As a point of reference, I’ve used Evernote since 2009. I’m a power user. I use it for GTD. Evernote is home to nearly everything I want to retain and manage on both the personal and business side of my life. I’ve created over 35,000 notes and (at time of publication) have approximately 550 notebooks in.
- How To Use Evernote Templates
- How Do You Use Evernote
- How To Use Evernote App
- How Do I Use Evernote
- How To Use Evernote Basic
- Best Ways To Use Evernote
Evernote as a second brain. I use Evernote as my second brain. I throw in to Evernote everything that I find useful so I can recall it later. I use Evernote to store information, scraps of data and references for future. This frees my first brain, the one on my head and shoulders, to focus on learning, problem solving and the other tasks it’s. 6 ways to use Evernote to run a small business 1. Organize company info into separate notebooks. Spend some time thinking through the setup of your Evernote workspace. Scan and save bills, receipts, and business cards. Use the Evernote camera on your mobile device to scan bills. Learn how to use Evernote effectively! Here are 5 of the most popular tasks you'll want to know how to do. Topics Include:Search Hacks 0:06 Email Hacks 1:00C. Create tags for different areas of your life if you’re going to use Evernote for both business and personal. This is easy to do, so don’t think you have to keep these separate. I’ve got tags for things like groceries, health, travel, gifts etc. You get the idea.
Evernote is a powerful and robust note capturing system that can really support and enhance your effectiveness as a manager. Here’s my Ultimate Guide On how To Use Evernote As A Manager.
(Note: I no longer use Evernote. I have switched to DevonThink, but many of the same principles and processes still apply)
Fast access to information
As a manager it’s important to be able to access resources, notes and information scraps easily and quickly. You may need to recall a previous meeting decision quickly, or dig out some research for a new project, or find 1:1 notes for an upcoming discussion with a direct report. The less friction you have in trying to access these sources, the more effective and productive you may become.
Evernote is a perfect tool for the manager with lots to do. It’s on your phone, your tablet, your laptop, the web. It’s everywhere and it’s consistent in how it works.
So let’s get started with some ways you could use Evernote in your role as a Cultivated Manager.
Data protection
A word of caution before we get started though. The information and data that you create whilst working for an organisation must be protected for legal and intellectual property rights. If you are storing information about your employees you must be careful and be sure you’re following your company’s guidelines.
Information, 1:1 notes and other work related data should only be stored and used in tools and repositories approved by your business. I have found Evernote to be secure and suitable for work. Your company may disagree, or have a different set of tools in place. If this is the case then take from this article what is useful and fall back to your other tool for what it’s good at.
There is an Evernote business version available too.
Evernote as a second brain
I use Evernote as my second brain. I throw in to Evernote everything that I find useful so I can recall it later. I use Evernote to store information, scraps of data and references for future. This frees my first brain, the one on my head and shoulders, to focus on learning, problem solving and the other tasks it’s good at.
With a few simple clicks or searches I can find all of my relevant information quickly and easily.
I’ve already written a fairly in-depth piece on how to use Evernote as a Personal Knowledge Management System here. But in terms of management I use Evernote to store:
- Photos of whiteboards
- Meeting Notes and Minutes
- Plans and initiatives
- PDF documents for review
- Interesting articles on the web
- Lists of things to do
- 1:1 Notes
- Company guidelines
- Travel details such as flights, hotels etc
- Reading notes from Kindle
- Mind maps from XMind
The search facility in Evernote is really good – so finding things is easy.
The search bar in Evernote
However, when you rack up many thousands of notes the search can slow down and you’ll need to be more specific in your searches to narrow down the results.
Tags and Notebooks
I like to use notebooks and tags. Some people use one or the other, some use minimalist approaches. There are lots of different approaches to using tags and notebooks. Evernote has a short article on this topic here. Michael Hyatt has an article on how he uses Evernote here.
I like to structure high level folders and then use specific tags within the folders.
