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Lauren Atkins, Home Cooking Ambassador Shares Tips for Cooking with Evernote and Evernote Food

April 09, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Tips and Stories
 
8 comments
 

 

Go to the Home Cooking discussion forum

A few weeks ago, we announced that a Food Writing Ambassador would be joining our Ambassador Program. Today, we’re introducing Lauren Atkins as the new Home Cooking Ambassador. For the many home cooks out there, Lauren will offer her tips and guidance for using both Evernote and Evernote Food for grocery shopping, recipe collection, menu planning, cooking, and remembering the important (everyday!) meals of your life. A big welcome to Lauren.

Bio

Lauren Atkins is an instructional technologist for the University of Michigan and an avid home cook. Her biggest Evernote notebook is her recipes notebook, which currently has 1,037 recipes (and counting!). Lauren is also a food blogger and is the creator of the site Have Fork, Will Eat. Learn how she uses Evernote and Evernote Food for recipe collection and creation, capturing her food experiences, and more.

I use Evernote Everywhere

  • Mac
  • iPad
  • iPhone
  • Web

I use Evernote for…

I started using Evernote in October 2008 after coming across it in my research. Part of my job is to research technologies and teach workshops on productivity tools. I research hundreds of tools and review a few of the best ones I find, then teach workshops to 20-25 people at a time, introducing them to the best of the best. Evernote is the only tool that gets talked about all the time. I began using Evernote heavily in the workshops that I did and at some point, became an on-campus evangelist for it.

While I was introduced to Evernote in the context of my job as an instructional technologist, I quickly realized that it was the perfect way for me to capture and keep track of recipes. Here’s how I use Evernote for home cooking (and you can, too!):

 

  1. Audio notes for hands-free notetaking. When I’m covered in dough, it’s easier to record something verbally (for example, my thoughts on a particular recipe) rather than type out instructions or notes to myself.
  2. Use the Web Clipper to capture recipes you see online. There are so many great sites and food blogs out there. I use the Evernote Web Clipper to save recipes to my Recipes notebook. Once they’re in my Evernote account, I can add tags and text. The source URL automatically gets embedded in the note, so it helps me remember to revisit some of those sites for future inspiration.
  3. Use the Evernote search feature. It’s so easy to find things in Evernote — all you have to do is type a few keywords into the search bar. Sometimes, I’m searching for a specific recipe, so I can type a few memorable keywords into the search bar and find exactly what I’m looking for. Others, I’m just looking for some inspiration, so a few keywords will pull up a slew of possibilities.
  4. Utilize tags. Tags make it easier for me to search for recipes, especially when I’m on the move. If I’m in my kitchen, I usually have my iPad, but if I’m at the store, I have my iPhone. Searching my tags helps me find exactly what I’m looking for, fast. Since I have so many recipes in my Evernote account, I’m able to sift through them quicker if I can search by, say, all notes tagged ‘breakfast recipes.’
  5. Share your digital cookbook with a few lucky friends. My entire office uses Evernote for work already, and a number of us are avid home cooks. I started to share my Recipes notebook with a few of my favorite colleagues, who can piggyback off of my great finds and benefit from my notes and experiments.

Evernote Food for Memorable Meals and Food-Centric Events

I downloaded Evernote Food to my iPhone the day that it came out and have been using it ever since. My friends and I have several food-centric events every year (TamaleFest and our semi-annual grilled cheese dinner, the Melties). Documenting the event and the various foods that are made and shared is part of the fun and Evernote Food makes it really easy. For example, when we held our TamaleFest, I used Evernote Food to make a record of each tamale type we made (pork, roasted red pepper and chihuaha cheese, chili-lime chicken, and black/bean sweet potato) as we made them and then added in notes later once we got to taste them, as well as a few shots of tamale-making technique (spreading, rolling, how much filling should be in there, making the masa, etc). These notes, which are automatically synced to my Evernote account, will help us a lot next year when we plan the next one. In addition to using Evernote Food for tracking memorable food-centric events, I’ve also started using it as a visual daily food diary for myself.

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

Drap 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)

 
 

HR Block Adds Evernote to Their Tax Interview (Plus, Get a Discount Off of Tax Prep)

April 06, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Friends and Partners
 
2 comments
 

HR Block is the go-to tax service provider for millions of people each year, offering both in-person and online tax preparation products.

For this tax season, HR Block added Evernote as part of their tax interview process, encouraging customers to save, snap, clip, and scan their receipts, documents, invoices, and just about anything else that might come in handy during tax prep. By using Evernote, HR Block customers can easily collect and find everything they need at any time.

