Keeping Up with the Little Things

 

The following post is from Bernice Wood of Living the Balanced Life:

Source: Artois Bibliothèques

As busy women (and men) we have so many things running through our heads. We have so much to keep up with in our day-to-day lives.

Mandi recommends a household notebook, and that is great for keeping important info at home, but what about all the little minutiae, the things that we come across throughout our day? Things we want to remember, but our poor brains can’t find room for it all, much less recall it.

Honestly, though, we shouldn’t expect our brains to remember little details. We need to save storage room for the important things in life…like remembering our spouse’s birthday!

Here are some of my favorite tools for managing this minutiae:

Tools for keeping up with the little (and BIG) stuff

Good old paper and pen. Of course that will work and many people still use this process. I have a dozen or more notebooks from past years of just handwritten notes. The major issue with handwritten notes is the ability to find info that you may be looking for. This may be good for something you wrote down yesterday, or even last week, but last month or last year?

Post it notes. Some people swear by them. When I had a desk I sat at daily, I think they worked to some degree, but only for short term things. Obviously, this person below lived by and saved every post-it note used!

Source: watchsmart

The note feature in your phone. I loved when I got a Blackberry early last year (yes, I am behind the times). I began using the Notes feature which helped me keep up with lots of little bits of info, such as the medications my daughter was taking, or notes from this week’s sermon. (Yeah! No more writing them on bulletins to then be shoved into my purse!) Problem I have now is that hubby has taken over my Blackberry since I graduated to a Evo HTC Droid phone, so how do I get my notes off?

How Evernote can help keep up with the little things

Which brings me to my most favorite tool right now: Evernote. Prerna mentioned Evernote for Android in her last post, and I just wanted to share a little more about how this free app can make your life easier by helping you keep up with all those bits of info.

• Evernote has an online app, which you can access from any computer. It also has an app you can download on any smart phone. These will automatically sync when you login.

• What this allows me to do is take notes in church on my Droid, and they will show up online. I can also start my grocery list online, but then add to it while I am lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep.

• I also love using Evernote to help me keep up with post ideas. Many times while I am surfing the internet, I will come across a post that triggers a post idea for me. I will “clip” the page and make a note of my idea, and save in the folder for post ideas.

• I also love using evernote to keep track of recipes. I am not a great cook, but I like to “clip” recipes and keep them at my fingertips for when I am ready to cook. I can even access those recipes while at the grocery store to see what ingredients I need to pick up.

Source: Johan Larsson

• I am not a crafter or a decorator, but I can see how Evernote could be used by those who are to keep up with ideas in separate folders.

• Evernote’s great search function helps you keep up with your ideas and be able to recall them later. You can tag items as well as categorize them, and Evernote can find what you are looking for in just a second or two. Oh how I wish my brain worked like that!

• And I almost forgot 2 more features that I haven’t used yet: You can take pictures and store them in Evernote so that they can be tagged and categorized. You can also do a voice recording, say if you are driving or something. Again, it can be tagged and categorized!

If you have not already tried Evernote, I encourage you to try it today. If not Evernote, find some system of helping you record and recall all those little bits of info.

Have you tried Evernote? What do use to keep up with your little things?

	Bernice Wood is a mother of 4 young adult kids, plus Nana to 7 grandchildren. To help others avoid the pitfalls of stress and burnout and learn to live a more healthy life, she blogs at Living the Balanced Life. She just recently launched a 2nd site, a resource center for busy women.

Tagged as: bernice