Organizing your Life with Evernote

Many of my clients express their frustration over the amount of paper clutter in their life! Whether it is incoming mail, a backlog of files in their home office or the piles that seem to fill every available flat space, the work involved with clearing paper clutter is overwhelming.

I have gone nearly paperless in my household and business using my ScanSnap and PC folders. However, I know this method is difficult for most and my friend and fellow professional organizer, Dawn George, has a solution that can help you in a myriad of aspects of your life.

Dawn George is a CPO®, (Certified Professional Organizer), NAPO member, Evernote expert and friend. Please enjoy her wonderful advice on how to get control of the paper in your life.

The Problem

Does this sound familiar?  You have a stack of papers that’s been sitting on your desk for weeks, you know you need to keep it all but you aren’t sure what to do with it.  If you file it away you feel like you will never see it again and you aren’t even sure what file it would go in anyway!

Or how about this one…  Your e-mail inbox is filled with emails you might need to refer to in the future.  You’ve deleted what you can but the rest could be useful at some point, however it’s nearly impossible to weed through it all to find what you need.

We have all dealt with situations similar to these and oftentimes feel that ideas and information becomes lost simply because we don’t have a reliable system to capture it.  Well, the good news is there is a solution and it’s an app called Evernote.

The Solution

You may have heard about Evernote, and some of you may have downloaded the app on your phone in the past.  As an Evernote Certified Consultant I train individuals on how to use this incredibly useful app to capture, access and share just about any piece of information you may ever want or need on your computer or mobile device.  Evernote is available for Mac, PC, iOS and Android devices and the crazy thing is you can access most of Evernote’s amazing features for free!

The information stored in Evernote is synced across all devices so it’s available anywhere and it’s completely searchable so you can find exactly what you need when you need it.  When I say searchable I really mean it. Evernote searches for words within documents, PDFs, images and even handwritten notes!

You can drag and drop documents, images, PDFs, screen shots and scanned papers into Evernote.  You can also save voicemails and photos, forward e-mails as well as clip information from websites into Evernote, and much more.

How You Can Use Evernote

So, here are just a few things I capture and access using Evernote…

• All of my credit card, bank and utility statements.  Some statements are e-mailed, others I scan in. These are also shared with my husband so he can access them anytime anywhere.
• Product manuals and instructions.  I also store photographs of product boxes for many higher ticket items.
• Gift ideas for my kids, spouse and family members.  If I find something online that I know would make a great gift, I clip the webpage or image directly into Evernote.  Oftentimes when I’m out with my kids and they want something I just take a picture of it and put it into their gift notebook within Evernote.
• My children’s school related papers.  Report cards, school calendars, student directories, class pictures, schoolwork, artwork, etc. This is also shared with my husband.
• Receipts for tax deductible items, things I may want to return, or items still under warranty.  This is super helpful at tax time!
• Recipes.  I scan in recipes but also find many online that I clip directly into Evernote.  When I’m at the grocery store and need to know how many plum tomatoes to buy for my favorite guacamole recipe it takes just a few seconds to find out.

How to Get Started Using Evernote

I’m sure you are starting to see the value of Evernote and can understand why there are over 225 million users worldwide.  Having one place to capture, access and store all the various types of information that comes our way is extremely valuable.  I encourage you to check it out for yourself. Here’s how…

1. Click here to download the app for free.
2. Start small.  Pick one thing you want to start using Evernote for so you don’t overwhelm yourself.  Get inspiration from the list above.
3. Check out Evernote Help & Learning to get answers to common questions or hire an Evernote Certified Consultant like myself that can work one-on-one virtually to help you get started.

You will be amazed at how much one app can simplify your life! Check out my website for more information.

Dawn George
Evernote Certified Consultant

As always, you can Contact Imagine to learn more about our home organization services.