What are your favorite organization tips as the school year gets underway? We’ve shared tips for preserving your kids’ artwork, as well as why I think a family email address is great for all working parents — but today I thought I’d explain an easy trick I’ve figured out for how to use your iPhone to organize school papers. (Android users, I’d love to hear your tips too!)

This is really a very easy organizing tip, but it took me some time to figure it out, so I thought I’d share. You know how you get all that paperwork at the start of the school year — the teacher’s first name! email address! the schedule for art lessons! the procedure for sick days! the days the kids get off! — and so forth? If you are me, you generally INTEND to file it away somewhere clever, but instead you move it from pile to pile (kitchen to dining table to windowsill) until it just becomes part of the paper floating around the house.

Instead, I’ve started taking snapshots of all of it and then sending it to iCloud Notes. You can create folders in iCloud Notes — I have one for each kid — and individual notes, and each time you get new information (whether in email, on paper, or whatever) you can just take a snapshot and add it to the existing note. For example, for my older son I have a folder with his initials and a notecard that says SECOND GRADE, and it contains the intro info from the teacher, the list of words they’re supposed to be able to read and spell, and other school pertinent school info, like the PIN if he wants to buy lunch at school.

How to Add Pictures and Documents from Within Your iPhone’s Notes

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