sign In” on the upper right corner to logon, enter your userid and password
• First time users will probably see a blank page, or a page with a few items
• Click on “Select Theme” to select a theme
• When you finish selecting your theme, click on “Add Stuff” to start inserting gadgets to your iGoogle.
• The easiest way to is to search for gadgets. For example type “Google reader” in the “Search For Gadgets” form on the right corner. You will see all the related gadgets. All you have to do is to click on “Add Now”. That’s all. You are done!
• Now add these gadgets to make the most out of your iGoogle:
  • Google Reader
  • Enhanced Bookmarks
  • Google News (find the news related to your keyword when setting up!)
  • Google Calendar
  • Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail etc
  • Google Notebook
• The good thing about a gadget is you can easily carry it anywhere you want on your iGoogle home. You can create your own layout. I prefer to have my bookmarks on the top, because the first thing I do in the morning is to logon to these websites.

iGoogle will make your life a lot easier. In case you need further assistance please do not hesitate to ask me. I am looking forward to receive your comments regarding iGoogle.