It’s worth experimenting with Evernote to find the best way to organise your notes. As you can see in the image above I like to use tags. But I also like to use notebooks, like the ones seen in the below screen grab. Notice how I use the “!” character to ensure those notebooks stay at the top of my list. I also use nested notebooks to create a sense of order.
List of notebooks in Evernote
Creating Public Shares
You may want to create a public facing version of a note, for example, to share with peers or to link to from your website. I often use Evernote to create public notes that people can view, and then consume in to their own Evernote accounts if they wish.
To share a note simply click the share at the top of the note. You can share by sending the note, or create a public link.
Presentation Mode
I’ve run a number of presentations from Evernote before in presentation mode. It’s not designed to replace a proper presentation with slides etc, but it’s a handy way of presenting your notes. It has plenty of limitations, but for sharing your notes on screen – it’s pretty useful.
Present a note screen grab
When you click the present button the note will move to full screen and you can then scroll through the presentation using the space bar. The cursor acts like a pointer. The major downside to presentation mode is that the text can often be really small – anyone know how to address this?
Snapshots of whiteboards
For years my life seemed to revolve around a whiteboard and sticky notes. Almost every meeting involved a whiteboard diagram with or without stickies. At the end of the meeting it’s useful to snap a picture and store it in Evernote.
On my old iPhone the Evernote app is really slow, so I tend to use the iPhone camera, and then either add the images directly to a note on my phone or grab the image from my Google Photo library and add to Evernote using the desktop.
Quick Add
There is a handy quick add feature on the Mac which is super useful for when you have an idea or thought that needs capturing quickly. Very handy indeed.
IFTTT
I now use an If This Then That recipe to create new Evernote notes based on my Google Calendar meeting entries. When I have a new client meeting Evernote has already created me a note ready to use. Super helpful.
There are loads of useful Evernote recipes on the IFTTT website.
Photos of written notes
I like to use pen and paper where possible. I also ban laptops from my meetings, but there is no need to lose the efficiency Evernote can bring. I take a photo of my written notes and store them in Evernote.
With the Premium account you get the ability to search within images and documents! That means it can scan your whiteboard and notebook snaps for words too. Powerful indeed.
XMind Integration
Long time readers will know I’m a big fan of mind mapping and Xmind is my preferred tool. It has a neat Evernote integration which allows me to send a mind map to Evernote – very useful indeed.
In the File menu in XMind simply choose the Save to Evernote option (you will need to set up authentication). You’ll get a few options about what information to sync to Evernote. I always choose to include “text” as well as the mind map.
Save to Evernote option in XMind
XMind will then sync the note to Evernote and a few seconds later you get the mindmap and file in Evernote.
Skitch
How To Use Evernote Templates
Skitch is amaaaaazing.
It’s a little tool that allows you to grab screen shots, edit images and annotate (all the image in this post were captured using Skitch.)
How Do You Use Evernote
It’s integrated really well with Evernote (you’d expect that given it’s an Evernote product 🙂 )in that I can open an image in Skitch (or take a screenshot) and click the Sync to Evernote button and the image is saved to a folder in Evernote.
Screenshot showing Skitch folder in Evernote
Very powerful and useful indeed.
Send to Evernote
On almost every mobile device you have the ability to share what your creating or reading with many different sites and apps. I use the “share to Evernote” to store documents, webpages and images.
If I’m editing a photo for a Powerpoint I share it to Evernote. Interesting article on my phone, share to Evernote. New logos and social media poster for my blog, share to Evernote. Doodles from Paper on iPad, share to Evernote.
You get the gist – everything tends to end up in Evernote.
1:1 Notes
A real powerhouse use of Evernote is for storing 1:1 notes. (check you are allowed to do this with your HR and legal team.)
I don’t recommend you use your computer or phone during a 1:1. It’s rude. But after the 1:1 take a photo of your notes and upload to Evernote.
When I do this I do the following:
- Add a tag of the direct reports full name
- The full name helps if you end up with multiple people with the same name in your team
- Add a tag of “one2one” or whatever makes sense for you
- Be consistent in your naming conventions across notes
- Add a tag of the name of the company you are working for.
