How to organize your life with evernote
Occasionally I'll have a note in Evernote with more information about a Todoist task, but I've found with this system I rarely need to do that.Įveryone swears by a different to do app, but I like Todoist because it’s simple, it’s very quick for adding tasks and due dates/recurrences, it has an easy drag-and-drop interface and there are well-made apps for every place you could want to use it: your phone, your web browser, etc. While Evernote is the first place ideas go and is home for my bigger projects, I check Todoist to see what I absolutely need to do today before I can move on to anything else. This includes recurring tasks and reminders to set an early alarm for tomorrow or buy a new brake light bulb or kidnap a small child. I keep a separate Evernote account for work stuff because I like to keep it in its own silo.Īnything that's urgent, has a specific deadline or is a simple To Do item goes in the task list. I never keep sensitive personal information in Evernote like account numbers, passwords or personal documents. Strategically hidden are my "crimes to commit" and "embarrassing blackmail material" tags, among others less relevant to this post. Here's a glimpse at part of my Evernote tag hierarchy. What I do is clean up the rough ideas I jotted down, tag them according to my own system (see below), delete them if they're f#$%ing stupid (this happens often), move any urgent tasks or scheduled events to Steps 2 & 3 as you'll see momentarily, then delete or move everything out of the Inbox vigilantly (I use two other notebooks called "Active" and "Archive," but it doesn't really matter where notes go as long as they're tagged properly). Nothing should ever sit in there-it's the beginning of the journey, not the destination. Assign a time once a day or once a week to clear it out, and I mean clear it out completely. The second half of Step 1 is sorting your dumpbox, or else it just becomes a useless graveyard of formerly relevant thoughts. on your phone) so you don't forget anything. Whatever app you use for dumping, the most important thing is that it's readily available at any given moment (i.e. The only exception here is if it is a simple, single-step task that has any urgency (like "take out the trash tonight"), in which case I skip directly to Step 2. I do this by either making a new note on my phone while I'm on the go or forwarding an email to Evernote or clipping a webpage using the web clipper. Here's what I do: any time I think of a blog post topic or a funny joke or a song lyric or something, I send it immediately to an Evernote folder called Inbox. I use tags like a boss because they're more versatile than notebooks. The best part of Evernote is that you can use it very simply or set up complex, powerful systems. It’s where I keep all ideas, projects, recipes, reference information, etc. Dumping is as important as it is funny to say. The first step to taking control is having a place to dump every single thought you have for categorizing and organizing later.
#HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE WITH EVERNOTE FREE#
Although if they want to send me free stuff, I'm not above that in the slightest. This is more about the method than the tools themselves. In fact, many of them can be easily swapped out for similar apps that you prefer. PLEASE NOTE: I am not sponsored by or affiliated with any of the apps I discuss here. While there's obviously no one-size-fits-all solution, maybe my plan can work for you, too. There are about a thousand and four productivity apps out there, and after trying way too many of them, I've mapped out a system that works really well for managing both my creative and personal lives using three apps. Keeping things simple means using as few apps as possible to implement a single organizational flow.
#HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE WITH EVERNOTE UPDATE#
It's important to keep things as simple as possible when organizing, but that's easier said than done in addition to an office job that involves a lot of writing, I need to keep track of music projects, comic ideas, blog posts, to do items, grocery lists, amazing ideas for inventions that will make me a triillionaire and any other asinine crap that pops into my head. Plus, I need to remind myself to take the trash to the curb and update my fantasy football roster in a futile attempt to not suck this year. I forget brilliant ideas I thought of five minutes ago and incredibly important tasks I need to do today. The only reason I seem organized is because my life would be a completely unredeemable mess if I weren't vigilant about having my shit together. Many people see me as an organized person, but I’m gonna let you in on a dirty little secret: I’m actually an incredibly unorganized person who constantly forgets things.