Technology Tuesday: Evernote

One of the things I hinted at Time Management: Part 1, is that I usually have 6 or 10 different "projects" going on at the same time.

My garden is ongoing, it only took one or two years for me to realize that what I wanted to do with my yard was going to be a multi-year, possibly even a lifetime effort.

My writing, I just keep trying to make a habit of sitting down and putting my thoughts to paper and/or computer screen.  This goes for both fiction and non-fiction.

And then there is organization.  I've recently decided to start digitizing our recipe collection.  See, a year or so ago, my friend Amy over at PrettyBabies wrote a blog post about Evernote.

It took me a while to start really using Evernote.  The app didn't work properly on the first phone I tried, so I occasionally used it on our desktop.  Now that I've replaced that phone, I'm finding more uses for the App.  Truth be told, I don't feel comfortable with keeping my financial records there, just yet.  But less-sensitive things like lists of garden plants, or recipes, are fine.

My husband has been printing out the recipes he finds online, and keeping them in a notebook.  The papers get bent, or stained with food.  Most of them are loose, so I worry that something will get lost.

Then there's my magazines.  Right now, I subscribe to two: Yoga Journal and Southern Living.  I've tried encouraging Dear Husband (DH) to flip through the magazines and pick out recipes, but he usually doesn't do that.  Once in a while, I'll pull out a recipe, and that somewhat works.  But I think I could do better if I digitized those, too.

Digitizing allows us to do keyword searches, and find recipes faster than flipping through magazines.  I can also tag the recipes with the appropriate season and/or holiday, to vary our diet throughout the year.

So, the process of putting recipes into Evernote has begun.  I'm starting with DH's notebook, since most of those printouts came from online sites.  I can run a quick search, either through Google or specifically on the site, and then use my Evernote Clipper add-on to save it to my Recipes notebook.  Then, when DS' best friend's parents want a copy, I could pull the recipe up on my phone.

Then, if I could pull DH out of the digital dark ages, I could share the Recipes notebook with him.

(I've been considering weekly features for my blog, day-by-day.  For the moment, though, consider "technology Tuesday" an occasional special.)