Going Paperless With Evernote: Manuals
Last week, while sitting with extended family, it was discussed that I was working on this next blog post. One family member (who knows I am paperless) said, “You sure do hate paper don’t you?” Another said, “She just hates clutter.” Now that is a reputation I definitely don’t mind. Paper is clutter. And yes, I hate it! Paper turns into little piles and then when you need it, it never seems to be the first place you look.
When we decided to ditch the file cabinet, I realized that the bottom drawer was almost completely full of manuals. When moving into our house we were greeted with 2 kitchen drawers full, plus a stack on the kitchen counter, of manuals. Everything has a manual. Everything. The air conditioner has about 3. The washer and dryer manuals are each about 1 inch thick. Then you have the fireplace insert, garbage disposal, fridge, microwave, dishwasher, oven, stove, coffee makers… I think you get the idea. And I haven’t even moved to another area of the house.
So let’s say you have a question about one of these appliances. You must: 1. Walk to where your file cabinet is. 2. Begin to sort through the masses for the one you need. 3. Bring it back to where your problem is. 4. After you find the issue, hopefully it gets back in the cabinet in the proper place.
What if I told you that you could bring that down to one step and lose that entire file drawer? Step 1 - Open Evernote and search for the appliance. Done.
But what about these giant books? Aren’t these difficult to scan? Yes. However, here is the beautiful thing about the internet, you can find just about ANYTHING! Let me walk you through what I do to save my manuals to Evernote.
It is best to start with physical manual, unless this is a brand new product. So here we have my shredder from Amazon. You can see the numbers ASIN# B00D7H8XB6. Go online and search “Amazon Basics Shredder B007H8XB6.”
Download this as a PDF.
Save it to Evernote and name it appropriately.
You’re done! It’s that easy!
Here are a few tips:
If you can’t find exactly what you are looking for, search a different way. Here are a few things I might try for the above appliance:
If you absolutely cannot find it online, cut or tear out all the pages you need and scan those. I think I only had to do this one or 2 times.
Let’s talk about maintenance.
There are so many benefits to having these manuals literally in your pocket all the time. Are you out shopping and need to remember exactly which water filter you need for your refrigerator? Do you want to recommend your washing machine to a friend? Do you need to know which battery your fireplace remote needs? It’s all right on your phone!
Someone once asked what I would do when we move? How will I transfer these manuals to the new owner? Easy! I will upload all of these to a flash drive and hand it over. I imagine they will be grateful. I know I felt quite overwhelmed when I found the drawers full of manuals when we moved in.
Doing all of this took me one afternoon. And maintenance is quite easy. When we buy a new appliance I stick all the paperwork in my inbox and when I’m working on my “To Do” items I scan the receipts and things I need to keep and then search for the manual online and add it to my “User Manuals/Warranties” folder in Evernote.
I hope that freeing yourself from all of these manuals will free up space and take some clutter out of your life.
As always, I hope these tips help you to find that wonderful margin in your life that we need to thrive!