A friend told me about Evernote the other week. She was penning a grocery list for the festival we were headed to over the weekend and explained this way, we could add things to the same list. My initial reaction was ‘pretty cool’, so I downloaded and we made our list and off we were. In the weeks that followed I thought about other personal applications for Evernote. Last week I was planning a holiday and as I perused hotels and options of activities I just tagged them to Evernote. I not only found some great options but now I have captured options for future trips too.
Using Evernote in a Professional Context
After creating that first grocery list, I started thinking about the work implications for this software. Could this be a tool that is equally personally and professionally useful? Could Evernote be better than my Apple Notes** app, and importantly, could it make me more productive?
Programs such as
CoSchedule and
Buffer and
Start a Fire can really help professionalise the delivery of content via social media. With it so easy to disseminate content it becomes really important to ensure the development of fresh content is easy too. So it got me thinking about the concept of brainstorming and writing on the go.
Every day I try and read what’s going on in the world and then what’s going on in the world of sales. Sometimes this is over breakfast, on the tube or, if I’m lucky, sometimes from my garden. I often am inspired by something I read or find a new stat I would like to include in a research piece or blog.
Here’s where Evernote really starts to differ.
Evernote has a widget and a browser plugin that makes this process really tick. You can easily save articles, photos, etc and all sorted by folder. Now it’s not only a notepad, but a full on brainstorming database. Any article I read I can copy in, any neat picture is captured.
Integrations and Mobile Flexibility
This software is pretty special as it not only works on your computer browsers, but from your iPad, smart phone, etc. I like that no matter where I am I can easily see past notes and also capture new ideas with just a couple clicks.
From your web browser there’s a few options. As you can see you have the option to capture part of text, a link, an entire web page, etc.
From a mobile device you have the option to copy items the same way you would any other application. As you can see by screenshot you can paste content into Evernote, just like you could add to Notes, reminders, WhatsApp, etc.
Its also really easy to share notebooks with any other Evernote user. Whether it be a shopping list with your partner or asking colleagues for comments around a potential draft blog post or even just a to do list with a subordinate, I can see the advantages.
If you like voice dictation in Notes, no problem, it works just like any other program you see a keyboard with a microphone! My test here:
Does this work? I want to dictate things to Evernote.
Bingo!
The one thing that’s a bit of a bummer is no spell or grammar check in the mobile or web version of Evernote. Apparently there’s a desktop version where there is, but I wasn’t even aware of this, nor is it convenient. I made the mistake a couple times of posting things and then later realising simple typos or spelling errors. Especially as its so integrated to posting solutions (such as CoSchedule) it seems this is really something missing and should be an option. Their clunky
workaround is to sync and then spell check on the desktop version. I’m hopeful that sometime in the future this functionality is more readily available on web and mobile versions.
Try it Out!
Their premium offerings include more space, the ability add to contacts by just taking a picture of a business card, integrating with email or SFDC. At this time I’m super happy using the free version, but if you click on my
link you can try out a premium offering for a month and see what works for you.
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**Apologies as my knowledge of Android is non-existent but I have to imagine this program betters some of the standard offerings from any operating system.
