My “Other” System For Organizing Meals and Planning
Someone asked me recently how I could make all of the new recipes on top of cooking for my family using the weekly plans. The sad truth is, I don’t. My whole idea of menu planning in advance hasn’t really panned out; it takes a lot of trial-and-error to put together a new week, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for coasting for a week.
That doesn’t mean I fly by the seat of my pants every night. In January I discovered Evernote, and after I learned to adapt it to my needs, it has been a really handy tool for looking up recipes I’ve saved or jotted down while I’m at the store. While this doesn’t solve the problem of having to stop at the store frequently, it does solve the problem of standing the in middle of the produce section, wondering what to make. Again.
Once I’ve captured various notes (photos of things I’m working on, online recipes, photos or scans of handwritten recipes, typed shopping lists, etc.) I can sync the online or desktop version to my phone and presto! everything is in my hand when I want it. I use an iPhone, but they support multiple platforms.
Just so you know, I have no ulterior motives here. As I’ve mentioned in another post or two, I am not an organized person and need all of the help I can get. Visit the site and see if “Clip to Evernote” doesn’t become a regular part of your vocabulary. And just to prove my purity of motive, I should add that Microsoft has a product that they are now promoting called OneNote that does many of the same things, although you can’t store files on the web (yet – I’m sure it’s coming.) My husband has been enthusing about OneNote for over a year; he has it set up so that it automates the things he does most often and he never has to save things. But without the online storage, it is not the thing for me.
Date: May 3, 2010