How I Use Evernote

Brett. Nice article. I am curious though about how you organize your information in Evernote. Are you using tags? Multiple notebooks?

Tags, tags, tags! I tried using multiple notebooks, but found that it added more of a “processing” step. This way, I add something (and tag it if I have time) and it's done. I can go back later and clean up what's in there, re-tag as necessary (or delete if it was only a temporary item). If I ever get involved in a project with a ton of research, I might consider a separate notebook, but tags and saved searches get the job done just fine for me.

I am a huge Evernote fan too, and recently wrote about it on my design blog at http://www.stewartdesignweb.com. I use it to capture design ideas when I'm browsing through books or out and about: I snap a photo with my blackberry, and email it to my Evernote database, along with a sentence or two of comments. I also use it for copying html/code snippets and stuff for web design– much easier than trying to manage a bunch of bookmarks. I also use it to take notes during client meetings, and to write down anything that formerly would've been written on a sticky note.

I also have started taking pictures of business cards and uploading those, because Evernote will read the text INSIDE the image, which is great. (Onenote does this too– I'm a HUGE fan of Onenote also). Unfortunately my Blackberry Pearl doesn't do great close-up photos, so they end up a little fuzzy which impairs the accuracy of the OCR, but it's better than nothing.

I have a totally separate evernote database that I use as a daily work/personal journal. It's better than any other journaling software I've tried, because it's fast to use, easy to browse, and automatically timestamps everything.

I read that the Mac version supports the thumbnail view out of the box because the PDF creation is built into the OS, but it's not built in on Windows, so they're having to code that part themselves. The thumbnail view is to me the easiest way to browse through design ideas, so I'm anxiously awaiting the Evernote team to code that for the Windows release.

Great post, Brett. I find my hesitation with Evernote is the lack of note level encryption. I store stuff like my tax returns, W2's, and FAFSA applications in Yojimbo and security is just a click of the Encrypt button away. Evernote can't encrypt a PDF as of yet. I'd also rather have a really really secure password for all encryption than to try to potentially remember a different password for multiple encrypted items in Evernote. I keep Evernote around because the text rec is simply amazing, but just about everything goes into Yojimbo still.

[...] Kelly at the Cranking Widgets Blog outlines a few crafty uses for universal capture tool —recently available as a Mac client and free iPhone [...]

[...] Kelly at the Cranking Widgets Blog outlines a few crafty uses for universal capture tool —recently available as a Mac client and free iPhone [...]

[...] Kelly at the Cranking Widgets Blog outlines a few crafty uses for universal capture tool —recently available as a Mac client and free iPhone [...]

Great article. I use Evernote as a daily work log. When working on a project, I'll put a note in there saying what I did. All my tags corresponds to my projects. So it is easy for me to filter on a tag (project) and see what I did yesterday, the day before, etc.

good stuff never thought about it that way i use it to store e-tickets for flights etc.. sync to my mobile and never have to print a e-ticket anymore

But why should I use Evernote instead of Google docs which handles everything you described?

You should use whatever you please. I'm just saying that I use (and really like) Evernote. If a plastic bucket full of paper, pictures and scribbled-on cocktail napkins works for you, then go forth, my bucket-toting friend.

I use Evernote for a very specific purpose.I am involved in ministry and receive a lot of verbal prayer requests. I have the evernote email address set up as a contact in Jott. When I receive a prayer request I simply call Jott and add it to my Evernote. Jott converts speech to text and automatically adds it to my evernote. I go back later and add tags. The beauty of it is when I receive an update on the prayer request I add that through Jott and then merge the related notes! It works beautifully!

As far as I know, evernote does have note level encryption. Right click on a note and see the options there

Uhm, nope. Maybe try it out before posting your comment?

Actually, it appears that this feature is available under windows, but not under OSX.

To add, I'm an Actor and I am constantly needing new monologues for auditions. So I uses one of my notebooks to database all the monologues I Stumble across. The system I use is kinda like …. this

In the title section will look like this
Name of The Play – Character Name – A title I make up – Page #

Then I'll tag it with either Comedic or Dramatic and I'll throw in a few tags about the tone of the piece. So say I'm needing a sad peace, I'll type sad into the search bar and the monologues that i tagged sad come up.

I always love reading how other people use Evernote. It's one of my my favorite programs, I actually upgraded to leopard just to have. Great Post!

Uhm, yea. It is. It's not 'true' note level encryption but it's there. Select some text, right click and select 'Encrypt selected text…'. Try doing your own research before bashing someone else.

