Organizing Real World Objects Inside Evernote

I use Evernote to keep track of all of the non-actionable things in my life (with one slight exception, explained below).  It's a great tool for scanning papers into, tracking ideas, defining projects, storing bookmarks or making wish lists.  Some of the slightly more challenging things to track, however, are items where I need to keep the real-world object but also would like to be able to track it in Evernote.  For these types of things (like coupons or gift cards with an expiration date, or expensive electronics to track for insurance purposes) I have a special way of storing them in Evernote.

What goes into Evernote?

- All ideas that I have

- Things I may want to buy (photo, note or web-clipping)

- Stuff that I am considering doing (photo, note or web-clipping)

- Pictures of my real world physical property that I want to track (defined as anything sentimental or that I might claim an insurance loss for)

- Time-boxed stuff in my "tickler file" 

     - This is the closest to having actions in Evernote

- Pictures of real world physical things that I want to track electronically but also need to keep physically

     - Like gift cards and coupons

Everything comes into the Notebook called "1 Inbox" 

- It is organized from there using the GTD Processing and Organizing workflow.  All actions are entered into OmniFocus, everything goes into folders:

     - "2 Project Support" - Only "Project Definition" notes go here and they are tagged with a minimum of "projects" and "definition"

     - "4 Notes / Reference" - Where every non-actionable thing goes, even notes that are related to active projects, so long as the actions are removed.  Actions don't go into Evernote, only NOTES do (actions go into OmniFocus).

Tickler File (time-boxed stuff that does not REQUIRE action)

- Put date at the beginning of Note title in YYYYMMDD format

- Tag with "tickler file"

- Put into folder called "7 Waiting For"

- Saved search to show these

Coupons

- Since the physical coupon needs to be saved, it's kept in a manila folder called "coupons"

- Evernote has a scan, picture or note about the coupon

- If it's time boxed it's added to the tickler file (see above)

Physical Things

- Tagged with "physical thing"

- May also be tagged with "insurance" or "sentimental" and some additional identifying tags

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