In the video below, HR Block explains why they recommend Evernote to their clients.

20% OFF for Evernote users

With just over a week left until tax day, HR Block is graciously offering Evernote users a 20% discount off of their tax preparation. Click the link below to take advantage of this limited-time offer.

Get 20% OFF your tax preparation!

Get an early start on next year

Don’t wait until next April to get going. Start collecting relevant information today, so you won’t have to worry about it tomorrow. For more ideas, check out our tax tips post.

 
 

10 Productivity Boosting Tips from Productivity Ambassador Joshua Zerkel (Downloadable PDF) and NAPO Meetup Recap

April 06, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Tips and Stories
 
1 comment
 

Evernote Productivity Ambassador Joshua Zerkel recenly attended the 2012 National Conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) in Baltimore, where he held a meetup to share his productivity tips. Read his recap and download his guide, 10 Ways to Use Evernote for a Productivity Boost. 

Professional organizers and productivity professionals get pretty excited about the organizational and productivity power that Evernote can offer, so at last week’s 2012 National Conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) in Baltimore, I hosted a meetup for my colleagues. I thought a few people would be interested — but we had almost 50 people attend!

At the meetup, I walked attendees through the brand-new Evernote productivity guide, and discussed a variety of strategies for using Evernote to stay productive and get the right things done. I loved hearing stories of how my colleagues in NAPO are sharing Evernote with their clients and how they are using it themselves in their own businesses.

Since Evernote partners Fujitsu (makers of the ScanSnap line of scanners that let you scan directly into Evernote) and the new FileThis Fetch service were both at the NAPO conference, I invited them to join me at the event. What’s great is that attendees were able to learn first-hand how using the Trunk (where you can find a variety of 3rd party apps and products that integrate with Evernote) can let Evernote do even more for you! Kim from Fujitsu generously gave away a ScanSnap scanner to one lucky winner, and several folks won Evernote Premium subscriptions. Score!

All told, it was a really fun event, and as always, it’s a real treat for me to get to share the Evernote love!

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 Other Ambassador Guides

Drap 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!

Carley Knobloch Spring Cleaning Tips (PDF)
Brandie Kajino’s Organization Tips (PDF)

 
 

Evernote Food Gets Search, Date and Location Updating, and Lots More

April 05, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
20 comments
 

It has been about four months since we launched Evernote Food on iOS, and in that short time the app has profoundly changed the way I think about the meals I cook and eat. From family dinners to food adventures, I now chronicle everything, and judging by the number of shared meals, it seems like many of you do, too.

Today, we have an update (1.1) that not only adds some highly requested features and improvements, but also comes with one of the single most beautiful interface elements we’ve ever designed. Let’s take a look.

Get Evernote Food for iPhone »

Meal Search

Now that you’ve been using Evernote Food for a few weeks, you probably have a bunch of meals saved in the app. In this update, we added search so that you can quickly jump to that amazing brunch you had. The search bar is just above your latest meal, pull down on your meal list to reveal it.

Location Search

We’ve added the ability to search for restaurants and points of interest by city and name. So, no matter where you are now, you can find the location you were back then.

If you can’t find the right spot, just create a custom one by entering the place name and location. Don’t know the address? Tap on the map image and drag & drop the pin as needed; perfect for finding that picnic or food truck. Next, tap Done.

The Beautiful Date Selection Screen

Our designers outdid themselves on this one…Tap on the date field to set the date of a meal. This brings up our new date selection screen. As you swipe through the months vertically, notice how the illustrated seasonal header images transition. When you find the month you need, tap on the day. Next, swipe or tap through the time slider to find the right time of day. When you’re finished, tap Done.

Create meals from your Camera Roll
Take these two items above together, and you’re able to create beautiful meals in Evernote Food from the images you have stored in your camera roll. So, even if it happened years ago, you can add them to your Evernote Food history.

Custom locations with My Places

This version of Evernote Food allows you to create your own favorite locations, called My Places. Creating a place is easy. When in a meal, tap on the location and give it a name, such as Home, then add an address and tap Done. This place will now be saved like a bookmark in the My Places screen, which is accessible by tapping on the little house icon in the Place screen.

Here’s something cool about My Places: let’s say you move, and now “Home” is somewhere new. When you assign the Home location to a meal, you can tap on the map and change the address. This will update the address associated with all new meals assigned to Home, but will keep the old address for anything you made previously.