Hey great post Brett! I'm using Evernote, but as you described not taking advantage of many of the features. You gave me a lot of ideas (so did @Amy Stewart in her comment) that I'm experimenting with now. Mainly taking pictures of everything, clipping web pages and using tags.
Thanks!
-Don

Well, then that's not note level encryption is it? I can't select a PDF and encrypt it. So, no, Evernote does *not* support note level encryption.

Hence why I said it's not 'true' note level encryption. If the entire note is text you can select it all and encrypt it.

I've been in Evernote for about 6 months now. Previously I was a stikkit user. I have so much stuff in my Evernote from work and my personal life, it is just like you said, a big junk drawer of information. But the advantage here is I can find anything & everything in seconds in this digital junk drawer, not so with the real one in my kitchen drawer at home that I fight to get closed/open sometimes.

Evernote, along with Del i cious for full webpages makes me confident that if there is something I know I saw once, I can find it again right away when needed.

Anthony

I've tried it but I'm not keen, on the other hand I wouldn't be without ubernote. OK so it's not quite so versatile as evernote but it suits my requirements and now I'd be lost without it. And the new add on they've just created for Firefox makes it more or less indisposable to me. Still, each to their own.

This is a good idea. I'm going to give it a try.

I got a hold of the Evernote Beta and have my assistant toying around with it.. After reading this article, Brett, I can see how I can use it to far greater potential. I'll start applying these tips as it pertains to my work.

Nice post. I've never used Evernote but this looks interesting, should really try it some time .

Super powerful tool. I like the “evidence locker”

The Web Clipper is great for tying together a number of web-pages for a specific purpose, like planning for a vacation, working on a project, making a list of recipes, etc

Much better than organizing favorites in folders, like in a browser.

Great post!

1. I use google notebooks to take notes,
2. I use my harddisk to store pdf's,
3. I use del.icio.us for bookmarking,
4. I use Remember the milk for todo's
5. And I use Snipplr for snippets

After reading your use cases, I think I can use 1, 2 and 5 with Evernote. I'll try this way.

Finally, I think Evernote is a awesome service, but it isn't addictive as GMail or Google Reader..

THX

A nice article Brett and a great intro into the potential of Evernote.

I've recently seen the light and am slowly migrating from Microsoft OneNote, I blogged about it here;

http://www.guyontechnology.co.uk/2008/07/23/why…

Thanks

hello. i am just discovering evernote and loved your post. is there any chance you could write a follow up or share how to do each of the things you mentioned. i am particularly interested in capturing web info both images, screenshots and urls, organizing and importing pdfs, bookmarks, receipts etc. I am new to the mac world and I really just don't know how to do it. I am quite sure it is incredibly easy, but haven't been able to get it all to work. Any help you could offer would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

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What a great post. I was just getting antiquated with Evernote and wanted to know how to begin to more fully utilize it's services.

Thank you

Evernote: My Outboard Brain…

I play with a lot of digital tools, including some that are not for use in my classroom but instead enhance…

OMG, LOL, ETC.

What you said. I just told a dozen friends about the “big ass junk drawer.” It's been a lifesaver. I am totally AR about folders, subfolders and drilling down twenty levels to find what I need on the desktop unit. I tried several file sync programs, but this has given me what I need to be really helpful at a client office without being tied to the laptop or TREO (forgive me – no iPhone).

I began with the free product and was having a great time until one of my clients mentioned that I could just file her proofs in Evernote and give her a quick review when we next met.

Great idea! Cheap update! Lots of stuff done now!

I'm giving my contacts a workout tomorrow spreading the work AGAIN. Wake up, people. This thing is GREAT!.

[...] can also use Evernote as a code snippet library or receipt/serial number bucket, and we’ve already shown you how to get voice-to-text notes from Jott into Evernote, but if you’ve [...]

[...] for some of these things, should I ever need to produce it for things like refunds). I’ve written about Evernote before and believe me when I say that it’s the best “wallet killer” app for iPhone [...]

[...] been so popular with Business Hacks readers. Over at the Cranking Widgets Blog, they’ve rounded up five inventive, slightly unusual ways to put Evernote to good use, including: PDF Warehouse  I find myself receiving a pretty regular stream of PDF documents from [...]

[...] can also use Evernote as a code snippet library or receipt/serial number bucket, and we’ve already shown you how to get voice-to-text notes from Jott into Evernote, but if [...]

[...] Crankingwidgets – som berättar om hur han sparar kvitton, serienummer, manualer, pdf [...]

This is the first time I heard about Evernote and I actually don't have any idea what it is until now. Thanks for an informative post.
-M from Mexico

Thank you. We were trying to figure out what we could do about this and this article was the best by far we found.

Actually, you can also use Evernote for to-dos as well. You can easily add check boxes into any note and turn that item into a to-do.

