I’ll admit it, I spend a TON of time on Craigslist. Just yesterday, I managed to sell my old iPhone and a computer desk. However, the most time consuming part is searching for gigs and temporary jobs. Since location doesn’t really matter when dealing with freelance web work, I usually search all of the big cities since they are more likely to have new posts.
The thing that sucks is manually going between all the cities and searching. Half the time I forget which city I am in and do the same searches over and over again. It can take a lot of time, especially if you are looking for a lot of jobs and gigs.
Introducing Crazedlist.org
I managed to find Crazedlist.org a few weeks ago and have been using it ever since. It lets you do a search in multiple cities and then returns the results in separate frames. It definitely cuts back on the time I spend.
Here is a quick screen capture of what it looks like when I search Phoenix and Tuscon at the same time:
Pretty cool huh? It’s a pretty cool tool and I highly recommend it if you do a lot of stuff on Craigslist. It will really cut back on the time you waste looking for stuff.
Prefer Email Updates?
Another cool tool is Craigslist Watch. Instead of searching multiple cities, it allows you to set notifications so that you get an email when something gets posted that relates to your search. For example, I could do a search for blogging and then paste the search results URL into Craigslist Watch. I would then get notified whenever a new post goes up that contains those keywords.
This is a great way to automate it so you no longer have to spend time searching for everything.
So Give Them A Shot
The next time you find yourself on Craigslist, give these tools a shot. Eventually you will form a habit of using things like this because it really frees up your time to work on other things (like actually doing work lol).
Anyone know of some other cool tools for Craigslist? If so, please post a comment and let me know.
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I have to say this is one of the most useful blog posts I’ve come across in a while. I like you spend way too much time on Craig’s List and most of it is searching (and trying to keep track of what/where I’ve searched) for elusive freelance work. This little tool gives me hope. Thanks!
Awesome, I am glad to hear it helped you! I figured it would help someone out, especially people that search on Craigslist all day
you should get a job coaching people like me who don’t know how to blog as well as you do!
That has actually been an idea in my head for awhile now. I have coached a few people on WordPress but I am looking to create a new way of teaching users from all over the place. Look for it in the near future
i always choose computer desks which are colored white because it looks very classy and very net**.
i admire Craig Newark of craiglists because he became a milionaire in such a short time .
Justin,
A couple of other sites that are great for this are http://www.statewidelist.com and http://www.clcarsforsale.com (if you are looking for cars for sale on craigslist only) statewidelist gives you any category craigslist search. Try them out!