Evernote Logo

The Evernote Blog

The Evernote Blog

How to Unclutter with Evernote and Rubbermaid in 4 Steps

Tips and Stories | By Ron Toledo
 

We hope you’re enjoying our Summer to Unclutter series. In the spirit of the season, we’d like to share a story of how we conquered the clutter in our own office. Don’t miss the surprise at the end of this post.

A few months ago we moved into a sunny new office space. While most of the office looked nice and clean, our storage closet quickly began to resemble a garbage heap.

Around this time, we came across a great post on Rubbermaid’s Adventures in Organization Blog, in which Jim Deitzel and crew helped a lucky subscriber take control of a messy garage with the help of some know-how and a few nifty Rubbermaid containers. We were inspired. So much so, that we came up with a simple 4-step method that uses Evernote and Rubbermaid to help you stay organized for good.

4-steps2

  1. Pack it: Fill your Rubbermaid storage box
  2. Label it: Place a clearly written label on the container
  3. Snap it: Use your cameraphone or digital camera to snap a photo of the label and container contents
  4. Note it: Add the photos into Evernote, then title the note. You can also type a quick list of the box contents. If you keep the containers in different rooms, make sure to note where the containers are located.

What’s where

By using this method, you will always know exactly what you’ve stored and where everything is. A quick search in Evernote will show you photos and contents of each container. And don’t forget, Evernote works on your computer and phone, so you can access this information whenever you need.

Rubbermaid giveaway (it’s over)

To help jump start your uncluttering project, we’ve teamed up with Rubbermaid for an exciting giveaway. We’re giving away four Rubbermaid gift packs. Each gift pack contains four 15-quart storage boxes and three 18-gallon storage boxes.

How to enter

It only takes two steps to enter:

Just one tweet gets you entered. We’ll announce We announced the winners on Wednesday September 2nd at noon on our Facebook fan page. Stay tuned and good luck. Winners will be contacted via direct message on Twitter, so be sure to  follow @evernote.

This giveaway is open to Evernote users in the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada.

Summer to Unclutter

We hope you are all enjoying the “Summer to Unclutter” month and all the great ideas from our new friends in the organization community.

  • http://siliconthreads.com Wil C

    Dawesome idea. I’ve shared with my friends. Think I might use it as early as this weekend. Have about twenty of those bad-boys in the garage that need to be categorized.

  • alohaglide

    no hawaii??! OH NOES!

  • Sj

    Wow, such a great idea! i gotta get myself some Rubbermaid storage box! Unclutter & organize is the way to go!

  • Gary

    That is brilliant!!! Especially for the containers you can’t see through (we usually buy the clear ones). But, even with that being said – just to search for something digitally (via photo and text) is an awesome idea!!!

  • jonadjon Hatwood

    Very nice.. What a brilliant idea. Helps a little bit.

  • http://www.afreshspace.com Liz Jenkins

    I love this idea – I’ve just started using evernote myself and for my organizing clients who are even the tiniest bit tech savvy – this could be a lifesaver.

  • http://www.buildingashed.org Frank

    This is a fantastic idea. This article is actually motivating me on getting a new digital camera, since my old one is outdated and has poor resolution.

  • http://twitter.com/MyMobileMusings cassetti

    Already thought of that idea ;-) Only problem is you can’t trust image recognition 100%

    My Solution: Digital Message Tape (think 14-segment display) which you can create quick bold labels for the boxes:

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/a77e/

  • martin

    I do this with all the boxes I store (including boxes of books), and then “name” the boxes with a date, as an additional hint. Then if/when i look for a book, or whatever, evernote finds it for me.

  • http://billso.com/ Bill Sodeman

    No Alaska and Hawaii – as usual. We do have Wal-Mart, Sam’s, Costco and Target here in Honolulu.

Back to Top