Get Evernote Food 2.0 on Google Play »

From Home Cooking to Haute Cuisine: The Essential App for Food Lovers

Like Evernote, Evernote Food was designed not just as a tool to help organize your life, but as an essential companion to inspire and capture the milestones along the way. Evernote Food is divided into four sections (Explore Recipes, My Cookbook, Restaurants, and My Meals) that together form an ever-evolving chronicle of your life in food. From exploring new recipes to curating your own digital cookbook, keeping a journal or planning a trip to a faraway place, Evernote Food gives you the tools to pursue and document your food passions.

Explore Recipes: Browse and Search Thousands of Recipes

Picture this: it’s a gorgeous spring morning and you’re at the farmers market. A bounty of seasonal fruits and vegetables surrounds you, generating equal parts inspiration and overwhelm. What to choose? Evernote Food’s Explore Recipes section has your back. Heirloom tomatoes in season? Just search by ingredient and see recipes from a broad array of the best food blogs and sites. Whether you’re out and about or relaxing at home, just open the app on your phone or tablet to see thousands of recipes from the best food blogs and sites to browse, search, and save. Tap any recipe that strikes your fancy. If you like what you see, tap the elephant icon at the top right of the screen to clip it to the My Cookbook section.

My Cookbook: Your Beautiful Digital Recipe Collection

If you love to cook, recipe collecting can be kind of a scattered process. You constantly find recipes from a variety of seemingly incompatible sources: online, in print, and much-loved 3×5 cards from mom’s or grandma’s recipe box. If you don’t have a system, it’s challenging to navigate your options, much less choose a recipe or plan a meal. This is where Evernote and Evernote Food can make your cooking life a whole lot easier – and make you a better cook in the process.

Recipe Collecting Made Easy
If you’ve been using Evernote to store recipes, you likely have recipes in different formats: ones you’ve scanned or photographed, those you’ve manually typed into a note, and recipes you’ve clipped using the desktop Web Clipper. Evernote Food recognizes these as recipes and will automatically bring them into your digital cookbook. Just tap My Cookbook in the app, then scroll to find the recipes you’ve saved in Evernote Food and Evernote. Tap a recipe and you’re ready to get cooking.

Your Cooking Companion
One big benefit of Evernote is that it automatically syncs your notes across all of your devices. This means that if you’ve been using your Android tablet to clip recipes for a special dinner, you can then take your phone to the grocery store use the recipe’s ingredient list to shop. When you’ve returned home, use your tablet to follow along with the recipe as you cook, capturing photos and notes in the app using the My Meals feature during the process.

Restaurants: Build a Wish List, Book a Table

Like My Cookbook, the Restaurants feature allows you collect all the restaurants you want to try in a tidy list ready to inform your next outing. Whether you want to experience a new hot spot or plan your food itinerary for an upcoming trip, Evernote Food lets you build your own ultimate restaurant wish list and book a table when you’re ready to dine.

Plan Your Next Food Adventure
Using the app to discover new restaurants is simple. Just tap the search field at the top of the screen and type in your search by name, cuisine, or dish. The app automatically searches near your current location. To search elsewhere, tap in the location field and enter another city anywhere in the world. In seconds, a list and map of restaurants for your search will appear along with colorful cuisine icons to help you scan for the type of meal you’re craving. Tap the map icon at the top right of the screen to see the locations displayed in map view, then tap the list icon to return to that view.

Select a Restaurant, Book a Table
When you see a restaurant that grabs your interest, tap it to see the details, including address, phone number, and website. Evernote Food also includes Foursquare venue ratings and menus. The icing on the cake? Evernote Food recently partnered with OpenTable to let you quickly book your table within the app.

My Meals: Create & Share Your Food Photo Essays

My Meals has been re-imagined to be better than ever. Use it to create gorgeous shareable photo essays documenting all of your food adventures, from the step-by-step process of baking a cake to capturing a birthday dinner out with friends. The interface for My Meals is easy to navigate, and it’s simple to either take photos in the moment or attach them from your device gallery to create a note later. The photos display right alongside your personalized captions for each image.

