I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.
Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, Evernote for Student Teaching, How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations, and Evernote in Daily Life
Before digging into the “how,” it’s important to understand the “what.” So…
What is Evernote?
Evernote is a cloud-based resource for capturing everything important in your life, all in once place. It allows you to capture text, photos/images, websites, audio, and important files all into a notebook that is synced with your account and accessible to you wherever you go.
Evernote has free applications to support the following platforms:
- Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows
- iOS (iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad)
- Android
- Blackberry
- Palm Pre / Palm Pixi
- Windows Mobile
- Browser Extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, Bookmarklet)
Additionally, Evernote has a great web interface for use when you are away from your home computer.
Notebooks and Tags
The real power of Evernote, though, is in its organization system. Evernote allows you to place each note in one notebook, and assign it as many tags as you want. This lets you keep all the information you collect (and trust me, there could be tons!) organized, while keeping it easily searchable and easy-to-find.
Notebooks
Notebooks are the “macro” categories for your notes. Each note can only be classified in one notebook. The notebook helps you remember what general aspect of your life the note refers to. Some of my notebooks, for example, are called:
- Books to Get
- Student Teaching
- Job Search
- Blogging/PLN
- Classes
- Presenting
- General Notes
NOTE (no pun intended…): I will delve into the contents of a few of these notebooks through this series of posts
Evernote also has options that allow you to send content to Evernote by way of Twitter (follow, authenticate with, and send a tweet to @MyEN). Finally, each Evernote user is given a specific email address to which they can send content that will be automatically stored in Evernote.
Tags
Tags are the “micro” level of organization for your notes. You can have as many tags associated with each note as you want. Tags can get more specific, and let you classify all the notes within your notebooks. For example, in my “Classes” notebook, I have tags for each class I took notes in. My “Blogging/PLN” notebook has tags for this website, #MusEdChat, the MusicPLN, etc.
Saved Searches and Sharing
Two other features that set Evernote apart as a special tool are the ability to create saved searches and to share notes and notebooks. These features take Evernote-initially a helpful note taking application-into a fully social resource for sharing thoughts and ideas.
Saved Searches
Saved searches allow you to put together a set of multiple search criteria that you reference often. Want to quickly access only the notes with a specific tag that are located in one notebook? The notes you have created today? Notes that were created at a specific geolocation? Notes you created on your phone? Notes that have images in them? Evernote lets you search with all these different operators, and save any search so you don’t have to re-enter complex search queries each time.
Notebook Sharing
The most social feature of Evernote is that it lets users share notebooks publicly. This is a fantastic feature for educators, as it provides teachers with the opportunity to share any course documents, resources, or notes they may have from class with their students quickly and easily. It also is great for collaboration; if you’re working on a project with someone else, you can track to-do lists, progress on the project, resources and research, and other pertinent information in an Evernote notebook that is shared between the two of you.
These are just a few of the basics of Evernote, and are the foundation for the series of posts that will be going up this week about how I use Evernote to stay organized in my life. Stay tuned for more!
How do YOU use Evernote in your everyday life? I am collecting answers via Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7) and through comments to these posts; responses will be posted in a wrap-up post at the end of next week! Leave a comment and let me know how you use Evernote!
About Andy Zweibel