Mind Like an Elephant

by Kristi Willis

Getting the EDGE at work was one challenge, but Getting the EDGE at home was another story entirely – more like a nightmare. I noticed that while I was now organized and effective at work, I was flailing at home and it was causing problems. It was time to take control, so I initiated Project Clean Up/Clear Out at my house.

I started small, one drawer or shelf at a time, and separated things into Action, Reference, Recycle, To Someone Else and Trash stacks. The project went much faster than I thought it would. I delivered things to others, filed my important paperwork and old bills, and then stared at the stack of leftovers. What was I going to do with this stuff?

Some of the items were straightforward things that I could add to my Outlook system at work, like an upcoming party of a friend or a gift I needed to order for a friend. But other things were more ambiguous – they were someday/maybes or reference things that didn’t have a home like vacation ideas or recipes that I had ripped out of magazines. And, there were a lot of them. Hmmmm….

The problem is that I read a lot – magazines, newspapers, blogs, books, you name it. All this reading spurs great ideas; those “ooh, I want to do that/try that” moments. I needed a place to put those things and the Outlook Notes feature wasn’t going to cut it. Keeping it all in paper binders wasn’t practical either. I needed a technology solution.

Enter Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/), one of the coolest applications I have ever used. Evernote is a database application that allows you to store information and access it from just about anywhere. It loads a copy of the database on your computer and syncs it with an online version (this is called cloud computing). If I load a recipe in the database, I can log on to Evernote from anywhere, including my iPhone, and find that recipe.

You can tag the documents with keywords so that they are grouped and located easily. I have recipes, travel ideas, gifts, crafts and exercise routines all saved in Evernote. Each month, when I read my magazines, I find the articles that I want to save online and clip them to Evernote. When I’m out doing errands and see something that I want to keep up with, like a gift idea, I can take a picture of it with my iPhone and store it on Evernote.

While The Effective Edge doesn’t endorse applications as an organization, I have found Evernote truly helpful. If you have a paper “issue,” I recommend using it or a similar tool to help you stay organized. I also recommend that you find a solution that will synchronize with your SmartPhone/PDA so that you can access it anywhere.

I no longer have stacks of magazine clips all over my house and I can find what I need quickly. Definitely EDGE-y.