Evernote: An App to Organize Your Life

I basically tell anyone who will listen to me about how amazing Evernote is. It’s an app and website that keeps track of nearly anything you want it to. A friend who is also obsessed with it once called it an “extension of her mind.” I think that’s pretty accurate. Anything you want to keep track of but might forget — should go into Evernote.

Here’s how I’m using it:

Outlines & Ideas: Ideas for blog posts, stories to cover for work, writing projects, etc – pop into my head at the weirdest times. But now when I’m on the go I can open Evernote on my iPhone and jot down whatever it is that I’m thinking about and check it out later. I also make outlines for scripts and blog posts when I’m commuting so when I get to a computer I can be more efficient.

Web Clippings: Evernote has this cool bookmark feature for your browser where

you can click on it and it will save the page that you’re looking at. So if you want to save a recipe, article or gift idea — just click on the little elephant and he does all the work for you.

Vacation Prep & Research: Whenever I plan a vacation — I do it in Evernote. It’s an organized way to keep all my documents together. You can send an email to your personalized Evernote account and your documents, travel information and itinerary will automatically be saved. Then you can put them all together in a notebook for easy access.

I also compare vacation spots, resorts and more using a note in Evernote. I keep them so I can always refer back to them. For example — my husband and I are going to Jamaica on a vacation. My comments and pros and cons on each resort are saved in Evernote so the next time we are planning a trip I don’t have to start from scratch again.

Record Interviews: If you need to record a conversation or speech you can do it right into Evernote. There is an option to record audio and it comes in handy more than you think. If you’re at a conference and unable to take notes — just record it. I’ve captured audio from interviews I’ve conducted over Skype using this feature too. Or you can drag preexisting MP3 files into a note and store it that way.

Passwords: You can keep all your passwords in a note so you’ll never forget them again.

Note Taking: When I went to BlogHer12 this year — I took all my notes during sessions in Evernote. I was able to take photos of the presenters, audio of their speeches and type out notes too. I even made a list of important contacts I had made and what I wanted to follow up with each about when the conference was over. That made it much more manageable for me.

List Keeping: I’ve been known to keep a few to-do lists or restaurant lists
in Evernote. But for the most part I use other apps for those specific
tasks.

Holiday Shopping: This is probably one of the biggest uses I have for Evernote. Each year I make a list (in August) of all the people I need to buy holiday gifts for. Then I write in some ideas that I already have and add to that list wherever I am. It makes it easy to keep track of everyone and check people off my list.

How are you using Evernote?