The Evernote Way of Life

So how was your first experience in Evernote? Did you just kinda look at it, maybe enter a few things, make a couple notebooks? Or did you dive in head first and been scanning ever since? That’s where I went. The more I did, the more potential I realized I could do. I maxed out my free account in 3 days (65mb)! So I got the Premium version pretty quickly. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to wait another month, and then for just another 65mb upload! Pretty much a no-brainer for $5/month or $45/year. Now I’m chowing down my 1gb!

One big area of stuff I put in EN were pdf’s, or e-books. Plus, I’m also starting to get tight on hard drive space, and while I don’t read e-books often, I have some very good ones that I will read at some point, but they don’t need to be on my computer. (That’s pretty much where the 65mb went.) Plus, this way they’re with me wherever I go and I can read them whenever I like.

Alt-Tab for Easy Evernote Access

As I said in another blog post about EN, I use the standalone app. Tip: I keep it open all day. It’s handy to be able to just Alt-tab (⌘-tab) to get to it and back to my browser. Since I’m on the computer all day, whenever I run across something I like and want to keep for the future, I put it in EN. Also, whenever I have a thought about something for a project, or an idea for a blog post, I just pop over to EN, jot it in a new note, and go back to what I was doing. It is really stress free to know that those ideas that “I hope I remember later,” I now know I will. This works the same way in the mobile app. Anything I want to remember, I either write in a note, snap a photo, or (most especially when i’m driving), record a voice message. Way cool!!

Let’s talk a little more about Notebooks. You can actually do one more level of hierarchy and that’s Stacked Notebooks. Stacked Notebooks are the broader level of a Notebook that lets you keep related Notebooks together. Like I have an Insurance stack and then an individual Notebook for my medical EOBs, and one for Insurance quotes as I search for new coverage.

You do not put Notes in Stacked Notebooks. They are just the holder for related notebooks. An easy, eye-catching way to see where things are.

Feedback Loop

So, what cool way are you using Evernote? Be sure to check out the Evernote Blog. They have a ton of interesting posts on how people are using it. Great for inspiration on more time-saving and organizing techniques!