The year is drawing to a close, the information overload and ‘to do’ lists are overwhelming and on top of that you feel the pressure to start planning for Christmas.  Our heads are spinning as we remember all the things we have to do, get and arrange and we function under the looming fear of dropping the ball on something.  The ‘deer in headlights’ look on parents’ faces this time of year is clear evidence of this.  If this is you, read on!

So how do you keep track of the many things floating around in your head?  Evernote my friends!  Make Evernote your new best friend (this post is not sponsored by the way).

Have you heard of Evernote? If you haven’t, let me explain.  

Evernote is a free note taking app that helps you to capture ideas, keep track of tasks, projects, to-do lists and so much more.  It will basically help you to never forget anything ever again ( like an elephant – see, the Evernote logo 🙂 ) If used correctly, it will make your life that little bit easier.

For me, it is MOST helpful for all those random ideas I get and to-do’s that pop up in my brain or the random (but useful) information I acquire as I go about my day.  

You just had an idea for an interesting dessert to try this Christmas, or a gift idea for your mum, or anything to do with your Christmas planning. If you get a good book referral from your friend or some advice on a homemade remedy for dry winter hands or a discovery on how to get felt tip ink out of clothes or WHATEVER it is, just type it into Evernote.    

If you are a mum (or not), you will know the extent of the randomness of the information, inspiration and ideas that come into our minds, but get lost again if we don’t capture it (or at least that is the case for me).  So, we end up walking around with a hundred open tabs, expecting our poor brains to remember everything and then beat ourselves up when something falls through the cracks.

In a desperate attempt to keep on top of everything we frantically write lists and keep notes on post-its, but then we are often faced with the frustration of knowing that we’ve written something down somewhere, but not remembering where.  Urgh!! 

Evernote will keep all of your information and ideas in one place.  When you need it, you just search for it in the app using keywords (like you would when you google something) and everything you saved containing those keywords will come up.  It is a-mazing!  

You can capture information in various formats – checklists and notes, or you can even snap a picture of something.  If you are on the go and unable to type something on your phone, you can even record an audio file. You can clip a webpage and save it in there too.  

Anything you pop into Evernote is saved and synced across your mobile and computer devices so you can add and access info from anywhere.   

Play around with it.  It is very easy to use.  Have I mentioned that it is free?

For me, this app is golden, especially during this crazy patch just before Christmas, where we are so busy with school and work stuff and don’t really have time to fully focus on Christmas yet, however, we still get ideas and remember things to do, get and prepare for Christmas.  It is a comfort to know that everything is safe in Evernote and easy to access when you do get around to act on it.  You can rest assured nothing is falling through the cracks.  

Some of my Christmas planning lists include 

• gift ideas
• people to get gifts for
• decoration ideas
• ideas of activities with the children
• a Christmas to-do checklist
• Christmas meal planning ideas
• movies to watch, etc.  

But I also save information like 

• wish lists
• favourite websites
• photos of vouchers
• helpful tips
• business cards
• good service providers
• measurements of rooms
• passwords 
• and much more 

I hope Evernote will reduce the stress for you too as it does for me as you start planning for Christmas.

I am regularly sharing all things decluttering and organising.  In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing more content to help you with your Christmas preparations and planning.  If you find this type of content helpful and don’t want to miss a thing, click here to subscribe to my email list and the content will be delivered straight to your inbox.  I would love to have you!

Until next time!

Suzanne

x