More Organization

Last time I talked about how I use Evernote to organize my inspiration files, now I want to talk about how you can use Evernote to organize other things in your life.

If your kids are anything like mine, they bring home a sea of papers and projects from school, church and parties. I decided right away that I couldn't keep everything, but I hate to throw things away that they have worked so hard on.

For several years I didn't know what to do and kept quite a bit of the projects coming home. The problem I had is I didn't really have anywhere too store them and they got pretty beat up moving from one place to another. Eventually I started photographing projects, either by themselves or with my child holding it. I still do this for favorite projects and to remind me how big they were when they made a particular project. The problem with this is I don't have everything tagged or key worded to be able to find pictures when I need them.

Then I started using Evernote and had a lightbulb moment! I created a notebook for each of my children and started saving the photographs (or taking a photo with my phone) I then tag the image with the year, and that's it. I am excited that Evernote recently announced shared notebooks, now my husband and I can both add to the kids notebooks. I also use the notebooks as a place to record journaling and cute or funny things the kids do or say.

Another way I use Evernote is keeping my recipes organized. I created a notebook titled "My Recipe Box",  anytime I see a recipe online, or get one in my email, I add it to that notebook. When I first started using evnote, I tagged every recipe by category, and main ingredients. Now, however, I don't tag at all because I have realized the search feature works great.

There are several ways to add notes to Evernote, you can open the program and select add a new note. You can use the web clipper, and you can set up a special email address to email your notes to. I use all these methods and love the flexibility. You can also set up Evernote to save your tweets.

By the way, Evernote is available as a free download or app for multiple platforms, and you can use the service without having to pay. I have received a warning email from Evernote once or twice, saying I was getting close to my limit for the month, but when I checked how many days were left in my cycle, I only had 2-3 days until my account reset. I haven't payed for the premium service yet, I might in the future, but right now the free service is doing everything I need.

Do you use Evernote? Let me know how you use it, I'd love to hear your tips and tricks.