- If you move to a new company, you’ll want to find those notes easily and remove them
- Add the date / time to the note title of when the 1:1 took place
- It doesn’t matter if it’s different to the date/time stamp on the Evernote note itself.
A sample One2One note in Evernote
Once all tags are applied I would suggest moving the note in to a generic work folder, or whatever notebook structure works for you.
Share 1:1 notes
When it’s time for a new manager to take on your direct report, you may need to hand over your 1:1 notes. When this happens I recommend the following.
- Search for the notes for the direct report
- Select all of the notes returned, and merge them in to 1 master note.
- If you have lots of notes then it may be better to select a smaller number and essentially create a number of merged notes.
Then share the merged note via email to the new manager or HR.
This essentially bundles up all of the notes and includes them in the email. This is an effective way of sharing notes.
Most managers have very few records or notes of interactions with their directs. Be the manager who takes this very seriously – keeping regular notes of interactions should be a habit you try and get in to early in your life as a manager.
Feedback
Every time you have to give a candidate feedback create a new note with details of the feedback in it. I describe the feedback I’m giving and what I’m going to talk to the direct about.
I then add tags of:
- Direct reports name (same as used for 1:1)
- Feedback tag – “F+” for positive feedback. “F-” for negative feedback.
- Company name tag.
- Start the note title with Date/Time so there is a record of when the feedback was given.
- It doesn’t matter if the date/time in title is different to the date/time stamp on the note which is created by the Evernote system.
Audi Recording
The audio recording feature is super helpful. I use the audio recording when I’m unable to write a note down, or to record a long rambling thought that is better to get captured in sound, rather than words.
Screenshot of mobile voice recording evernote
It can also be helpful to record a conversation or meeting too. But before recording any meeting ensure you have permission from all attendees and be clear about why you are recording a meeting and what you plan to do with the recording.
Recording seems to be only available on mobile apps, but playback is available on desktop client – as shown below.
So there you have it – some ideas on how to use Evernote as a Technology Manager.
The key is unmitigated organisation. Being able to find something quickly should be a major skill of managers, and being able to find things quickly is easier if they are recorded, stored and logged effectively in the first place. Evernote is a great tool to help you do just that.
Happy management.
So, what is Evernote? It’s a note-taking app designed to collect and organize text, pictures, videos, and audio recordings.
These notes are then backed up to the cloud. This allows the user access to their notes from any platform.
But why do people use it? How do people use it best? And is it best for your purposes?
What is Evernote?
How To Use Evernote App
No two workflows are alike, but Evernote could help keep you productive and organized.
First, Evernote is relatively easy to use. There are tutorials everywhere because of its popularity and wide user base. With a shallow learning curve, you won’t have to take much time to understand the app.
Evernote organizes your notes into Notebooks, which are essentially file folders.
The notes themselves are text files with a standard blog-style GUI for formatting text, inserting images, or putting in basic code blocks.
The two most useful features are note tags and the Evernote Web Clipper browser extension.
Note tags work like the tags in a blog post or like a hashtag. This gives you a second method for organizing notes. The tags are useful for searching through notes and categorizing them for later use. All notes tagged with “biology” or “research,” for example, can be found and searched through, no matter what Notebooks they might be in.
Now let’s get into the Web Clipper, one of Evernote’s most useful features.
What is Evernote Web Clipper?
Evernote Web Clipper is a browser extension that copies web content directly to your Notebooks. It’s hard to imagine using Evernote without Web Clipper.
Once installed, Clipper lets you grab images, text, and even whole web pages. These can be sorted into whatever Notebook you choose. You can also add tags when you clip.
Why would you do this? How is it useful? Well, for one, you can grab simplified versions of web pages and send them to your notes. If the web page is one you need to look at frequently for research, it’ll save you time. It’s also useful if you need to access the info on that web page while you’re offline or traveling.
If the website in question is littered with annoying ads and pictures, the Web Clipper can strip them out.
