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3 Ways to Get Started Organizing with Evernote — Guest post by Brandie Kajino

User stories | By Brandie Kajino
25 comments
 
brandie2 Name: Brandie Kajino
Profession: Professional Organizer
Blog: The Home Office Organizer
Twitter: @bkajino

Hear Brandie debate & debunk life’s
organizing myths on her weekly
internet radio show & podcast “The O-Myth”

Part of Evernote’s Summer to Unclutter Series

My Name is Brandie, and I’m the “The Home Office Organizer”. In addition to being professional organizer, I am also an author, speaker, blogger and small business owner. My specialty is empowering busy professionals with information, technology, tools and simple organizing solutions.

I had heard of Evernote a while ago. Then recently, a friend said she was using it and couldn’t live without it, so I thought it was time to give it a try. Boy, am I so glad I did! Evernote is such an open concept, that, at first, I had trouble figuring out where to start. Let me tell you how I have been using it, and share some tips on getting started. Hopefully, this will help you see some of the possibilities.

3 Ways to Get Started Organizing with Evernote

1. Just jump in

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to use Evernote. Since I learn best by doing, I decided to jump right in. I started with capturing websites, because there seem to be more of those than there are grains of sand. There was a lot of useful information that I wanted to refer back to, but I didn’t know where to put it. So, I captured the link (or a clip of the page), tagged it and filed it away.

2. Use notebooks

I set up one personal notebook for quotes (I post these weekly on my blog) and then had separate notebooks for ongoing projects.

As an example of an ongoing project, I co-host a podcast but I am also working on a second podcast to integrate into my blog. I have a gazillion good ideas, and I was having trouble capturing them. Now, I have an Evernote notebook titled “Podcast XYZ” and “Podcast ABC”. This way, I can take notes, and file them in the appropriate notebook, and everything I need for each project is always accessible.

3. Use tags

What if you come across a bit of information and you aren’t sure what notebook to put it in, because you might forget, and then….Relax. Just use tags. Let’s say I find a podcast show that I like, and would like to learn more about their format for my own education. However, the podcast doesn’t cleanly fit into a single existing bucket? It could easily go in either my “Podcast ABC” or “Personal” notebooks. So, instead of fretting, I put it in Personal and tag it with “podcast”. This way, I can find it later, and it’s neatly put away.

Finding What I Need: The Five Minute Rule

Evernote helps me stay organized. What does that mean? When I speak, I tell my audiences and clients that “organized” means you can find most anything in about 5 minutes. Evernote definitely helps you follow the five minute rule.

Evernote has been great in corralling all those little notes, pictures, snapshots, websites and other tasty bits of information. It’s working wonders so far. I have Evernote installed on my desktop and on my iPhone, and I sync between the two. It couldn’t be easier or more portable! I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.

Evernote’s Summer to Unclutter

Check out our previous post in this series:

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  • Sharir7209

    I’m also in agreement with jace-UK, DexterQ about the content of the article. The 3 so-called “tips” in this article are the 3 most obvious aspects of the application to anyone who has played with it for more than 30 minutes.
    I have been using EN for a long time, like it, use it often-it is like a super scratch pad on the desk for grabbing tidbits of information on the fly, and I’ve compiled a great deal of important (to me) information in it–clips from web pages about a book I’d like to read; reminder to buy a tomato at the grocery store tomorrow, quick place to type an address/phone # to enter in my address book later, etc.,. I also use it for more specific tasks, such as an “index card replacement” research tool for reports, because it provides the source URL automatically, helping with the bibliography chores, and I am also a quote collector.–but gathering the information is the easy part.
    It seems obvious to me that the real power of an app like EN lies not in the ability to gather the information, but in its ability to intelligently organize information so that it is easy to retrieve, see relationships, avoid redundancy, etc.,; and I have also scoured this website and others that have info about EN looking for “tips” of that sort, and I’m not finding anything really useful, either. Using tags for a note that could be categorized in multiple notebooks (see Tip #3 of the article) occurred to me rather early on, I didn’t find that to be any sort of Aha! idea. I would also like to see some real-world, clever examples of how other people are using tags, notebooks, etc., to organize their information.
    I’ve also been trying to figure out how to use EN with other applications, so that I can move information in and out of EN with ease (other than with a copy/paste), and I am not finding much about that issue, either.
    I found EN several years ago and have been using it ever since, and I can see so many great possibilities in it…and during all the time I’ve been using EN, I’ve been waiting for the knowledge base to improve from superficial benefit promotion to specific feature information so I can explore those possibilities.

  • Mike Webb

    I usually don’t have a problem learning a new program, but the “How to” in Evernotes in very poor. I can’t even find a book on it.

    So I am about to abandon it. I wrote to Support with no reply and that was 2 weeks ago.

    Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I just can’t take the time to “dig in” and it will make sense in time. And that shouldn’t have to be.

    Thanks,

    Mike

  • iefforts

    Evernote seems to be ideal for GTD. However, we can not make more sub-notes .

  • Sara

    I recently downloaded this app, having memory problems, it has been very helpful to me. I keep shopping lists, job task lists, its connected to one of my twitter accounts so I can save the tweet to view later, & I recently tried out the snapshop function. The part I like best is that I can view and edit notes on my laptop, & the updated notes will show up on my phone.

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