Thumbnail transitions

To help you remember all the amazing photos you took during a meal, we’ve added thumbnail transitions to the meal list. As you browse your meal list, you’ll notice that new photos from a given meal animate every few seconds. This makes the list much more dynamic.

If you prefer a more static view, you can turn off transitions in the app settings.

Lots of new languages

Evernote Food is now available in Spanish, German, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Thai, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Indonesian, Turkish, and Malay. Sweet!

Big improvements and lots more to come

We made some huge upgrades under-the-hood:

  • Overhauled sync makes the app faster and more reliable
  • If you have Evernote installed, you won’t need to sign into Evernote Food
  • Much improved Facebook sharing

We’re really excited about this major step forward for Evernote Food and we have a lot more to come, including a version for Android. Stay tuned.

Get Evernote Food for iPhone »

 
 

New Book: Evernote for Dummies

April 04, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Friends and Partners
 
5 comments
 
  • Evernote for Dummies
  • Type: Paperback and eBook
  • Author: David Sarna
  • Publisher: Wiley
  • Pages: 356
  • Available for purchase: Amazon.com

David Sarna started using Evernote after he realized that finding anything in paper piles at his home and office was an archeological excavation. A typical ‘messy desk person,’ before Evernote, David discovered the tool via an article written by an old classmate of his, Wall Street Journal personal computing guru, Walt Mossberg. After finishing his last book, he decided to tackle his next project: Evernote for Dummies.

We sat down with David to ask him a few questions.

Why did you decide to write Evernote for Dummies?

Evernote changed my life. For me, it’s the most amazing program. But, as I talked to others, I realized that some people don’t quite get Evernote, or how to get started. They need someone to tell them: “If you want to do this, then do that.” I believe that there was a major need for this book, and I saw an opportunity to help more people see the incredible value that I get from using this product.

Who is the audience for your book?

The target audience for Evernote of Dummies are those people who need a little more step-by-step guidance for using a new product. These are not active Evernote users, who understand the features inside and out. This book is targeted at people who may have downloaded Evernote to their machine, but aren’t sure where to go from there, or what the value is of the product. The book doesn’t presume the reader has any previous knowledge of using Evernote.

Give as a very quick overview of what one would find in the book.

Evernote for Dummies is a typical ‘Dummies’ book. We try to cover everything about Evernote — from how to install it to your computer to how to use all of the different features. There’s also a chapter for developers, in which we introduce the Evernote API.

Where do you use Evernote?

I have a BlackBerry, Macbook Air, and iPad and I have Evernote installed on all of them. These days, I find myself using Evernote on my iPad more and more. If I’m borrowing someone’s computer, I use Evernote on the web.

How do you use Evernote?

I use Evernote in a myriad of different ways:

  1. I send all of my important emails to Evernote.
  2. I have an electronic fax system set up to send every fax that I received into my Evernote account.
  3. I have a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, so everything I scan goes straight into my Evernote account.
  4. I use the Evernote audio feature to record meetings I have over Skype.
  5. I use Shared Notebooks to share information with my colleagues. It’s the main way people within the company (who are all based in different locations around the country and the world) stay up to date with everything that is going on.
  6. I use the Simultaneous Search feature, which lets me conduct a Google search and see the results inside my Evernote account. Simultaneous Search has become my primary search method.
  7. I use the Evernote Web Clipper to capture and remember interesting things I see on the web.

I probably do much less tagging than most people. I prefer to let Evernote do the work for me. By typing in just a few keywords into the search box, I’m able to find exactly what I’m looking for.

Anything else?

The fact that I can combine my web clips with my faxes, emails, and everything else I do in one place makes Evernote an invaluable tool. When I was younger, I was much more of a ‘nerd’ than I am now. These days, I like tools and technologies that are simple to use and Evernote is just that. You click a button or an icon, and it’s in Evernote.

The more you use Evernote, the more valuable it is to you. As you save more of the interesting things you care about into Evernote, you’ll see it become the primary place you go to for you to find something.

Purchase Evernote for Dummies

 
 

9 Spring Cleaning Tips from Evernote Parenting Ambassador, Carley Knobloch (Downloadable PDF)

April 02, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Tips and Stories
 
8 comments
 

As winter turns to Spring, it’s a good time to de-clutter your home and your digital life. Parenting Ambassador Carley Knobloch pulled together her top 9 tips for cleaning out your junk drawer, your closet, and your wallet, not to mention ways you can get ready for some home beautification projects and sprucing up your garden.

