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Last updated on April 8th, 2022 at 11:12 pm

A quick tutorial on how to go paperless with Evernote

A couple of posts ago I talked about using Evernote and Google Drive to get rid of paper clutter. It’s not an easy switch to go paperless, but once you make the conversion, it’s amazing!

There are so many possibilities for making the switch to digital, but you just gotta pick one to start with. For me, the switch just happened as I realized I needed to organize my business and blog.

But then I realized I could do so much more in this land of digital storage.

A couple of months ago we had a landscape architect come in to design our yard. Guys, we needed help. Badly. 

Anyway, when the architect handed me his card I suddenly pictured all the other business cards I have for professionals that I might need to come back to my house someday or someone might need a referral for. You know, people like plumbers, electricians, exterminators…those kinds of professionals.

It’s easy enough to go dig through my physical files to find a name and phone number for a friend or family member, but it would be so much easier to just do it all digitally.

Because, honestly, all that info is going to end up being digitized anyway when I send it through a text message or email to someone who is asking for it. I’ll just nip it in the bud now and have all that info ready to go. Save me a step or two.

You know, efficiency.

I made a digital Home Management Binder on Evernote, and today I’ll walk you through getting started on that too.

 

Why Evernote?

My first choice would have been to use Google Drive for this digital Home Management “Binder” but Evernote is 10 times better at auto-cropping photos of documents.

With Google Drive I would have to add extra steps…take a photo using another app and set up an IFTTT to get it to the right folder on Google Drive.

Nope.

With Evernote, I can take a photo that is automatically cropped and stored directly in a note. YAS!

Evernote Basics

Evernote comes in 2 versions – free and not free. I use the free version and it works perfectly fine for my purposes.

The free version allows you to keep Evernote on two devices. I have mine on my desktop and my iPad.

If you’ve never used Evernote before, it’s actually pretty easy to use understand and keep organized.

Here’s the gist of Evernote:

Each document you create is called a note. You can type, write, take photos, drag and drop PDFs, record audio all within a note.

Each note lives inside a notebook. A notebook is exactly what it sounds like. Just like you might have used a different notebook for each subject in school, that’s what you have in Evernote.

A stack is multiple notebooks organized together because of similarity. Think of this like a giant 3-ring binder that you put multiple subject notebooks in…like one stack is for the arts and another is for math and science.

You can also add tags to your notes for searchability. This might be like adding a post-it note or a flag to a note.

Organizing Your Files

Ok, now you have a basic understanding of Evernote. So, here’s what I did to organize a Home Management Binder.

If you’re starting brand new, create a Notebook by going to File > New Notebook or by clicking the “+” next to the word “Notebooks.”

Title your notebooks based on what you plan on keeping, like using binder dividers. Here’s a way you can do it:

• Home Project Planner
• Contacts
• Contracts
• Invoices and Receipts
• Current Projects (or title it by the actual project)
• Project Inspiration
• Paint Colors and Design
• Instruction Manuals

(Yes, I went digital with my instruction manuals. You can store PDFs in Evernote or create a link to the manual. Talk about paper decluttering.)

Creating Your “Binder”

Once you have all your notebooks, you can actually make the “binder,” or Stack. Right click on any of your newly created notes to and find the option to create a “New Stack.”

Name your stack. I called mine “Home Projects.”

Next, add your notebooks to the stack by right clicking on the notebook and using the “Add to Stack” button.

Storing Your Paper

Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for …the part where your paper goes digital!

To add a new note go to File > New Note. You’ll find a whole bunch of options for things you can do, such as audio files and screenshots. Start with a new note any time you’re going to be uploading a new file.

When I want to upload something like a contract or business card using my tablet, I create a new note in that folder and tap the camera icon on the bottom of the note. Use it as a scanner and it automatically crops your cards and documents. Yay!

You can add any other notes you need onto that document in the note.

Other Cool Stuff

Say you’re searching for a contractor using your computer. You can download the Evernote webclipper to save entire articles, bookmarks, full pages, and screenshots. Plus, you can highlight things with the little toolbar.

I love the idea of having everything I need right at my fingertips. If I can quickly search for something just by hitting “enter,” I’m happy.

Because you’re going to go all out digital, you can also include things like your cleaning schedule, goals, events, important dates, all that good stuff.

I focused on all the projects going on around our house, because that’s a LOT of paper.

Right now my other Evernote project is to convert my mom’s recipe binder to Evernote. You guys, that thing is insaaaane.

Wish me luck…or that the force is with me. Something like that.

Evernote is pretty straightforward. I mean, they named all the things based on what we already know: notes, notebooks, and stacks. Ok, and they threw in the tags, but those are really like post-its or something.

Need to pare down your papers? Use this free paper organizing checklist.