[...] How I Use Evernote : The Cranking Widgets Blog [...]

Hmm, I'm using Google Notebook at the moment, wonder how this compares…

Evernote is on its way to great, but for it to truly be a killer app for me, I want it to extract the data on print materials I photograph and allow me to attach it to other material.

Best use case I can think of here is business cards. IBM's Penseive app looks like it may will do this if they ever get it into production: you take a picture of a business card, it recognizes it as a business card and pulls all the vitals off of it (name, phone number, address, e-mail) and lets you tag that info with a picture of the person.

Would work the same way with receipts. Extract the dollar amount and place where expense was incurred, etc. All sorts of possibilities there.

Evernote has the momentum and I think it could take Penseive head-on.

I'm new to Evernote, but I can definitely see a use for it. I use a clipboard manager to keep up with all my important snippets and data. I can also share your affection for office supplies. I work at an online office supply company so I get to “test” all the latest and greatest office supply products. New office chairs, new pens, new everything. After I “test” them, I get to write a review of them for our site. It sounds like you would like my job?

The Cranking Widgets Blog thanks for informing me this,
this is quite fun actually

you suck

Thanks – I'm convinced!
As an intranet consultant (with an iPhone) this tool will be invaluable. I'm thinking I'll be taking snapshots of client's screens and printed artefacts…. Not to mention whiteboarded wireframes

Cool.

I've tried it before and it's fine. I like ubernote though too as somebody pointed out. I dont know, im used to it

Great post, I have been using evernote for a couple of months now, after being introduced by a colleague. I wouldnt use the online version, but the pc version is great. I keep notes for work, important numbers, webpages, info i need to access often etc on it

I LOVE Evernote too. I use it to clip recipes I find on the web. I can then pull them up from my iPhone when I'm at the grocery store ready to pick up items to make it! Works great for those last minute trip to the store.

you are great

I was using it as well, but google just announced that it was stopping development of notebook. You can now import all your notebooks into evernote.

The man did a great post and you go “try it out before your comment”?
Maybe you can try to get a life “before your comment”.

Follow the thread. I was talking to “air.”

very nice article

this is extremely useful about evernote, I bought it and forgot about it but am going to check it out again.

I agree completely. love it.

thanks for showing this to me, this is awesome. bookmarked!

I installed the Mac and WM6 software this morning. I anticipate saving my notebook entries to archive them and make them searchable, though I will have to improve my penmanship to make that work
If you hook your API to Salesforce.com this will be a KILLER app. If I can take a photo of a business card and have the info from the card go into the contact information in Salesforce – OH MY!

I would also like to be able to drag and drop emails from Mac Mail or Entourage into the client. I would like these also to wind up in salesforce too. BTW I know there are SF clients for Mac, but this makes a great IN for all that I need to do, Blogging, SF, hobbies …

it's good but beware to my eyes it is missing features:
big one:
no linking from anything to anything within evernote.
notes aren't urls so you can not link to something specific in evernote from outside

so generally no linking to anything ( from inside or outside) in evernote

EVERNOTE-a great soft. to make note,snaps,format…..simply a amazing combination. and a companion to make my work more easier.FANTASTIC soft!!!!

Evernote is a fantastic soft specially pdf warehouse and Evidence Locker features.Using iPhone i can fulfill my all needs, may be personal or official through Evernote.

This is quite impressive, I am pleased to read this post, keep posts like this coming, you totally rock!

http://golfman.the-mnm.info

I've never used Evernote but this looks interesting, should really try it some time

I’m sure many of you have had this experience: you acquire (somehow, either in a retail store or online) a brand new Moleskine notebook. You get it home, unwrap it, feel it in your hands. Then, if you’re anything like me, you start to wonder how to actually useit. Will it be a journal? A sketch pad? Will it hold your GTD lists, etc.?

I also have never used evernote, love the article I may have to look into giving it ago, Thanks A lot

Evernote boasts a variety of features that make it an excellent application, including automatic synchronization between the web and your other devices, tagging and sorting features, an online client that makes it accessible from anywhere, and a search feature that can even search text stored within images.

Just came across your blog, loving it and plowing through all your posts. Re Evernote, I use it a lot for receipts of bills, but also great to take screen grabs of recipes, and love the hand writing recognition side of it. I use my iMac camera to take a snapshot of business cards, nicely searchable and always accessible on my iPod.

[...] review at Cranking Widgets got me to try out this app: How I Use Evernote. It has a lot of great ideas on how to use this basic but powerful note taking app. Since then [...]

I just started with Evernote and find it a great way to keep track of potential christmas gifts. My 3yr old has even gotten involved asking me to take camera pics of her wishlist items to send to santa (who's address is at Evernote).