You can add a title and location to each meal, as well as a short description of the note. Go back and edit a note anytime to perfect it, from swapping out images to tweaking captions. When your note is finished, you’ll find the multiple sharing options available to Android users by tapping the overflow or options menu. From posting via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and more, the app lets you share the food you love with friends and family however you wish.

Recently Viewed: A Handy Reference

One feature exclusive to Android is the Recently Viewed feature. This feature displays alongside whatever section you are viewing and provides a constant reference point to the recipes you’ve been exploring and the meals you’ve been contemplating.

Discover, Collect, Remember the Food You Love

We can’t wait to hear what you think of the new Evernote Food for Android. Give it a try and tell us your impressions. Bon appetit!

What’s New in Evernote Food 2.0 for Android
Getting Started Guide
Facebook Page

Get Evernote Hello for Android »

Hello Connect

Evernote Hello for Android now comes with an innovative way to instantly meet a group of people. It’s called Hello Connect and it uses audio tones to identify other nearby Hello users and join everyone together. Have everyone in your group tap the main screen plus button, then choose Use Hello Connect. Once connected, you’ll have everyone’s photos, contact info and any other information that they have in their Hello profiles.

If you’re in a loud environment or would prefer not to use the audio tones, you can always switch to manual mode and tell everyone around you the four digit Hello Connect code. Everyone punches in the code on their phones, and you’re connected.

Hello Connect is available on both Android and iPhone, and will work across devices.

Facebook

Evernote Hello lets you sign into your LinkedIn and (now) Facebook accounts. We recommend that you do this. It’ll make completing your profile faster and also pull in information about the people you meet as soon as you enter their email address.

To connect to Facebook and LinkedIn, tap the Hello icon in the top left corner of the app, then select Social Networks.

Sync with Google Contacts

To make it easier to keep your contacts up-to-date, Evernote Hello now lets you choose to save all the people you meet to your Google Contacts. This will ensure that you’ll be able to easily connect with everyone at any time.

And more

In addition to everything above, this update also adds a redesigned layout for Hello Notes in Evernote and lots of stability improvements. Let us know what you think.

• Name: John Walker
• Profession: Independent Insurance Adjuster
• Location: Everett, WA
• Website: www.frontieradjusters.com, www.claimsnorthwest.com
• Twitter: @jawanova

Bio

John is a freelance insurance adjuster in the Seattle area. A longtime Evernote user, he recently started incorporating Skitch into his workflow to help him achieve his productivity goals in an industry notorious for paperwork. John shares how he uses Evernote and Skitch to streamline his business.

I use Evernote, Everywhere..

• Android Tablet
• Android smartphone
• Windows Desktop

I use Evernote + Skitch for…

Seamlessly managing freelance client work

As an independent adjuster, I work with several different insurance companies at any given time and take on a number of appraisal jobs from each one. This generates an enormous amount of files that I need to track and Evernote has helped me to keep it all straight. Every time I get a new assignment file, I create a notebook with the  file’s number and title. Then, I place a note in the notebook with a checklist of each of the components that I need to complete to close the file. Managing my client work has never been easier; I just search within all my open files and see what still needs to be done.

Documenting damage on the go

Skitch has completely changed the way I document claims. I typically cover auto appraisals and property damage, so I needed to take photos or draw up floor plans to show where the damage was incurred, what was the extent of it, etc. I used to make hand drawings with notes and often would get home and realize that I couldn’t read my own handwriting. Once I started using Skitch, I could easily create a basic floor plan using shapes, arrows and text to indicate dimensions, the location of damage, or take notes on anything else that would help me make an accurate estimate. I could also snap pictures in Skitch and add arrows and text directly to them so I never forget the important details.

Skitch and Evernote also allow me to be completely mobile with my business and pick up freelance work wherever I’m needed. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there has been an enormous influx of assignments as people start to survey the damage to their homes and property. Because Evernote and Skitch travel with me everywhere on all my devices, I was able to head straight to New York and get started on assessing claims right away. When I’m more efficiently mobile with Evernote and Skitch, I can help people begin to get their lives back in order more quickly.

