I am not sure if it’s the Virgo in me, but not only am I an organization freak but I am also a fan of archiving absolutely everything, and I mean everything. From childhood drawings, to love notes and even so far as text messages, everything is saved and archived and filed away somewhere. This naturally makes Skydeck and Evernote my favorite applications of all.
Having said that, I now have another budding artist in the house of whom I enjoy keeping every single scrap of paper he generates. Unfortunately for me, I’ve already filled three 3′ binders full of artwork, homework and daily writing exercises…he produces artwork as quickly as Stephen King produces best-sellers. Keeping all of his handiwork has proved to be a rewarding habit: I can see the gradual development of his steady hand and the development of his explosive imagination.
As the artwork folders quickly filled up, unfortunately so did my shelf space. Collections had to be moved, posters rearranged and other folders were moved haphazardly to less accessible areas.
This simply would not do. I sat down and started from chronological order, methodically scanning each piece of paper, labeling the date and time (if available) and entering all his work into an Evernote notebook. I have separated his school years into separate folders, so all art for his Pre-School year and for his Kindergarten year go into their respective folders.
Scanning his work into Evernote has become a weekly ritual for me; every Friday I consolidate his work, scan it using my old Kodak 5100 scanner, and sync it over to Evernote. I keep the best works up on the refrigerator and save the very special pieces in a memento album.
For those who aren’t familiar with the dynamics of Evernote or how to Import Folders, here’s a quick graphic I’ve whipped up to help you understand the process:
1. Make a folder for the target scans.
2. Open Evernote, Click on ‘Import Folders’
3. In the new window, choose the folder you created in Step 1.
4. After you have selected your folder, choose the destination folder you want the contents to sync to and whether you want the original files to be kept or deleted.
It’s that simple! Now every time I scan Benjamin’s work, I send it straight to his ‘Kinder Work’ folder on my hard drive and let Evernote do the rest!
** Extra Credit **
If you’re anything like me, you need to have everything in chronological order. Evernote makes it easy for you to be as controlling as possible with your notes. Add tags like ‘Homework’ or ‘Random Drawings’ or ‘Name Practice’ and you can organize your notes to the umpteenth level!
If you liked this post, you may also like: Why I Love Evernote #1: Genius Files
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It’s gotta be a Virgo thing! Scanning Benji’s work into Evernote has proven to be very awesome!
I don’t have very many use cases for Evernote, but this is probably the biggest. I have three kids and want to save every scrap they doodle on. Good post!
ps – also a virgo