How do you organize comping?

fearlessloves

I'm not as lucky as some with wins, I seem to be entering a lot, but not winning!

I'm wondering if it's because I'm not the most organised comper? I do enter my end date, tick the ones I've done, skip the ones I don't but that's all.

So I was wondering how you guys keep comping organised? Do you use spreadsheets and all that jazz? If so how/etc

nelie

I comp by end date. Check the daily posts for any new dailies and then go through them. I check FB and twitter each day for competitions I might have missed. I try and get about 3/4 days ahead so I'm not rushing to get them all done, especially with so many end-of-month competitions at the moment.

I will note down any facebook ones I enter that I see, so I don't dupe myself when I come to them on MSE.

I'll then do a search for specific competitons for my BF and send them to him. Things like music production where he has to create a song or so forth, or location specific ones.

Most of the time they are on here anyway.

I think some people are luckier than others, while it might not feel like you're winning the 'biggies' everyday like some people, I'm sure your time will come.



I record all my wins so when it feels like I'm not winning I can remember that its not all doom and gloom!

Hope that helps a little, I know people have tabs and folders and everything, so I think they might be better placed to help. But this is my way, I don't stress if I miss a few comps. The things I've won this year have made up for it anyway! xx

L_Sym

I have a little routine of:
Booking a whole folder of normal 'dailys' then I do magazine ones. I then search for the day ending, i.e I would search today and tomorrows do any of them I've missed. THEN I go to the page where I finshed the day before and try to do all of them. It takes normally an hour / two after work.

Good luck to YOU!

Keeley1986

I comp by end date, don't use the ticks and crosses. I am not organised at all. :rotfl:

I remember what I have entered, not off the top of my head, but if I click a comp I can normally tell straight away from the prize photo, form layout, question and answer wether I have entered or not.
Everyone says that my knack of memorizing certain things is crazy lol.

EDIT* Most of the time I don't need to click to see if I've entered, I've memorized the title as listed on MSE

paadzer

If I am not busy I will go through the new competitions posted 1 - 3 times a day.

If I am busy, which I have been recently, I will do searches for websites that do comps that I like to enter (e.g. Shortlist, ITV, Waterstones, Film-news, Loaded, Entertainment Focus, Fan Carpet, Don't Panic, Empire, etc). I search for Twitter competitions on each day that I comp and catch up with Goodreads competitions every few days

elsien

I'm not in the slightest bit organised, and don't have time to do that many.
I don't do dailies or weeklies, not enough time. I just log on at night when watching tv, go back to about page 15, and work my way forwards till I get bored or tired, usually an hour or two.
I like the variety of entering big and little comps, so I do the biggies but also smaller prizes that would just be a nice surprise coming through the letter box. I usually only manage 7 or 8 pages, skipping a fair few as I don't do twitter.
Don't win much either nowadays although I've always done it this way and used to win more. I just think there's more people entering so the chances have gone down. I'm sure if I put more time in I'd win more, but the balance is right for me - any more would impact negatively on other areas of my life. Can't be bothered with systems or spreadsheets.
I had no wins at all for 6 months which has never happened before. Then just got a £500 cheque which made it all worthwhile.

Kirri

I tend to comp by end date and I do an hour or so usually in the evening while the soaps are on, scanning through all the ones just about to end and pick out some I fancy, mix of large and small prizes. I try and only do things I'd really like.

During the day I may have a nose at latest postings to see if anything catches my eye. Sometimes do a search of things I'd like, just so less chance of missing those comps if I miss an evening of end date comping.

I get the daily email list sent through and sometimes have a scan of anything I'm particularly wanting to win from that, usually over breakfast.

Rarely do mag dailies or regular comps and only sometimes do instants. Do usually do the regular Twitter comps though as can do them even when out and about on the phone.

Do keep a log of wins but that's it.

^ As said above by Elsien, to do as many as I would like, would impact on life too much, I have other things I want to do, especially in the summer. May well do more in winter. I would like to do more dvd/book comps but I don't want to be on here 24/7!

cagsy

I have a notebook (a paper one). I list the ITV comps- title, answer and closing date. I open 6 or 3 tabs accordingly and enter them systematically, earliest closing date first, then cross them out when I've exhausted the max number of entries allowed per phone number..

On another page I list the mags by issue number and work through them each Sunday afternoon or evening.

The others, including postals, I make a note of what page and post number I ended on. I go through them once or twice a week, depending on how much time or energy I have. Sometimes I miss the closing date for a few but not very often.

I've won loads of stuff over the years including a car with Take a Puzzle magazine many years ago, to £3k off Dickinson's Real Deal earlier this year.

Carol

eloisemummy

I have 2 Mse forum tabs open at once...one where i end date comp and the other as the new comps are coming in, so i tend to go back and forth getting all the new comps in as i do all the ones with end date. when i feel like i'm enough in front...eg: im currently up to 23/08 i just start chipping away at the end of month comps so i'm not getting myself in a flap LOL at the end of the month

I also have a bookmarked tab of all the dailys i want to do which is around 30-40

I always tick and thank cause i'm quite forgetful of what i have and haven't entered

GOOD LUCK xxxx

LadyMorticia

I comp by newest posted and I have a folder in my bookmarks with sub-folders with all the dailies from the magazines in i.e. a folder for Chat, a folder for Look etc.

As for spreadsheets, I used to keep a record of how many comps I entered etc in a word document but it was so rigid, so I stopped. Now I just keep a record of my wins in a word document.