Going paperless

Before I started using Evernote and Skitch, I would lug around about 17-25 pages of claims documents, a hard copy of the insurance policy, and any handwritten notes I took about each assignment. At any given time, I was carrying several hundred pages with me. Now, I only bring my Android Tablet and store all this material in Evernote. I can easily search for any resources I need, as well as capture any new information about a case in Evernote or Skitch while I’m in the field. With Evernote and Skitch, I’ve been able to go about 99% paperless and have given my printer a much deserved rest.

Running my business with my wife 

My wife and I work together on my freelance business — she handles my invoicing and billing — and we’ve found a clever way to manage our accounts with Evernote. As I begin work on each component of an assignment, I use Evernote for Windows Desktop’s date/time stamp shortcut to add a finish timestamp to each checkbox. Then, my wife checks off each item as she enters it into the billing system. This way, she can show my clients exactly when I finished each part of the assignment, and she can put together my invoices in no time. Evernote has also helped us manage the business remotely; because everything is in Evernote, she can access my case files and bill my clients even if she’s out of town.

Evernote for Everything Else…

Evernote has been great for keeping track of larger household expenses like hiring contract workers.  I recently had an arborist come out to our house to do some work and I took notes about which trees he worked on, as well as the costs associated with his work. When I store information like this in Evernote, I have a permanent record of everything we’ve had work done on.  Then, when I want to compare prices, determine what I’ve had done recently, or remember the name of a contract worker I’ve used in the past it’s as easy as typing in the Search Bar.

I also use Evernote as a sort of journal — it’s a special place for me to keep track of my thoughts. I take note of interesting things I hear at church, inspirational quotes, or anything else on my mind.  It’s nice to know that I’m able to look back on my notes, and it’s also important to me that they’re private and secure. Evernote provides a safe place to create and store all these special memories.

• Name: Justin Nowak
• Evernote Ambassador: Event Planning
• Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
• Profession: Event Planner
• Website: http://justinnowak.com/
• Twitter: @justinnowak

Bio

Justin Nowak is an entrepreneur with a passion for event planning. He is the Event Facilitator for Startup Weekend Calgary and VP of Community and Events for the Canadian Cloud Council. Justin plans all of his events using Evernote.

I use Evernote, Everywhere

• Windows
• Mac
• iPad
• Android

I use Evernote for…Event Planning

I started using Evernote a lot when I began planning events. Between organizing large conferences for the Canadian Cloud Council and grassroots get togethers for Startup Weekend here in Canada, I began to get inundated with information that I needed to be able to capture and organize quickly and easily, especially on the go. After reading how other people — especially Evernote Ambassadors — were using Evernote, I realized just how versatile the tool was. Now I use Evernote to plan events from start to finish.

Logistics, research and the planning process

For me, Evernote now starts the planning process for every event. From creating lists of things I need to get done to what sponsors I want to work with, I use Evernote to capture my ideas when I first start to conceptualize an event. I’ll create lists for food, potential event locations, and more.

I aggregate all of my ideas in a unique notebook for each event. This is helpful as I’m often planning multiple events at any given time. There’s a lot of information coming in— contracts from big sponsors, ideas from other people, vendor forms — and this way, I’m able to assign information to specific notebooks to keep things tidy. Having all of this information accessible to me in one place is invaluable. Over the life cycle of an event, I scan numerous documents (using an app called DocScanner for my Android phone) and send them to Evernote. I also forward important emails from my inbox to my Evernote account (including attachments). I never have to dig through emails or a stack of papers to find what I’m looking for; Evernote’s search is so powerful, I only need to enter in a keyword or two to get to what I need. I also rely on the Web Clipper to capture articles with information that’s pertinent to the events I’m planning.

When you’re managing an event, you’re swimming in documentation. Being able to snap photos of or forward receipts to my Evernote account, and capture trip itineraries, means I don’t have to worry about finding that stuff later.

When an event has wrapped, I continue to use my event notebooks, making sure that I’ve closed the loop. I send all post-event related information (like survey responses about what people liked or didn’t and pictures) to the specific event notebook.

