Can Evernote Help Moms to Be More Organized?

Using Evernote is like carrying a digital filing cabinet in your pocket.

Intentional living in the Information Age is not for sissies. While we have many tools and devices, we also have more information to maintain than ever. When was the last time you were out of the house and couldn’t find the information that you needed? Perhaps it was your child’s sports schedule, a receipt, or the details of an upcoming trip. Maybe it was an account number, the notes you took during a meeting, a recipe, or the list of items you need to buy for that house project.

Keeping track of the details of life and all of the related information can be a real challenge. In today’s information economy, not only do we have paper to file and maintain, but now we also have a plethora of digital information to store and organize.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could carry all of the paper and digital information in your pocket in an easily-accessible form? What if you could simply search for “wines I like”, “kitchen project”, “meeting notes” or “summer camp” to find information when you need it, where you need it?

If You Use Evernote, You Already Know This is Possible.

I’ve been using Evernote for 6 years and it has saved me much time and frustration in filing, sorting, and finding physical papers as well as digital information.

Here are just a few ways Moms can use Evernote:

• Keeping track of the details of multiple projects

Moms of all walks of life track projects constantly. We juggle information on house projects, school decisions, health goals, business projects, chore lists, family schedules, event plans, vacation plans, etc. Whatever the project, Evernote can help you keep track of it.

• Saving Important Information for Later Reference

Snap a picture of your child’s school calendar, sports schedules, a handwritten menu or note, the electric bill, the label of a wine you liked, your printer model, a book you want to read, or a gift that you might want to give to a friend. When you need it later, it’s just a search away.

• Recording Quotes or Thoughts in a Commonplace Book

This could be my favorite use of Evernote. For years, I have written down notes, quotes, and thoughts from books that I’ve read in a notebook, sometimes called a “Commonplace Book”. But those notebooks on a shelf are not easily accessible. When I wanted to access a quote or remember what I thought as I was reading a particular book, it was NOT easy to find. Now I add my pages to Evernote. I try to mostly handwrite them and then add a snapshot of the page. But sometimes I do just take a snapshot of the actual book. The information then becomes much more useful and accessible.

• Keeping Health and Medical Records

I have a separate Evernote Notebook just for medical records. Keeping track of medical records and notes from doctors appointments is much easier with Evernote.

• Recording Meeting Notes

Use Evernote to take notes in a meeting, or just snap a picture of the notes written during a meeting. If you ever need to reference them, they will be there waiting for you!

• Sharing Information with Others

Notebooks are sharable with other Evernote users. You could share your medical notebook or house project notebook with your husband, your meeting note notebook with your business partner, or your fitness goals notebook with a friend you’ve asked to hold you accountable. This is a great way to work together and share information.

• The Possibilities are Endless

Evernote is Free.

You can download Evernote on your phone, tablet, Mac, or computer for free! The free version of Evernote is all that most people will ever need. There are also Plus, Premium, and Business plans for more advanced features.

I have not yet upgraded to Plus ($34.99/year), but have considered it and may soon take the leap. There are some useful features in the upgraded versions. The paid versions offer more upload storage space per month, although I have only recently even come close to hitting the monthly limit. Two features that I would find very useful are the ability to forward emails to Evernote and the use of unlimited devices. Since the webclipper feature allows the user to clip web pages and emails into a note, that has been just fine for me so far. Two devices are all that most people will need and it is quite easy and quick to switch which two devices I want to use at a given time.

Convinced That You Want to Try Evernote? Here’s How to Get Started:

Simply download the Evernote app, register a free account, and start adding notes!

Some things to know as you get started:

• When taking a picture of a document to add to a note, use the camera button within the Evernote note, then press the button in the upper right corner of the screen to turn on the document feature. This tells Evernote that the picture you are about to take is a document and that will allow it to use the Optical Character Recognition for searches within that document.

• Evernote uses Notebooks, Tags, and Notebook Stacks to organize your individual notes.

• Think of Notebooks as file folders – each note can only be in one notebook at a time.

• Notebook Stacks are simply groups of notebooks. You may have a family stack, a work stack, and a personal stack, for example.

• Tags are used to group notes in (almost) limitless ways. You might use tags for each member of your family, a vacation tag, a church tag, school tag, etc. Tags are so useful and flexible because one note can have multiple tags. For example, my daughter’s cheer schedule is in my reference notebook, but it is tagged with her name, her school, and a schedules tag.

• You don’t need a separate notebook for every category. I actually dump most of my notes in a general notebook titled “Reference”. Remember, each note is searchable, so they’re easy to find no matter where they are. The key is that they are named with terms that you would search on or that they are tagged with categories that you would use to retrieve them.

• You really don’t need to think very much about your “system” for organizing your notes when you start. In fact, I have almost 700 notes in Evernote and have not given much thought to how I organize them until very recently. Once you do need to organize them, you will be familiar enough with Evernote to be able to easily create a system that works for you. I am working on a new tagging system to make it easier to sort and filter my notes. I’ll share that soon!

• That said, I wouldn’t go crazy creating tons of notebooks. If you can’t imagine having at least 15-20 notes in a given category, I would not create a separate notebook for it. Use more tags, fewer notebooks!

If you are interested in Evernote, you might also like my post To Write or to Type: That is the Question.

Do you use Evernote? What is your favorite way to use it? Leave a comment and let me know!