Being more productive with Evernote
Anyone who needs to save a lot of information, access it anywhere, and organize it for reference would find Evernote to be handy.
Students can organize their classes into Notebooks. Ideally, they’d store all of their class notes there, accessible from their laptop or their phone. They could use the tagging system for easier studying later on. If you learn a test is on three specific topics, you can sort your notes by those topics by searching the tags. And since the notes are stored to the cloud, you won’t lose them. And depending on the price tier you choose, you could share them easily with other classmates.
Teachers could get similar use out of Evernote by sorting their lectures by topic. Teachers could also open up a Notebook for each student or each class. Then, all personal notes on the class or individual could go in the Notebook. Professional development could also have its own Notebook. That way, all of the lectures or classes you attend could be saved and sorted later. Those training notes could then be shared with colleagues.
Writers of all stripes are perhaps the most obvious audience for Evernote. Research gets a Notebook. Article, blog, or book ideas get a Notebook. Timelines, characters, persons of interest, word-building all get a Notebook. And the mobile nature means Evernote is always close at hand. Get an idea, jot it down, save it to the cloud.
Lastly, though it requires some extra work, Evernote can be synced with your calendar. This could help your productivity by tying your notes or reminders together with actual dates. You can also set it up so that your calendar events all go into a Notebook automatically, allowing you to take notes on the meetings during or after the fact.
Those are just a few use cases you might want to consider. Before you do, let’s take a look at the pricing structure.
What is Evernote’s price and what do you get?
Before you spend a dime on Evernote, consider checking out the free version, which is serviceable and allows syncing between two different devices.
If your needs are more complicated, should you pay money for Evernote? Is it worth it? Let’s take a look.
The pricing plan is relatively simple to break down.
What comes in the free version of Evernote?
The free version comes with cloud syncing between two devices. One mobile sync to a phone, one sync to a work or home computer. Simple and easy, and it has all of the full note-taking features described above.
The limits on storage and uploads are pretty small. You can upload 60MB of data a month, with a 25MB maximum size for each note. This isn’t a ton of bandwidth, but for more text and simplified website clips it’s sufficient. PDFs and image-heavy notes, which use more data, will run into this per-month cap and even the individual note cap.
Also, your notes can only be made available offline on desktop or laptop. For travelers or those with spotty connections, this might not work.
Features of Evernote Premium
How Do I Use Evernote
The Premium version of Evernote runs $7.99 a month and adds a few more features.
The note-taking features are the same as the free version. Other features are expanded.
First, the upload limit increases: 60MB a month for the free version becomes 10GB for Premium. Note size jumps from 25MB to 200MB.
Probably one of the most useful added features is app integration. So if you want to combine your Evernote with Slack or Google Drive, Premium will allow you to do it.
The Premium edition lets you scan documents or business cards and forward emails directly to Evernote. You can also make notes and search through the PDFs you add. Sharing options are more robust, and you can make presentations out of your notes.
Premium Evernote also comes with AI suggestions that relate to your notes. This AI takes the content of your notes and suggests possible web pages that seem relevant. The suggestions aren’t always useful because the AI isn’t terribly robust. The signal-to-noise ratio of useful web page suggestions to unrelated links largely isn’t worth it for this feature alone. You could end up spending more time ignoring the AI’s nonrelevant suggestions than taking them.
So, is Premium a good buy? If you’re uploading a lot of very large notes, maybe. If you need to pull files from Google Drive into Evernote, possibly. If PDFs take up a large portion of your notes, and you need them searchable and annotated, probably.
It also may be worth it for offline access on both desktop and mobile platforms.
Features of the Evernote Business version
Evernote Business has all of the features noted above, plus team collaboration and team administration features.
The pricing is a little bit annoying because you need to have at least two users. And the $14.99-a-month price tag is per user. So if you’re just looking to expand your account with business features and more bandwidth, you’re out of luck.
The team and sharing features are what you’d expect. Anyone on the team can share and collaborate on notes. Permissions are assigned by the creator of the note. An assigned admin has greater control and access to notes, Notebooks, and sharing permissions.