Sharing event responsibilities

By saving everything to Evernote, I’m not only able to hash out my ideas and keep myself organized throughout the process, but to also assign roles and responsibilities to key stakeholders right from my Evernote account.

With larger events, I typically work with a core team of people and a number of volunteers. Evernote makes it easy to delegate work and keep track of each aspect of the event and who’s working on it. I share individual notes and notebooks with various people responsible for different parts of the event, and because I can share with one person or more, I can decide who needs access to what. For example, I typically share notes and notebooks that include information about event aspects with the volunteers that are responsible for them, while limiting Shared Notebooks that include information that may not be pertinent to the volunteers to colleagues. I use Notebook Stacks to organize separate notebooks with different types of documents under the main event notebook, and instead of starting a long and tedious email chain with 20-30 people, I simply grant access to the group that needs these documents. This saves me so much time, especially when I’m busy. It also allows volunteers to collaborate on their own time. For people who don’t have an Evernote account, we simply have them email information directly into the appropriate notebook.

The payoff

Using Evernote to plan events has a lot of benefits. For one, I’ve significantly cut down on email, but more importantly, I’m getting a ton more sleep now. I used to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, but now everything is more organized and I feel a sense of calm (as much as you can when you plan events!). On a daily basis, I can just go into my Evernote account, be reminded of what needs to get done, and get right to it.

A few of my favorite Evernote apps

I’ve started diving more into other Evernote apps including Evernote Hello. When I go from conference to conference, I meet so many people. I have a good brain but it’s not close enough to keep track of everyone I meet and how I met them. In a brief 5 minute chat I have with a person, I try to capture as much information about them as possible using Evernote Hello. Back at my office, I can recall if that person asked me questions about partnership opportunities, for example, and follow up. I also use Skitch to quickly annotate notes on the go.

5 Evernote tips for event planners

Since I’ve made Evernote my event-planning hub, I’ve picked up a few ideas for ways to use the tool more efficiently. Here are a few of my tips for using Evernote for event planning:

• Tip 1: Use the email address you get with Evernote. Send everything that’s pertinent to this email so it automatically gets saved to your Evernote account. [How to email things to your Evernote account]
• Tip 2: Use notebooks to their full potential. Make specific notebooks for each event you’re working on, then organize them into Notebook Stacks. You can share individual notebooks with groups of people responsible for various aspects of the event and keep certain ones private. I try to save everything that’s relevant into each notebook as I get it. Keeping notebooks very specific makes it easier to find things later.
• Tip 3: Tagging is huge. I try to tag as I email stuff into notebooks. This is another great layer of organization for notes.
• Tip 4: Utilize the Trunk. I love DocScan for my Android phone; it lets me scan everything from receipts to contracts so I can access them on the road. [Check out the Evernote Trunk]
• Tip 5: Use the Web Clipper. Capture pictures, articles and cool ideas for what you could do for future events.

The Evernote Ambassador Program

Evernote Ambassadors are amazing individuals that are here to teach, share and help you get more out of Evernote. Learn more about Ambassadors and consider submitting your story.

Join the conversation happening in our Lifestyle Forum to connect with Ambassadors and other Evernote users.

Join the conversation

Download Ambassador Guides

Drag and drop them into a New Note or attach them to a note so you can access them from any computer or mobile device where you have Evernote installed!

Joshua Zerkel’s Productivity Tips (PDF)
Brandie Kajino’s Organization Tips (PDF)
Carley Knobloch’s Spring Cleaning Tips (PDF)
Jamie Todd Rubin’s Paperless Tips (PDF)
Jenni Lathrop’s Crafting Tips (PDF)
Lindsey Holmes’ Small Business Tips (PDF)
Krisstina Wise’s Real Estate Tips (PDF)
Rob van Nood’s case study on Evernote for Portfolios (PDF)

Get Evernote for Android »

Premium feature: Easier Offline Notebooks

Offline Notebooks is one of our most popular Premium features. It lets you download as many notebooks as you like directly to your phone or tablet, allowing you to access your notes and any attachments quickly, whether you’re on safari or in a submarine. With this update, we took all the hassle out of taking notebooks offline by letting you select multiple notebooks at once.

