Tools for Business and REI Documentation?

[Kohei Hayashi]

With the way my brain is wired I like to have a moderate amount of organization and structure. Real estate investing clearly requires a wide range of skills to be successful. From what I can see so far, the acquisitions process alone involves marketing/prospecting, deal analysis, making offers, negotiating, etc. When I think about rehabbing, financing, property management, and other aspects of the business, it can feel a bit disorganized.

I may be getting ahead of myself here by thinking about documentation and systemization, but I'd like to have some kind of mental framework regarding how to think about the different aspects of real estate and how they relate to each other so that I can have a bit more structure in my thinking. 

I'm curious, what technology or tools do you use for organizing, documenting, and tracking your business processes? Just folders and documents on your desktop? Google Drive? Physical forms or charts? Mind-maps? 

And how might it look different for a well established company vs a small team vs an individual investor?