The monthly upload starts at a flat 20GB overall, plus 2GB per user.
Is it worth it? Probably not, but to answer that question, we have to look at the alternatives on the market.
What is Evernote’s competition?
Of course, Evernote isn’t the only note-taking app on the market. There are plenty of Evernote alternatives that do the job better, depending on the features you prioritize.
Let’s take a look at some of the alternatives to Evernote.
Bear
Bear is a popular note-taking app but is available only for Apple devices. There may be a web version in the pipeline, but that’s not something we can judge at the moment. But if you’re taking notes on your iPhone, Mac, or iPad, Bear is a solid choice.
It’s free unless you’re syncing between devices. Then you’ll have to choose to pay $15 every year for the privilege. Still, if you do math, that’s cheaper than Evernote’s Premium addition.
You can tag notes in Bear with keywords, just like in Evernote. Bear uses a hashtag system instead of a separate tag field, so it’s a little faster. The text notes and Markdown compatibility are comparable to Evernote and its Codeblock functions. It doesn’t have Evernote’s sharing or team collaboration tools; it’s designed for one user.
We’d recommend Bear for single users who just need to take notes. It’s elegantly designed and fast, suffering from none of Evernote’s general feature-bloat problem.
If you have simple needs and are already invested in Apple architecture, Bear is a solid alternative.
OneNote
Microsoft’s note-taking software is a relatively new offering and is part of Microsoft’s Office suite.
How To Use Evernote Basic
OneNote can be accessed via browser or through the desktop or mobile app. It’s more free-form than Evernote and might appeal to note-takers who enjoy less structure. The notes are organized into notebooks, like Evernote. The notes are backed up to your OneDrive instead of a separate account, like Evernote. The similarities end there.
Instead of traditional pages, each individual OneNote scrolls sideways or down infinitely. Think of it like a digital reel of butcher paper. You can throw images into it alongside the text, with each block of text independent from the others. You can also draw over or around your notes.
OneNote works fine as a text note-taker but shines as a loose brainstorming tool.
However, OneNote isn’t free. It comes packaged with the other Office products in Office 365. Microsoft has a complicated pricing schema, with ongoing or subscription prices. The price also changes based on the home or business versions, but you’ll pay anywhere from $8 a month to $12.50 a month, depending.
Google Keep
Google Keep is a free note-taking software that comes with your Google account.
Keep has an interesting format: when you log in to Keep, you’re given a kind of digital corkboard. Your notes will appear as small boxes on the corkboard and can be arranged as necessary. You can also pin certain notes that you use frequently. They’ll show up at the top of the screen.
You can change the color of the notes, add labels, or add reminders right from this corkboard. You can also add drawings or images with a click of an icon.
Sharing is also pretty easy. You can add a collaborator to any individual note—it sends them an email invite.
Best Ways To Use Evernote
It isn’t the most robust note-taker, but it is free and has a solid visual presentation. It’s also mobile-friendly.
Our only real caveat here is to be aware that Google has a track record for abandoning software. This may be relevant only if you’re thinking of adopting Google Keep for a large company or for mission-critical notes. If Google Keep is for your personal use, it’s probably not a big deal.
Is Evernote the best fit for you?
What is Evernote’s defining, most persuasive feature? That depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and how you take notes. Do you want to share your notes with team members?
And, lastly, consider your budget.
If you want to spend as little money as possible (ideally, nothing), Google Keep and Evernote’s free versions are solid choices. Evernote has more features but is bloated. Google Keep is faster but also simpler.
If sharing your notes is more important, Evernote Premium and Bear have robust collaboration options.
If you’re a visual person who enjoys more physical-looking notes, Google Keep and OneNote fit the bill.
As you can see, Evernote isn’t the only game in town. It’s not even the best game in town. But it is pretty versatile and well-supported, and it works fine for many people.
Check out our full review of Evernote for a more detailed breakdown of what Evernote does best and where it needs work.