To do this, go to your notebook list and tap on one of the following:

• Android phone: tap the download icon in the bottom Action Bar
• Android tablet: tap the three dots in the top right corner, then tap Offline Notebooks

You’ll now be taken to the multi-select view. Tap the notebooks that you’d like to keep for offline access. Once you’re done, tap the check mark in the top left of the screen. Your notebooks will begin downloading in the background.

Evernote Premium: There are lots of other great reasons to consider Evernote Premium, including 1GB of monthly uploads, faster support, PDF search, and more. Upgrade your account today.

Simplified Note Editor Toolbar

The Note Editor toolbar on Android got a lot cleaner with this update. We took out everything that wasn’t actually related to editing and put it into the Action Bars along the top of the note. Use the toolbar to style your text and to organize it with bullets, lists and checkboxes. You can even hide the toolbar by tapping on the arrow.

We moved things like adding attachments and audio recordings into the big “+” in the Action Bar. If you’d like to add tags or choose a notebook, simply tap on the three dots.

Android Tablets: Smarter Action Bars

Android Tablet users now get context aware Action Bar options. You’ll notice that the actions in the bar change depending on which panel is currently open. For example, if you’re in the Notebook List, an arrow will appear beneath Notebooks. Tap the Action Bar label to show a menu of sorting and grouping options. The same is true for Tags and All Notes views.

The New Grid Widget

Evernote has a separate widget app available from Google Play that lets you create new notes right from your device’s desktop. The new Grid Widget is designed to fit perfectly on any sized screen.

After downloading the widget app, tap and hold on your device’s desktop. Next, choose the Evernote Grid Widget. Select the note types and functions that you’d like the widget to display. The widget will now appear on your screen. To re-size the widget, tap and hold it until you see a frame appear. Drag the frame to match the dimensions you want.

More to come

As always, there are lots of additional improvements under the hood that make the app faster and more reliable. We hope you like the newest Evernote for Android. We have lots more to come.

Get Evernote for Android »

• Name: Russell Curtis
• Location: London, UK
• Profession: Architect
• Company: RCKa (employees: 10)
• Website:  www.rcka.co.uk
• Twitter:  @russellcurtis

Bio

Russell Curtis is the founder and director of London-based architectural practice RCKa, a finalist for 2011 Young Architect of the Year. His firm employs Evernote as its main content management and collaboration tool.

I use Evernote, Everywhere

• Windows
• iPad
• Android

I use Evernote for managing content and collaborating with colleagues at my architectural firm

I started using Evernote about four years ago, but in the last twelve months, it’s become a core tool at my firm. As a young architecture practice, we were looking for a way to better manage and share information amongst our team and we also needed to find a quality management system for our business. A few of us were already using Evernote on a personal level, so we decided to make the jump to a Sponsored Account. As a Chartered Practice in the UK, we have to have a formal management system in place. We turned to Evernote as that quality management system that we use to record information and make it accessible to other people in the organization. Now, we do everything in Evernote.

Evernote as a central database

Besides being a tool that everyone at the firm uses for various projects, Evernote is the universal database for our practice. We store examples of work (including materials, interesting buildings, etc.), as well as helpful information, such as examples we’ve scoured in journals and on websites, in a Shared Notebook. We tag all of our notes and are continually adding to this library. Previously, this information was stored on a server but it was impossible to organize information in a rational way. In Evernote, everything is searchable, and even accessible on the go. If we want to do a search for buildings made of render, or art galleries, for example, we can just type a few keywords into Evernote to quickly find what we’re looking for.

Working together on the go

Evernote is hugely helpful for storing all information related to a building project because we can carry all of this documentation with us everywhere. When one of us visits a building site, we can immediately pull up everything we need on an iPad, phone or laptop. We have Shared Notebooks for each project, so all of our documentation is neatly organized for all to easily search.

