How I unleash the power of Google Keep to save my life from utter chaos

If you’ve used an Android phone or tablet at any time in the past few years, then you’re probably familiar with Google’s first-party note-taking app called Keep Notes. Also known simply as Keep, this app is a streamlined tool for saving snippets of text, images, files, drawings, lists, and reminders to your Google Account for easy access down the road.

On its surface, Keep is a deceptively simple piece of software. Its user interface is minimalistic, and it appears to lack many of the more advanced tools found in competing apps like Apple Notes, Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, Notability, and other popular note-taking services.

While it’s certainly true that Keep is designed to offer a lean, streamlined experience out of the box, that’s not to say that it’s a compromised experience on the whole. There are several ways to unleash the full potential of Google’s unassumingly simple note-taking app, and mastering them has helped bring a sense of order to my otherwise chaotic digital lifestyle.

Here are three ways in which I maximize my productivity using Keep, while also restoring some semblance of note-taking organization in the process.

In a recent Keep app update, Google introduced a welcome new organizational feature

Recently, Google rolled out a new Keep Notes update that introduces a helpful sorting button to the app’s main top-level interface. Located in the top right-hand corner of the screen directly to the left of your Google Account profile image, this sorting button opens up a new panel when tapped on. From here, it’s easy to organize your entire library of notes using the following filters: Custom, Date created, and Date modified.

If you’re like me and have a massive backlog of notes saved within Keep, this sorting option comes in handy to a great degree. I’m personally relieved to finally have it available within arm’s reach, and I hope to see it roll out to the desktop version of Keep sooner rather than later.

2

Color coding is your friend

A splash of pigmentation goes a long way

When it comes to organizing notes, color coding is a highly effective method for improving glanceability. For a long time now, Google Keep has offered the ability to set individual notes in a range of hues, adding some visual flair and extra cohesion to the app experience. Unfortunately, only eleven colors are available to pick from by default, though new background designs have recently made their way to the app.

While I’d love to see a full-color picker be implemented in the future, I find even the presently limited selection to be immensely helpful in drawing my attention to important notes that I need to reference or take action upon.

3

Don’t sleep on the Keep web app

As a service, Google Keep is accessible on desktop via the web

Much of the time, I access Google Keep via its mobile app on Android, iOS, and iPadOS. The convenience of having the service available across all my mobile devices is hard to resist, especially with how effectively it syncs with my already signed-in Google Account. However, Keep’s cross-platform nature doesn’t end in your pocket: Google has built out an excellent (if underdeveloped) web app for Keep, which is accessible on Windows, macOS, and even Linux via any web browser.

The big-screen Keep experience is fairly one-to-one with its mobile counterpart, meaning that there is next to no learning curve involved here. Sometimes, I simply find it easier to scan through and take action upon my collection of digital notes when using a desktop PC, and the Keep web app comes in handy when I want to spread out across a larger digital canvas. Installing the web app is a simple enough process, though I prefer to leave it running right within my browser so I can tab back and forth to it more easily.