Palais Professional Organizer

Posts Tagged ‘evernote’

6 of one item half dozen of the same

Something I noticed working with a client today is that they had about 6 bike locks – no keys. I think if you have a challenge with organization (and we all do in some arena) that maybe you lose the key or the combination and end up buying this item over and over. That can get expensive and it is also just not a great thing for the environment.

Evernote to the rescue

The struggle when buying any kind of lock whether it be for the gym, bike, garage or storage: Key or combination? Decisions, I tell ya! Well, I go with the combination and then put the combination to the lock in an Evernote note tagged…lock – garage. Or lock – bike. You get the picture. That way you’ll always have the combination with you – provided you always have your phone on you. No worrying about losing a key. (If you don’t know about Evernote click on the link and learn!)

Now you have the key to your lock situation. And you have the combination!

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other night who is a successful business owner.

She and her husband do the lions-share of the work in their 2 stores and what came up were all the million and one ways in which to keep track, log, list, remind and otherwise drive oneself nuts trying to stay organized and on top of the workload of a small-mid size business.

This is not the first time I have heard this. Many of my clients are faced with not the lack of tools with which to stay organized but quite the opposite…there are so many!! Which is the BEST?

I wish I could tell you. But I can’t. What I can tell you is that I try to use them all for a while so that I can speak to as many of the productivity tools out there with some aplomb.

Having said that I think the simplest is always best. And on top of that I think that you just have to make a decision to use one or two – for better or for worse and stick to them. Even if something shiner and newer comes out. Just stay where you are and get really good with the tools you have otherwise you’ll go nuts and spend all of your time messing around with productivity tools and no time being productive. I see that a lot.

My short list:

Evernote – it is your external memory. You can use tags and notebooks and don’t really have to be too terribly organized. Just throw stuff in there that you want for later. It is great for information that you want but don’t know where to put. Information that you don’t necessarily need immediately.

Book lists, pic of your friend’s purse that you want to find online, clip web pages of notes for your website etc Syncs to your phone.

Manymoon - great for project management and sharing in groups. You can link to Google calandar and upload docs to it so there is a bit of a dropbox functionality here. There are tasks for each project that you can assign to team members, reminders can be set up, Also syncs to your phone. I’m using it for a work team and will try it with a client too. Stay tuned!

What are your favorite to-do list apps? Project management tools?

Image via CrunchBase

Thank YOU for having me at your event Evernote!

That cute little elephant – does he really remember so much? Well, let’s hope so because my Evernote has, oh, about too many notebooks to count and a similar number of tags and notes. The more I load into Evernote the more I love it.

Which is why I was so thrilled I was able to attend the Evernote press conference on July 14th at the W hotel in San Francisco when they announced Phase II of their development. The Trunk. How could Evernote possibly get better? Through 2000 API integrations!

At the press conference 100 of these partnerships were rolled out and there will be many more to come. I’ve been spending time playing with some of them but so far I don’t have a best of list yet. It always takes me some time to work a new piece of technology into my organizing routine. I can tell that I want one of the scanners that scan directly to Evernote. This is not a must-have but just a great feature. I have been in the market for a scanner so these models have come out just in time! Now if Santa would show up…

I have switched browsers to Google Chrome so I can use the updated web clipper. And I’m really loving Chrome! What is going to be amazing about the new Evernote web clipper on Chrome is that when you clip notes on a web page you will be able to pull up all the notes you’ve ever clipped from that site. So if you have sites you return to often and clip information from often – it is a great tool. You’ll basically have a “best of” section of notes for that site. This is helpful for me for sites like The Container Store or Staples…or Prada or Jimmy Choo…I digress.

I love the Publisher’s Notebook section of the Trunk. If you enjoy magazines you will love this feature. It is basically a magazine on Evernote that you can add your own notes to. Check out the offerings and if there is something there that strikes your interest it would be worth it to play with. I’m seeing many uses for this section as time goes on. There aren’t so many magazines there at the moment but I’m sure more publishers will jump in soon.

I’ll keep you updated as I try the new tools. Have any of you tried any of the Trunk apps? Let me know how you have done with them and how you use Evernote!

Gotta Have Backup
Don’t you hate it when you run out of toothpaste or toilet paper or your favorite mascara (ladies!)?  It can be even more dire when you run out of diapers when the baby is crying, printer paper when the presentation is due or clean under

George Clinton's backup (singers) Image by Steve DeMent via Flickr

wear – ever!

To avoid the these annoying organizational pitfalls and keep your life running smoothly – purchase items when you are 3/4 out of them. Use Evernote.com to keep lists of the products you use on an ongoing basis.

Just this small change in operating procedure will save you time, energy and precious sanity.