Evernote has fundamentally changed the way we do business. Essentially, every piece of information — whether paper or digital — goes into Evernote. The way we used to do things was quite painful; with Evernote, the sharing of information has been streamlined. Historically, we’ve organized information in folders on a server but the problem with that system was that there were always things that didn’t neatly fall into a folder. Now, people know exactly where to go and because Evernote offers an almost non-structured format, no one has to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly where something is, and they know they can view things in chronological order and search for them regardless of whether they know which notebook they’re in.

Whether we’re at the office or on the go, we are constantly adding information to our Shared Notebooks. We’ve deployed Evernote as a formal way of doing business at various stages of every project. At the office, we have a scanner that we email a lot of marked up drawings to. It’s configured to automatically send everything to Evernote. When we’re finishing a project, we’re often on site and go through a process called snagging — scheduling small items of unfinished work which need to be put right. We go through a list of items that need to be checked off using Evernote on our mobile devices. With Evernote, you can snap a photo and make annotations in that same note about what still needs to be completed. By the time you’re back at the office, you’ll be able to hop on your computer and pull up all of the notes you took on site (which will already have synchronised to your computer). From there, you can evaluate what else needs to be done.

Evernote gives us the freedom to be mobile and away from the office. Since we share so much information in one, central, easy-to-search place, even if one of us is out of the office or on holiday, any other team member can respond to a client query. Because all reference information (including correspondence) is in Evernote, no one is ever out of the loop.

More ways to use Evernote

The more we use Evernote, the more we find interesting ways to get more out of it. It grows with us. We recently set up ifttt (an app you can find in the Evernote Trunk) to send new articles from architecture websites to our Shared Notebook in Evernote. We’ve also discovered how powerful the geo-location feature is. We geo-reference examples of work a lot. That way, when one of us travels abroad, we can quickly work out if we’re close to any locations we want to visit. It’s just another way of filtering information. The close integration of Skitch with Evernote also allows us to mark up drawings and sketches quickly and share these ideas with the office.

Are you already using Evernote for your business? Evernote Business is coming soon. Sign up here to stay up-to-date.

Get Evernote for Android from Google Play »

The New Tablet Interface

In this update, we’ve made the tablet interface much easier to use:

The New Home Screen
When you launch the app, you’ll be greeted with a sleek new home screen. Tap to create a new note or jump directly into your notebook, tags and place views.

Swipe!
We’ve added a number of swipe interactions that dramatically improve navigation through the app. From the home screen, tap on Notebooks and a notebook panel slides in. You can also swipe the note list to make it full-screen, swipe it in the opposite direction to bring back the left panel.

Improved Note List Design
We redesigned the Note List to make it easier to browse and read than ever before. We changed the shape of the note thumbnails and improved the text contrast in the titles.

Places
Whenever it can, Evernote saves the location associated with the notes you take. From the home screen, tap on Places to see your notes as pins on a map.

Tablet List View

You asked and we listened. Evernote for Android Tablets now has List View, a compact note list that shows you basic information about the note in a single list including title, tags, text snippets, attachments, and the date. The attachments icon also shows the number of attachments in the note. This view displays everything you need at a glance.

Updates for All Android Users

This update also includes a number of improvements for both mobile and tablet Android users.

Sublists
You can now add additional levels to your bulleted and numbered lists. To do this, either create a list or tap into an existing one. You’ll notice indentation arrows appear in the formatting bar. Tap these arrows to indent the line further.

Improved slideshows
When viewing a note, tap on an image and you’ll be taken into slideshow view. In this update, we made the slideshow view faster and more reliable.

A Better Evernote

With each update, we strive to make it easier for you to save, find and relive all of your memories. We hope you like what you see. Let us know what you think.

• Name: Heather Williamson
• Profession: Horticulturist and ‘Gardener to the Stars’
• Company: A major Hollywood movie studio
• Location: Hollywood

Bio

Heather Williamson is a horticulturist responsible for taking care of 800 plants on the lot of a major Hollywood studio. Heather helps to make sure that the physical property looks beautiful at all times and manages her day-to-day activities with Skitch and Evernote.

