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Did You Know: How to Create a Checklist in Evernote

Tips and Stories | By Kasey Fleisher Hickey
android_checklist

If you’ve been following our user stories, you may have noticed that a lot of people love to make checklists in Evernote. Whether for work, personal stuff, or both, you can find a reason to make a checklist in Evernote. If you haven’t made one already, we’re here to show you how to do it.

What kind of checklist should I make?

Creating a checklist that’s accessible from any device where you have Evernote installed allows you to get more done by helping you remember stuff you need to do at any moment. Here are some ideas for checklists that you might want to create:

  • To-do list: make one for work from your desk on a Monday morning and check it on your phone on a Wednesday.
  • Packing list: don’t forget your sunscreen, your bathing suit, or your phone charger.
  • Goals list: keep it with you, wherever you are.
  • Reading list: keep adding to it — when you’re at the bookstore with your phone, or at the airport with your tablet
  • Home repairs list: pull it up on your phone when you’re at Home Depot and grab everything you need.
  • Grocery list: add items you need and even share it with your spouse!
  • Where to eat list: explore where you live through food and check off restaurants as you try them. See our list.

Ok, how do I get started?

You can make a checklist using several versions of Evernote—Mac, Windows, Web, Android, and others soon—by clicking on the checkbox button in the note formatting bar (on your Android device, you can find the checkbox in the bar above your keyboard). To add items, just click on the checkbox button again and a new checkbox will appear in your note.  On a Mac, you can can also create a check-list by going to Format > Insert To-Do. On your Windows PC, go to Format > To-Do > Insert Checkbox (or CTRL + SHIFT + C).

To check the box, just click inside of it. Double click to uncheck it.

Keep it all in sync

Above: checklist on Android

Whenever you update a note, Evernote automatically synchronizes the change to all versions you use, meaning that something you’ve checked off on your phone will also be checked off when you log into Evernote on the Web, or from your desktop, so you’ll never lose sight of what you’ve done or what needs to be done.

Search for your checkboxes in Evernote

To find notes containing one or more unchecked boxes, type in todo:false into the Evernote search box. To find all notes containing a checkbox, type in todo:*. [More about searching in Evernote]

Note Links – Associate Checkboxes with other Notes, or your Calendar

Want to associate your checklist with a calendar reminder? Now you can. You can create a Note Link by right-clicking on the note in a desktop version of Evernote and choosing the option Copy Note Link. Open your calendar and paste in the Note Link. Clicking on the link will open the note (in this case, your checklist). You can read more about Note Links and how they work in this blog post.

How do you use checklists? Tell us in the comments.

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  • Tom

    Where is the Format box? Does not appear either on my PC or iPad?
    Can’t create checkbox is no format box to work with?

  • Rick Porter

    I have a Blackberry and I am desperately looking for a replacement for a now unsupported-for-Blackberry list application – PD Lists – it was perfect and did everything I needed – easily created separate lists, ability to unmark all items at once so that it can be used again (like a packing list or grocery list), categories within the list, alarm capabilities, and so much more – it’s a great application. What it didn’t have is the ability to sync between all devices and especially to the Internet. That’s where Evernote has it great. Please develop a great list app and I will love you forever.

  • BrianL

    Great, did not notice it. It could be used for surveys/ I hope Live Minutes picks up on the idea.

  • http://www.layout.ph Glenn

    No doubt Evernote is the all around note saving device. I am goin to delete now my gtask app from my android, its useless anymore

  • David Salahi

    It would be nice to extend the todo: search functionality for searching within a note. I often add ToDo items as the need arises within a note which I am editing repeatedly over a period of days or even weeks. This results in the checkboxes being spread out throughout a lengthy note, making them hard to find. Being able to search for checkboxes within a single note would fix that.

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