Using Evernote for Stress-Free Move-In
Friday, August 6, 2010 by Sean Quinn 
Don't doubt the mighty Evernote elephant. Flickr image courtesy of smarthero. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.If there was the equivalent of the Best New Artist Grammy for webapps, Evernote would win it for 2009-10. We've shown it much love in the past year, and deservingly so. Evernote is more open-source than competitors OneNote and is available on nearly all platforms - Windows, Mac, web plugins for all the popular browsers, and nearly all mobile OSes - be it iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm.
This versatility makes it THAT much better as a packing tool as well. I've considered it essential in packing for my first move-in (12 days!), and have suggested it for my friends to use.
Here's how to use Evernote as a packing tool that helps both get your bags and boxes in the car for the haul to campus and how to unpack once you've arrived at campus.
First, create a new note with a 5-row, 2-column table. On the left side of the table, categories will be listed and on the rights side, items listed. I categorized items by what needed to be bought before move-in, after move-in, what was bought and needed to be packed, what I already bought AND packed, and what my roommates were bringing. This allowed me to see everything that was going into my room, and was synced - making it portable enough that I could pull it up on my iPod touch while shopping at Target or in my family room's desktop while putting items into boxes.
Next - once you're there, you need to unpack. Make a note with a table, listing each bag on the left, and its contents on the right. Be thorough. This will make life easier. Instead of wondering what's in "Box 3", you can pull up your mobile app and look exactly at its contents. This allows you to get to your most necessary items quickest, and allows you to know which boxes can wait to be unpacked.
Evernote makes packing that much easier - with little more effort and a large payoff. It might not be able to win a Grammy for webapps, but it'll definitely impress your parents and maybe even your roommates.
Reader Comments (4)
Sorry to be pedantic, but Evernote is far from being "more open-source." Since myself, a developer, or any average Joe can't go to the website and view the source code, Evernote would be considered absolutely propriety (or closed-source). I think the phrase you were looking for is cross-platform.
Evernote sounds like a pretty cool idea if I ever upgrade my phone to having 3g access. For now, I have no use for it on my PC either. It'd be nice if you guys compared it to MS OneNote or Linux's Tomboy.
Hardcases - You are correct; it's not free as in freedom, just free as in beer. However, for mac users who can't use OneNote (I believe--correct me if I'm wrong) it's a godsend, and for being freeware at its most basic level, it's pretty excellent.
I use it as my paper-free notetaking system during the school year because I, like many college students, use a mac and like the minimal price tag.
@Hardcases: You're not being pedantic at all. You're absolutely right. I should know that Evernote doesn't fit in the category of FOSS (free, open-source software) like say Vi or Emacs, but that's what I get for trying to pound out a post on vacation. I was aiming for both cross-platform and free as in beer. Mea culpa!
And yep, OneNote's Windows only.
Sounds like such a great app....wish I would have known about this before my most recent move.