I use Evernote, Everywhere

• Mac
• Windows
• Android phone
• Skitch for Android

I use Evernote for…

As as a member of a 6-person gardening team, I am tasked with helping keep our facility beautiful and conducive to doing business. My responsibilities extend from our 63 acre lot to executive offices. Before Skitch and Evernote, it was very challenging to keep track of all of our plants: Which ones were healthy? Which ones needed treatment? Which ones have I ordered? Which ones need to be replaced? Together, Skitch and Evernote allow me to stay on top of everything.

It’s amazing how many times I get asked, “How often should I water my plants?” and I’m glad when people ask, because it means they want to have success at growing plants. Gardening is the number one recreational activity in America, and whether you’re a professional like me, or an enthusiast, you can use Skitch and Evernote to help you keep track of your plants, their names, where you purchased them, your garden planning, layout and its seasonal progress, and in-home arrangements.

Evernote for staying organized

• I organize all of my projects in Evernote. I have a few notebooks in my Evernote account and I keep all of my notes organized with tags such as ‘potted plants’ or ‘to-do.’  I have a running checklist of everything that needs to get done in my areas of responsibility, and am constantly adding to-dos to my master task list and checking off the completed ones (when I’m done with a task, I move it down toward the bottom of the list, so I can see all of the tasks which still need to get done at the top). I also have notes for all of the plants that I work with so I know exactly when one has been treated, if it has had issues, if it has been replaced with another plant, etc.
• Evernote is my visual frame of reference, my project manager and my binder. Instead of having to carry a paper notepad everywhere as I used to do, taking notes and then searching to find those notes later, Evernote allows me to have quick access to my notes while out in the field, and allows me to be more effective and proactive in my activities. Evernote has made it easy for me to focus on the things that are important, like finding a better way to deal with an issue we’re having or being more creative.
• My paper trail is in Evernote. I scan in any documents that I think I might potentially need into Evernote. If my boss asks me to save a piece of paper, I know exactly where to find it. I forward important email correspondences into Evernote, too. If someone asks, “What is the name of this plant disease we were talking about and what do we do about it?” I can look at the email I sent to a world-class expert, our exchange, and research I’ve conducted, all in one place. I’m able to find an answer immediately.
• I can solve problems with Evernote. I use an extensive tagging system in my Evernote account, which lets me organize my research on a variety of different issues related to plants including pest issues, diseases, design and maintenance. Recently, we needed to figure out a way to keep fruit from possibly falling on cars. It didn’t take long for me to look through my Evernote account to access the information on exactly how to cut the fruit from the trees, while keeping them healthy and free of disease.

• I keep gardening inspiration in Evernote. I’m often inspired by things I see online and out in the real world, and Evernote lets me capture my ideas wherever I am. If I see an interesting gardening article online, I use the Web Clipper to add it to my Gardening notebook. If I’m on a garden visit, I take pictures of various and interesting plants and designs. This helps me when I’m asked to design something; I can simply look through my gardening ideas and can pull up anything I’d like to reference and immediately share it with someone or use it as a seed idea for a new design. I also clip or take pictures of items I need (like replacement blades, new tools to try, plant food, novel bud vases, etc.).

Skitch for planning arrangements, keeping tabs on plant health, and more

• Skitch helps me create office arrangements. Part of my job requires me to style executives’ offices with plants. As I’m touring an office, I use Skitch to plan out what types of plants I’ll order and how I’ll arrange them. I snap photos of bare office areas with Skitch and use my finger to quickly sketch a likeness of a plant, to scale in areas I think could be beautified with foliage and show it to a customer as we confer. I’ll jot down notes about what type of plants would look good in each particular space, based on lighting conditions and the size of the area being worked with and also note relative plant sizes. When I’m back at my desk, I can pull up my visual reference, along with my notes, and know exactly what I need to order. The annotated images also serve as my guides when I’m ready for the plant delivery and installation process.
• I use Skitch and Evernote to keep tabs on plant health. When I treat plants, I take pictures of what they looked like before treatment, so that I can monitor how they respond to it. I note the type of treatment, date, and condition of the plants so I have both visual and text references. If an issue is new to me (for example, if I find a pest on a plant that I don’t recognize), I draw an arrow on the image of the plant so that I can quickly spot it next time I see it. From there, I can research the issue further and link the research to the note by using tags and placing it in a specific notebook.