Check out a few of her tips below, and download the PDF for more!

Download Carley’s guide: Organize with Evernote: Spring Cleaning Tips from Our Parenting Ambassador

Digitize your important documents

  • Instruction Manuals
    Most product manuals are available in downloadable PDF form. When you buy new appliances and gadgets, save the manuals to your Evernote account and never worry about having to sift through piles of books when you need to do a little troubleshooting. If you’ve solved a particularly perplexing problem, walk your future self through the same solution by recording a voice note.
  • Home receipts and warranties
    Snap photos of receipts and scan product warranties to your Evernote account, where all the contact information and receipts from home repair projects (as well as warranty info) are in one place. This will help you quickly remember things like “What was the name of the plumber who came out to fix the kitchen sink pipes when they burst?”

Organize your junk drawer, closet, and home

  • Take-out Menus
    Get all of those menus out of the junk drawer! Drop PDF menus and scan in paper menus to save space. When it’s time to choose your pizza toppings, just pull up the menu right from your phone!
  • Home Inventory
    Spring is a good time to look around and see what new things of value have not been documented. Take a picture of various items in your home and type in the monetary value so you have a record in the event of loss or damage.

Find more tips in Carley’s Spring Cleaning PDF and join the Parenting discussion.

Download Carley’s guide: Organize with Evernote: Spring Cleaning Tips from Our Parenting Ambassador

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 Other Ambassador Guides

Drap 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)

 
 

Evernote for Windows Phone 7 Update: Notebook Sharing, Improved Editing, Smarter Searching, and More

March 29, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
8 comments
 

Today, we’re excited to release a great update to Evernote for Windows Phone 7. This update (2.2) includes a number of much-requested features, including native notebook sharing and better editing. That’s in addition to improved usability and reliability. Let’s have a look.

Get Evernote for Windows Phone 7 from the Marketplace

Notebook Sharing

Evernote for Windows Phone 7 now lets you share your notebooks with individuals or the world. There are two ways to enter Notebook Sharing mode:

  • Tap and hold a notebook in the list, then select Share Settings
  • Tap on notebook, select more in the action bar, then choose Share Settings

Once in the Notebook Sharing mode, you can swipe right to chose the preferred type of sharing. The People panel lets you share with individuals via email. If you’re an Evernote Premium subscriber, then you can allow recipients to add and edit content in your notebooks. The Public panel creates a URL to the notebook, which you can paste into an email or share it via the social apps of your choice.

Contextual Search and Note Creation

When you find yourself inside of a notebook or tag, searches that you perform will remain within that notebook or tag. The same goes for new notes that you create. If you aren’t viewing a specific notebook or tag, then searches will be global and new notes will be placed into the default notebook.

Better Note Editing

Editing your notes is much more intuitive in this update. The editor for notes you create on your phone now displays all the text and lets you edit it directly. Any images or audio attachments are presented in the gallery above the note area.

And more…

In addition, we also made significant stability improvements to the app. The app is faster and more reliable, plus you’ll never see that pesky “we need to check your notes message”. There’s lots more to come. Enjoy and let us know what you think.

Get Evernote for Windows Phone 7 from the Marketplace

 
 

Evernote for Android Update: Speech-to-text and Big Widget Enhancements

March 27, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
98 comments
 

Today, we have an exciting update to Evernote for Android (3.6). We’ve added a great speech-to-text capability that makes dictating notes in Evernote really easy, plus we have a bunch of new features for the Evernote Widget app. Let’s take a look.

Get Evernote for Android and get the Evernote Widget App for Android

Speech-to-text feature

Audio notes have been a core feature of the app since day one. Today, we’re giving you a new option: speech recognition. Tap the new speech bubble icon in the tool bar above the keyboard to launch the feature. As you talk, the app instantly places your spoken words into the body of the note as text. Magic.

When you’re done recording, we also attach the original audio to the note. By having both recording and text together, you can now easily search and find your audio notes.

If you’d like to capture audio without the speech recognition, then simply tap and hold the speech bubble icon. It will switch to a microphone. Tap the microphone to start recording.

Speech-to-text availability
The speech-to-text feature uses Google Android’s text transcription service. You must be online for it to work. Also, this capability is available on version 4 of the Android Operating System (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) and some devices with version 2.2 and above. If you see the speech-to-text option appear when you update, then you’ll know that your phone or tablet supports the functionality.

