So how can your phone help you around the homestead? Wouldn’t it be great to organize your busy life and keep track of all the important things that you need to do and remember? Wouldn’t it also be great to have a journal or a notepad with you at all times so that you could keep a list of items you find around your home or farm that require attention, without lugging around a pencil and paper? I mean, a list will probably just end up misplaced anyhow right? What if you could collect and organize all of your important information so that you always had it at your fingertips no matter where you were? Go grab your smartphone or tablet and keep reading to learn how you can do all that and more with one small application. It’s even free!
So what application do I need?
Evernote, a small note taking application that runs on your computer, smartphone, or tablet allows you to capture and organize all of your notes and ideas and then synchronizes them across all of your devices so that they are always available to you no matter where you are. Evernote is simple to use and works with nearly every computer, smartphone, and mobile device.
- Capture anything
- Access anywhere
- Find everything fast
What exactly can Evernote help me with?
With Evernote, you can basically capture, organize, and synchronize any information that you want, but let’s look at a couple of really useful ways that it can help you on your journey to becoming a modern day pioneer by increasing your productivity around the house or farm.
To-do List
Evernote is perfect for maintaining to-do lists. Using your computer, smartphone, or tablet, simply create a new to-do list.
Because Evernote is capable of synchronizing your notes between all of your devices, you’ll be able to add/remove items from anywhere as you work around the homestead or run errands around around town.
Find something around the property that needs a return visit for repair or TLC? Just grab your phone, open your Evernote to-do list, and add a quick reminder. You can even add voice notes if you are in a situation where typing is less than convenient.
Tip: Add check boxes to your to-do list items to help give yourself an added sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. It’s always rewarding to be able to check a few items off your list to show progress!
Take notes while browsing the Internet
Forget about bookmarking web sites in your browser, when you can create a note using Evernote and add all of your favorite web urls so that you can access them at any time from any of your Internet enabled devices. Again, Evernote’s ability to synchronize your notes is awesome!
Notes don’t have to be limited to just your favorite web links, you can add any snippet of text or photos that you find while surfing the Internet. Why not create your own digital data repository, loaded with all of your favorite online resources.
Tip: Evernote allows you to create TAGS, which are keywords that can be associated with your notes. Make sure to add TAGS to your notes for fast and easy searching later on.
Create a digital recipe book
How many times have you gone to bake something and then found that you’ve misplaced your recipe index card or couldn’t remember which recipe book to use? With Evernote, you can organize all of your favorite recipes before they are lost! Adding recipes from the web is simple, just copy & paste them into Evernote. Evernote automatically stores the original recipe web url, just in case you ever need to return to the original web site. Digitizing your recipes with Evernote makes it incredibly easy to just grab your phone and pull up any recipe no matter where your are. Don’t forget to include photos of those delicious dishes!
If you want some great recipes to help jump start your new Evernote powered mobile recipe book, head over to The Pioneer Woman. The owner, Ree, has a fantastic collection of delicious treats that you’ll be sure to love. My favorite so far is her Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. In fact, they’re hands down the best cookies I’ve ever had!
Disclaimer: The Pioneer Woman is of no affiliation to The Pioneer Way. Great name though!
Tip: Add TAGS to each recipe for quick and easy searching. For instance, if I was to add an apple pie recipe, I would add TAGS for “pie”, “desserts”, and “apple”. There is serious indexing power in tagging your recipes so feel free to tag each one with as many keywords as you see fit.
Note: Evernote was recently rated the “Most Popular Recipe Organization Tool” by LifeHacker.com. Give it a try!
We’ve been using Evernote around here at The Pioneer Way and it really is a great tool for staying organized and increasing productivity, and it has a ton of features and functionality that I didn’t even get to talk about in this post. I highly recommend it!
Do you use Evernote to stay organized? If not, are you willing to try it? Leave us a comment and share your thoughts.
