Earlier this year I started using If This Then That (IFTTT), a web service that allows you to set up recipes based on triggers and actions. Triggers include things like date and time, making a new blog post, or sending an email to IFTTT. Actions include things like making a new Evernote note, sending an SMS to yourself, and posting to social networks. You can easily browser the whole list of IFTTT channels. For a nerd like me who likes to automate and archive, IFTTT is a dream come true.

Archiving with IFTTT

I use IFTTT primarily as an archiving tool. I deal with many different services all over the internet and for those services that have IFTTT triggers I’ve set up recipes to help me record things to a common, easily searchable place. For now that place is mostly Evernote, but I also send things to Google Docs. (Evernote because it is easily searchable, Google Docs because it’s easily exportable.) For example, when I post a link on Facebook that link gets saved to Evernote and a Google Docs spreadsheet. When I favorite a post on App.net the contents of that post get archived. When I star items in Google Reader a link to that article gets archived. I can also send an email to IFTTT and have that email saved to Evernote to help me archive random links or thoughts.  Continue reading “If This Then That” →