For those times when my brain becomes too crowded or too unreliable, I use an app. No, it’s not the Boost Your Brain app, which sounds sketchy. No, I’m referring to a simple notepad app.

Back in the old days, I used the AK Notepad, which I recommended in my books. It’s still on some of my devices, although the app is no longer available at the Google Play Store. Instead, I switched to Fast Notepad, which does a similar job.

On the Fast Notepad app, I jot down things I need to know but can’t necessarily recall. The notes include: frequent flyer numbers, my shirt size, the lock combination at the gym, the part numbers for the ink and laser cartridges I need, and other trivial bits.

The problem I had with keeping those items in the Fast Notepad app is that they never transferred to my new phone, nor were they shared with other mobile devices.

My solution was to copy all the text from that app and place the text into individual Google Docs. That way the trivial bits would always be available on the cloud. Here’s how the process works:

1. Start the Fast Notepad, or whichever app contains the text you want to keep.
2. Long-press a word to select it.
3. From the Action Bar, choose Select All.
4. From the Action Bar, choose Copy.
5. Start the Drive app.
6. Open the folder into which you want to create the new Google Doc.
7. Tap the Add (plus) icon on the screen. If you don’t see this icon, then you need to install the Docs app.
8. Choose Google Docs to create a new document.
9. Long press the screen and tap the Paste button to paste in the text.
10. Tap the Done (check mark) icon to finish editing and create the document.
11. The document is still open, so tap the X (close) icon to close it.

The document you create has the name Untitled Document, which you can change in the Drive app: Tap the eyeball icon on the document’s tile and choose the Rename command.

For creating new notes, simply start at Step 5. Don’t paste the text (Step 9), instead use the onscreen keyboard to type the note.

By saving my stuff on Google Drive, i.e., the cloud, I always have those documents with me, no matter which device I’m using or whenever I next upgrade my phone. It’s a nifty solution to what was becoming a frustrating problem.