Get organized and inspired with these 2 apps

Sharon Struthers

Image courtesy of Feelart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

​Have a lot of ideas but just can’t lay your hands on one?
Need a way to archive web pages you’ve used as sources?
 
Here are two of my current favorite apps, Evernote and Pocket, which help me:

• keep track of and develop ideas for writing projects
• organize and archive digital assets that I used in the past, need now or may need down the line
  

 
Try them out – you can get the basic versions at no cost. They’re both easy and rewarding.
 
Evernote: More than a parking lot for ideas
 
Do you get great ideas, then forget them while looking for a pen or opening a note app to write them down? And if you do manage to write them down somewhere, those ideas quickly become either misplaced or meaningless.
 
I found Evernote when I was frustrated and bored with Trello. Both give you a quick and easy place to go to jot down ideas as they occur to you.
 
I had been using Trello for about a year and had logged over 100 ideas for books, articles and blog posts. At year’s end, during the slow holiday season, I wanted to see what I had. To sort those ideas. To see patterns. To get inspired.
 
But I was stymied. Intuitively at least, I couldn’t seem to do anything to see those ideas in a new way.
 
Then I heard about Evernote, signed up and moved my 100+ ideas one by one, adding notes, tags, photos and research links. Evernote has a very user-friendly interface. I am frequently motivated to add thoughts, paragraphs and resources to my ideas. Just what I was looking for.
 
Pocket: More than a place to save articles to read later
 
Every morning, I was getting bogged down reading various worthy (and unworthy) articles linked from my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds, as well as from various email newsletters.
 
It was not a good way to start the day. It derailed me from using my best time of the day for writing.
 
Ironically, I was reading a blog post about an app called Pocket, so I downloaded the little icon that lives on your browser and lets you save web pages with the click of a button. And tag them. Now I just save those articles I want to read in Pocket, and browse through them later in the day.
 
I soon realized that I could use Pocket to archive all of the web pages I consult when I research new topics. (I’ve been writing a lot of web pages for patients and their families about health conditions and treatments lately.)
 
By saving each resource to Pocket and tagging it with the topic and client, it’s easier to make revisions. I’m also able to easily locate the source of any information in question.
 
And it couldn’t be easier. As I close out of each source website, I just save it and tag it.
 
I also like to save articles I might need for future projects I’m considering, as well as favorite articles that I just want to hang onto for a while. I use Pocket every day. You’ll be surprised how fast you populate your Pocket home.