Bio
Daniel works at LexisNexis, where he consults with attorneys on how to be more productive and effective by using LexisNexis litigation software. He’s also an attorney and recently penned an e-book, which is for sale in the Evernote Trunk, about ways to use Evernote to be more productive.
I use Evernote, Everywhere:
- Windows (work)
- Windows & Mac (home)
- Android phone
- iPad
I use Evernote for Work
At LexisNexis, I oversee business relationships with 150 of the largest law firms in 8 states in the Southeast. I quickly found that managing this business was much more complex and challenging than practicing law, and I realized I needed a much better system to organize everything I do at work and responsibilities at home (I’m a dad to three children).
Evernote changed everything for me. It shook the very essence of how I stay organized.
- Evernote is much more than a note-taking app. To me, it’s a life management tool. It allows me to organize everything that I do in my life — from my work, to my blog, to my e-book, and my life with my wife and kids.
- I use one notebook to remember everything except shared information. I have a couple of levels of organization. I use separate tags to break out my GTD methodology (such as contexts, things I need to do today, next actions, active projects, inactive projects, etc). I have a major category for tags, such as Home, Work, Clients, Reference, Stuff, etc., and then minor categories nested underneath, such as insurance, mortgage, doctors, and so forth. I use Notebook Stacks to stay organized as well. Anything that needs to be shared with clients, colleagues or family will go into a Shared Notebook inside of the Stack. To search, I look through my tags, or do a Saved Search. Some of my tags and Saved Searches are dragged to the awesome Favorites Bar!
- When compiling content for a client, I include a lot of information in one note. I’ll include contracts, literature pieces, Powerpoint presentations, and notes where I talked to the client on the phone. I’ll use Note Links to paste a link if the information resides in a separate note within Evernote. A real bonus is that Evernote auto-populates the date and time for me with a single shortcut every time I want to add new information in the note.
- When working on new business, I send all pertinent emails to Evernote. I review those and all relevant notes. When trying to understand next steps, everything is in one central location. [Learn how to email to Evernote]
- Note Links help keep me on track when I’m running around meetings. I think Note Links are the key to success in Evernote! I use them everywhere I can. For example, when I’m traveling for work, I create a master note with my travel itinerary. In that master note, I include all of the times of where I need to be and when. My airline confirmation is a Note Link in this master note. On my last trip, I had a meeting with a law firm, where I hyperlinked the lawyer’s name to the agenda I created in Evernote for that lawyer, which talked about three things I wanted to accomplish in that meeting. Within that agenda was a Note Link to another note that embedded a video of a client testimonial I saved in Evernote that I wanted to show him. Because I’m a Premium user, I had saved the notes in an offline folder. When it came time to meet, I brought only my iPad, and only had to access that one note to know exactly what we would talk about. I didn’t have to go fiddling around folders, notebooks, or my work laptop. I had it all there in my iPad and all I had to do was click on that Note Link. It was “magical” and the client was really impressed with my organization and professionalism! [Learn how to use Note Links]
- I use Shared Notebooks with my team. This is where I can send other members of my team to benefit from finding existing information, rather than having to spend hours doing repetitive work. For example, I’m working on travel plans with a colleague. I’ve already done the research we need and put it into a Shared Notebook, along with our itinerary. Similarly, while I prepped for a presentation on electronic discovery for a law firm’s litigation team, I did research on LexisNexis to learn more about new case law and about the law firm, created the presentation based on what I found, and then put it all into a Shared Notebook, which I shared with the marketing and branding teams, as well as other colleagues. [Learn more about sharing from Evernote]
I scan all of my expenses while I travel, to save time later. When I’m at a hotel, I’ll scan all of my receipts for the day. It makes my life so much easier at the end of the week, when I’m back from my trip and don’t have to worry about scanning.
Evernote for Managing Family Life, and Learning
I’ve found Evernote to be an invaluable tool to not only help manage my family trips, recipes, kids’ artwork, and progress reports, but to actually help my son learn.
How I use Peek to Help my Son with Math
My son’s school gives him these 25 question speed drills in math. I wanted to create a fun and engaging way to help him learn the answers to questions, so I decided to give Peek a try. I created a new notebook called ‘Jacob’s math questions’ and took 75 of his math questions and created 75 notes in that notebook. I opened the notebook up in Peek and Jacob has been loving it. It’s so engaging for him and fun to watch him. He gets so excited to lift the cover and see he got the answer right. Evernote has basically helped Jacob turn his math speed drills into something fun!
Get Evernote Peek
Audio Notes for Demonstrating Learning Progress
My son had a reading tutor over the summer and I wanted to track his progress. I turned to the audio note feature in Evernote to record him at the beginning of the summer reading his book. At the end of the summer, I recorded him reading the same exact book. It was not only amazing for me as a parent to hear the difference before and after, but even more amazing for Jacob! Now, Jacob even asks for me to record him in Evernote.
Evernote for Everything Else
I use Evernote for everything related to organizing my family and capturing sentimental things that I might want to recall in the future. For example, I have a ScanSnap scanner which goes with me on all my travels. At home, I use it to scan in my kids’ artwork. To date, I have about 250 notes with artwork tagged with my kids’ names. They know their creations live in Evernote.
I’ve also tried to go paperless, so I scan in documents related to landscaping, pest control, everything for my dog, my kids’ progress reports, and more. [Visit our Paperless discussion]
Another great example of how I use Note Links is for planning family vacations. I was recently planning a family trip with my parents and they wanted to know where we were staying, what we’d be doing, and have directions to all of the places we’d be going. I pulled together all of the information that my wife had planned into an Evernote notebook and sent it off to them. I made it so much easier for my parents! The alternative is sending an email with multiple attachments or sending multiple emails, which can get totally overwhelming. My mom was blown away. [Learn more about sharing from Evernote]
Join the Parenting discussion and read about how our Parenting Ambassador, Carley, uses Evernote for Parenting.
Are you a father or an attorney? Share how you’re using Evernote in the comments.
Do you use Shared Notebooks with your significant other? Tell us how, in the comments.
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If my brain is the garage, then Evernote is the brand-new addition I built on top of it, wiith limitless shelf space and a kindly librarian at the front desk to help you find whatever you need. As I move micro data into Evernote, I can chip away at the panic and frustration I usually walk around with. Being able to recall more micro data not only makes me more efficient, but also calmer and more collected.
