Streamline
live more, do less
This post is the second in a series of posts about how to make the best of a long commute. To see Part 1 of the "Commuterrific" series, please scroll to the bottom of this post.
The Beauty of Evernote
I think productivity bloggers agree, Evernote is an awesome app. I use it for so many things "commuterrific." I use both the straight voice recording and the voice-to-text feature (more on that later). Here are just a few ways that I use it on my long drives:
Keep a Kids Journal
This is something I've started doing only recently, but a habit I'd like to use more. Like many moms, my aspirations for documenting all the small moments of motherhood far outstrips my actual ability to do so. I have a list of some of my daughter's firsts (first smile, first words), but when baby #2 came along, this good habit was too difficult to keep up. I use Evernote to record a short journal--whenever it occurs to me--of some of the news in my kids lives: the new words my son can say, that my daughter has all of a sudden become a puzzle champ like her Dad.
Write that Great American Novel
Writing was my first career passion. Guess what? It's really hard to feed yourself as a fiction writer, especially if you're not amazing at it (which, unfortuantely, is the case with me). Nevertheless, and regardless of any future publication, I love to write. But like all of those time-consuming, solitary activities we once engaged in before children, there's simply no time anymore. Or more accurately, I do have a lot of solitary time, only I'm driving. So, I've been dictating the book I'm trying to write now. It feels AMAZING to get to work after an hour of "writing." I use the voice-to-text app for this one. Simply open a new note (plus sign). Choose the "text note" option and then hit the microphone icon where the keyboard comes up. I have an Android phone and Google Fi services, which provides pretty seamless coverage, even in the rural areas where I drive. I've tried several other voice-to-text apps, including spending over a hundred dollars on Dragon Naturally Speaking, only to discover that it didn't work with Android phones :/ Evernote does this job the best of everything I've tried, and it's free!
get some Work done
This one may not work for everyone, but I'm betting that with a little creativity, there's a way that nearly everyone can use Evernote to help them actually do some work on a commute. I am a university professor, so one of the ways I routinely use Evernote is to record review sessions for my students before their tests. This works well for me (I get work done while commuting) but it also works for them. Many of them have long commutes too, so they can listen while they're driving. Others are parents--they can listen while they're folding laundry. And anyone can listen on the treadmill or a hike in the woods. I've also used Evernote to record lectures, work on articles I'm try to write, or work on the text of a grant application.
Keep a Work Journal
Keeping a Work Journal has been so awesome for me that I am actually saving it as a topic for next week...so stay tuned. For this week I'll simply say that I keep the Work Journal in exactly the same way I keep the Kids Journal, using the voice-to-text feature on Evernote.