So as the title says I'm a first time DM.. well maybe I ran one game before, but at any rate, I'm new to this.
I've played quite a few games, but I'd really like to try my hand at running one.

So I've made some maps, got quest ideas written, a few magical items created, and a general idea of how things could go.
What I'm interested in is organization. Say for instance.. encounters, treasure, and events. I was thinking of making notecards with encounters/groups written on them so that when an encounter happens I can pull from my pre-made list of critters instead of thumbing through the monster manual to find something.. or coming up with something on the fly.

Does this sound like the way to go? I really want to be on top of things, because in many.. MANY games that I have played, there were long delays and pauses for the DM to 'figure things out'. If I get a new player interested.. I don't want them to fall asleep of boredom haha.

So basically I was thinking of doing the same thing for treasures, and events too. Treasures aren't that big a deal.. I can come up with that easily on the fly. It'd be nice I suppose to have some pre-gen stuff though just to be prepared. Also traps - it would be nice to mark my map with a symbol to denote a trap and just be able to pull a trap card from my notecards instead of devising something on the spot.

Well, if anyone has any other organizational tips for making the game go smoothly and quickly - in all the right places - let me know!

Thanks!