• I use Skitch to draw attention to places, concepts and ideas I might want to revisit. Skitch is a great visual reminder to revisit my ideas. For example, I’ll point out aspects of arrangements I see at nurseries and might want to recreate, or point to locations I should revisit. Once these annotated images are in my Gardening notebook in Evernote, I can quickly scan through them whenever I need some inspiration.

Skitch helps me brainstorm ideas for our yearly community volunteer project

Our studio gives back to the community every year in the form of a large volunteer project. This year, we’re working with a local elementary school and helping them improve their garden. I’m using Skitch to brainstorm the layout of their garden to help myself get organized while on a job.

Since this is a volunteer project, the group is broken up into teams, and a team captain could be a studio executive or an intern. Evernote gives key people an opportunity to participate in the learning process and have the chance to be successful at what might be a new task to them. I’ll snap photos of different plants and annotate them with Skitch to point out which are weeds and which are desirable plants. I’ll also snap photos of large areas and annotate them to show how they should be planted. For example, I’ll point out that grass should be planted near a rock because it makes for a nicer design. All of these notes can be shared with team captains, as well as anyone at the school, so they can easily reference the planting placement recommendations. In addition, it’s a great visual reference of the “before and after” effect that the project has made.

How are you using Skitch for gardening? Please share in the comments!

Get Evernote for Android

The All-New Look of Evernote for Android

Whether it’s a completely makeover or a simple touch-up, every single screen of the app have been redesigned to be easier to use, faster and more intuitive.

The new Home Screen
The new home screen is completely different from anything we’ve done before. The screen combines note creation options with buttons that take you directly into notebooks, tags and places (more on that later).

What makes the new home screen great, is how easy it is to use and how fast you can jump to it—swipe right or tap the elephant and you’re back.

Improved note and notebook list
The app’s note and notebooks lists got a major upgrade in this update. We redesigned the look of the note list to make it easier to browse content and to find what you’re looking for. For the notebook list, we brought together your personal notebooks and the ones that others have shared with you into a single view.

Action Bars
The latest update includes new contextual Action Bars that runs along the bottom of several screens. The bar shows options that relate to the screen that you’re on. For example, if you’re viewing a note, the Action Bar allows you to edit, share, tag, and perform other note-related actions. On the note list, tapping the Action Bar can launch a new note, search through notes, and change the sort order. Look for the Action Bar whenever you want to do more on the screen that you’re in.

Easy reading

We believe that the best interfaces are the ones that appear when you need them and become invisible when you don’t. That thinking led to our new note view. When reading a note, as you start scrolling, all navigation slides away, giving you a full-screen reading view. Then, when you need to edit, share or return to the note list, just tap the screen.

Swipe navigation

Horizontal swiping is now a major way to navigate through the app. When you’re viewing Notebooks, Tags, and Places, horizontal swiping moves you from one category to the next. If you’re in the home screen, a swipe to the left jumps you into the note list. Swipe back any time and you return to the home screen.

Places!

If you have “location services” enabled on your device, then Evernote assigns a place to each note you make. The new Places screen displays notes by creation location. Tap the map icon in the Action Bar to see your notes on a map.

New Settings

One of the other very visible interface features is the appearance of your username in the top left corner of the home screen. Tapping the username, shows your remaining monthly allowance and gives you access to additional settings.

Next to the username is a profile icon. This icon shows your account type: it’s a simple profile icon for Free users, and shiny crest if you’re Premium. In addition, at a glance, the icon shows you if you’re nearing your monthly allowance limit.

Much more…

As always, the visible things are only part of the story. There are lots of enhancements and fixes that will make your experience of using Evernote the best it’s ever been. Also, be sure to tap on the feature discovery lightbulb to see what’s new in this update and to get other useful tips.

Bio

Laarni San Juan is a public health nurse. Her job involves educating low-income pregnant women and their families on everything from where they can access social services to how they breastfeed their child. Evernote has become her digital binder. Learn how she uses it at the office and out in the field.