Everything is a tool, and you need a toolbox.

Daniel Alan Miller

Oct 8, 2014 • 2 min read

I find that I encounter a lot more things that I have time to digest at that current moment in my daily life.

Luckily, four years ago I got serious about categorizing these things as I realized during the last vestiges of my undergrad that I was becoming marginally less productive overtime the more I tried to fit in everything all at once on a daily basis.

I use Evernote to keep everything in the most abstract categories possible in order to quickly sort things and not go into overcategorization pendaticism. And I really think that although all the Evernote services are great, really the magnum opus is the Evernote Web Clipper. Based on some black magic (I assume is some basic signal checking such as domain, article text, etc) it helps you sort articles into the appropriate category and quickly becomes trained to do so, even appropriately categorizing after the first or second article, pdf, image, you have clipped.

I've recently expanded without realizing it and have two toolboxes, one being Evernote for long-term storge and Google Keep for more recent short-term storage. Google Keep handles grocery lists, event posters I see while walking, articles I want to read that day, and quick reminders to myself. Keep handles these things really well and interestingly the thing that makes me coming back to it is that I know that I'm going to get the same thing in the same layout (for better or worse) in the app interface and the web interface.

It's unfortunate that I can't even link to the Google Keep homepage which would overview its features and use cases, since it doesn't even have one. It is a low key Google tool that I hope doesn't suffer the same fate as Google Reader.

Organically both Evernote and Google Keep are competing within my workflow as I experiment to see which one more easily provides me reminders but no matter the outcome I get to relax while technology works for me.

Even if you think you don't need a toolbox, you likely do. Choose one that works for you.