Update: Brett continues to receive a ridiculously positive response to this article. He has since authored the first book on Evernote called Evernote Essentials. You should check it out here.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really pimping Evernote to friends (both in real life and online, particularly on twitter). I’m usually pretty shocked to hear how many people have tried it and simply don’t know what to do with it or how to make it a useful part of their workflow. So, I thought I’d give you all a little peek into how I use it in my day-to-day life in the hope that some of you might come to love it and use is as heavily as I do. But first, indulge me in a little bit of speculation as to why people find it so difficult to put Evernote to good use.

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photo by lobstar Watching a small child slowly grow into an actual, real-live person is an interesting thing. They watch you so intently when you speak, drinking it all in. This gives way to imitation as they take on your specific habits and behaviors (which they’ll then mold to fit their own personalities and such). [...]

As many of you know, my wife and I have two wonderful kids. Our oldest will be 3 years old next month which is crazy. And as most parents of toddlers will tell you, they can be a bit of a challenge (to say the least). They can be defiant and stubborn, and the word [...]

???????? ????? ???????? My very good buddies Glen (of LifeDev) and Leo (of Zen Habits) launched their brand new ebook store today, called Web Warrior Tools. Much like their awesome blogs, the main idea behind the books they sell is improving your life. And don’t let the name fool you – these precious volumes are [...]

As many of you know, I’ve been immersing myself in some of these social media services lately (Twitter, FriendFeed, and most recently Seesmic and Vimeo). It’s been a lot of fun and I’m really happy to have started doing it, but something has been vexing me. How does a personal productivity nut reconcile the (arguably [...]

There are times in life when you decide “enough is enough“. This past week was one of those times. I get a fair amount of email. Not as much as some, but it’s a pretty steady stream. Sometimes, those messages are from well-wishing friends who thought I might enjoy an inspirational message from an unknown [...]

I would be willing to wager that most people, during their first office supply shopping trip after having read Getting Things Done, pick up some binder clips. This is probably because they happened across the Hipster PDA at some point during their GTD travels and thought, “man, that looks like something I could really get [...]

digg_url = ‘http://blog.crankingwidgets.com/2008/05/05/get-a-tattoo/’; I have lots of tattoos. Something like 30 at last count, if memory serves. As tattoos have grown in popularity and social acceptance, it’s very likely that your average 20-something has one or more tattoos. And while I’m certainly not an expert on the art of tattooing, I’ve got a good deal [...]

As some of my twitter friends noticed this week, I’ve made the switch back to Backpack as my primary GTD tool. Some found this surprising, given how heavily I’ve pimped Remember the Milk. This post will outline why I left RTM and why Backpack makes so much more sense (for me, anyway). Let me get [...]

We’ve all been there. Something’s dreadfully wrong with your trusty computer – you can’t print, you can’t get on the web, you can’t play Bejeweled. For whatever reason, the problem is major enough to warrant one of the most desperate acts you can imagine – a phone call to tech support. Now, before we dig [...]