Getting organized can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t know where to start. You may or may not be one of those people who organize their lives electronically. It’s understandable if you’re not. Your state of disorganization may be a physical manifestation, travelling throughout the household and seemingly unaffected by how neat your Google calendar looks online. However, there are ways for you and your online applications to meet in the middle and revamp your household.
With its cross-platform support, Evernote can very easily serve as that go-to application for any specific organizational task. Once your account has been created it can be accessed and updated from your tablet, your smart phone, or your laptop so that you can view your content on the go no matter where you are. While your options are limited only by your imagination, here are seven specific ways to use Evernote to organize your life:
Snapshots of Recipes
Evernote allows you to take pictures of anything and then organize them with tags and titles. This comes in handy when you have an assortment of recipes coming from different mediums:
Internet screenshots
Cookbook/magazine scans or snapshots
Scribbled notes
Why not bring all of these recipes together in one easily accessible place? With Evernote you can store them all together and use tags to make them easy to search. When searching for recipes online use the Evernote Web Clipper which is available on every major browser. If you’re a real foodie, check out Evernote Food, a great app for remembering awesome meals when you eat out.
Snapshots of Business Cards
Business cards are a love/hate sort of item. They’re small and accessible and easy to store, but they’re just that much easier to lose. Try taking a picture of every business card you come across that you think you might need again, tag it, and store it in a notebook designated for business cards. For an even more professional approach use the wonderful mobile app CamCard that integrates nicely with Evernote.
Snapshots of Statements/Receipts/Bills
As you may have noticed by now, the snapshot tool in Evernote is quite versatile. Just as you would take snapshots of recipes or business cards, you can do the same with any invoices or bills, title and tag them to make them searchable and store them in a notebook. If you’re up for further organization you can separate bills by category or date and create separate notebooks within a single folder.
To-do Lists
One of the oldest tricks in the book is the traditional to-do list. Despite all the clever things Evernote can do, sometimes you just want to create a simple list, be it a grocery list or a list of tasks to accomplish throughout the day. Evernote allows you to make these as simple or as elaborate as you wish. Type, handwrite or even make an audio recording of what needs to get done and refer back to it as you get complete items throughout the day.
Workout Schedules
With all the time you’re bound to save from organizing the rest of your life, you may have time to hit the gym. For people who want to workout but can never find the time or don’t know where to start, check out this article on the Evernote blog. That takes care of the how. As for the when, Evernote can be integrated with Google calendar so that you can visualize when to do what.
Google Calendar
Expanding upon the previous point, a great way to stay organized is to post Google Calendar events to Evernote as notes. Every event you make note of can be synced across all your devices, be it your trip to the gym, your kids’ extracurricular events or your down time with your significant other.
Photos of Boxes with Listed Contents
Going back to that daunting task of organizing your house physically, on top of everything else it’s capable of doing. there are ways Evernote can help organizing your house too. While the application can’t offer an extra set of hands, it can help you stay organized in the future once the dirty work is done. Try this:
Organizing contents into boxes that are clearly labeled
Take pictures of these boxes in which the labels are visible
Title the pictures of the boxes accordingly with the labels on the boxes
Add a list of contents as a note
From now on, if you’re ever looking for an old jacket, a toy, or any household item, you’ll be able to search for it in Evernote and then locate the box.
So here you have seven ways to start the process of organizing your lifestyle. While Evernote is a simple organizational tool, the level of organization depends on you and your creativity in terms of using the app to cater to your needs.
Linda Vanderkolk is a professional organizer and is the founder of Clutter B Gone, an organizing service based in Toronto.