One of the easiest lessons to learn in keeping track of your teams is having your rosters/lineups well organized. This may sound too basic, but I am constantly surprised seeing or hearing about players shuffling pages and pages of paper.
Spreadsheet to the rescue. Whether you use Excel or any comparable program you can simplify managing your teams by creating a file. Start with the roster(s) as you drafted them and keep that tab for reference. You can add a worksheet for your current lineups although I prefer to copy the current week and change the date on the new tab to 7-19 or whatever the beginning of the week is for your league. This will give you a tab for each week and not team, and enable you to look back if/when you have the time and review some of your managerial decisions. This can be useful during the season to see what you did or for reference after the season.
The way I suggest you do it is to list the positions down the first column, then each subsequent (main) column would be a team, writing the name of the league and/or name of the team across the top couple of rows. In cell A1, I put in the start date for that week. I also put a small spacer column between each team (more on that later).
So the only page (okay pages if you like me have too many teams/leagues) you need at any time is the current week’s. If you make changes during the week you can note that with arrows or make notes….like DL if you will have to replace that player with the next set of free agent moves.
As there will be considerable space at the bottom of each column/team (regardless of how many DL/reserve/minor league players you have), so you can also use this space to make notes of players you see during the week that may be potential pickups for your team(s). That way at least your beginning lists are all in one place. In the small columns you may want to keep track of which days your SP are supposed to start, or make a note of scheduled opponents for the next week which will help in setting the new lineups.
Here is an idea of how your spreadsheet will look (perhaps we can upload an entire one to a Google page where you can copy it)
7/19 WCOFB TOUT NL LABR
C C. Santana McCann McCann
C Snyder B. Molina Montero
1B Teixeira Loney Pujols
3B Wigginton C. Jones Reynolds
CI Ad LaRoche Cantu G. Jones
2B Kendrick Ellis M. Cairo
SS Betancourt Andrus S. Castro
MI K. Johnson Callaspo Counsell
OF Werth Byrd Heyward
OF Adam Jones Crisp Church
OF A. Jackson J. Upton Rowand
OF Tabata C. Young Fowler
OF Milledge Adam Jones F. Lewis
UT C. Gomez Hinske Colvin
SP Carpenter Greinke W. Rodriguez
P Hamels W. Rodriguez Pelfrey
P Hudson LeBlanc Enright
P Garland Silva Monasterios
P Pavano Kendrick W. Wright
P S. Baker Garland B. Lincoln
P Gorzelanny Wolf B. Lyon
P Motte Capps Corpas
RP N. Feliz Aardsma L. Nunez
RP H. Bell … F. Cordero{jcomments on}