New widget features

In this update we’ve added a bunch of great new capabilities to our widget app, available as a separate download from the Google Play Store.

Customize your widget
We’ve added a new gear icon to the widget that lets you customize a number of features:

  • Widget Color: Choose between original green or a new dark theme
  • Custom buttons Choose which Evernote functions appear in the widget
  • Large widget notes Choose what notes appears in the large widget—last viewed; last updates; specific notebooks, tags, or Saved Searches

New tiny widget
When you long press on the phone’s home screen and go to the Widget menu, you’ll now see a tiny 1×1 single function Evernote widget, which takes up the same screen real estate as an app icon. This widget is great for placing a single Evernote function anywhere you like.

Quick snapshot
The newest widget function is the Quick Snapshot. This feature truly lives up to its name. Tap on the Quick Snapshot icon, camera with lightning bolt, to launch the camera. Snap your photo and tap save. That’s it. A new snapshot note will be added to your Evernote account with an auto-generated title.

Lots more to come

As always, besides the new features you see, there are lots of behind the scenes bug fixes and stability improvements that make the app faster and more reliable. We’re hard at work on some great new features, too. Stay tuned and let us know what you think of this update.

Get Evernote for Android and get the Evernote Widget App for Android

 
 

New Developer Site Helps You Build Apps That Reach Millions of Evernote Users

March 27, 2012 | Posted by Chris Traganos in Product updates
 
4 comments
 

Developer Site Screenshot
 
As the ecosystem for Evernote apps expands, we are actively building news tools and resources for developers. Today, we are thrilled to share our fully redesigned developer site, dev.evernote.com!

View the Evernote Developer site »

The Evernote Developer Community

Currently, there are thousands of developers who are building apps and services that integrate with the Evernote API. Using our SDK and code walkthroughs, developers have already built an impressive collection of apps and products that let you do more with your Evernote account. These integrations allow our users to manage their expenses, go paperless, transcribe audio notes, connect real-life objects with their notes, and more. You can find the growing collection of these services and products in the Evernote Trunk.

Since the Evernote Trunk Conference, we have been in constant contact with our developers, discussing ways we could improve our API tools. In the last year alone, we have tripled the size of our developer relations team, organized several international hackathons, and reworked our technical documentation from the ground up to make developing on the Evernote API and building the next great Evernote-integrated app more straightforward than ever before.

Our new developer site will better arm developers with the information and tools they need to get started and to reach millions of Evernote users with products that make their everyday lives better.

Here are the core sections you will find in the new dev.evernote.com:

Documentation

The technical section of the site is aimed at providing a solid overview of the Evernote service along with information about how to start building right away. This is where developers will find chapters on authentication, note creation, and many more areas to review.

News

With the launch of the new developer site, we have also created multiple ways of staying involved in the community. Our Twitter account, @evernote_dev, allows us to share updates that are relevant to Evernote’s developer community. In addition, developers can stay updated via our email newsletter, active developer forum, and by following the Evernote TechBlog.

Developer Support

We have streamlined the steps involved in building an application that integrates with Evernote. From the support page, you can review recent developer forum posts, register for an API key, check the API status, and contact the developer support team for solutions.

Videos

From recent conferences to workshops, we are collecting material for the Evernote Developer Community.

Developer Showcase

A section we are very excited about is the developer showcase. This is an area where we display solid examples of Evernote integrations and how they approached building their apps.


Take a minute to check out our new dev site. We look forward to helping our developer community in every way we can!

 
 

11 Tips for Home Decorating/DIY and Design Blogging from Erin Souder of House of Earnest

March 26, 2012 | Posted by Erin Souder in Tips and Stories
 
4 comments
 
Name: Erin Souder
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Profession: Fashion Retail
Hobby: Home DIY and Design, Blogging
Twitter: @houseofearnest
Website: http://www.houseofearnest.com/

Bio

Erin Souder is a shelter blogger, meaning she focuses on home design & DIY. By day, she works in fashion retail for Abercrombie & Fitch, where she sources and develops new yarns for clothing production. She started her blog, House of Earnest, as a place to capture and share creative projects she was drawn to outside of work.

I use Evernote, Everywhere

Having Evernote on my work computer, home computer, iPhone, and iPad makes connecting thoughts and ideas seamless. It also allows me to grab inspiration from anywhere, because you never know when something inspiring might pop up!

I use Evernote for…

Annotated with Skitch

My blog is a place where I can show people the home-related things that inspires me. In total, I’ve been using Evernote for about three years; I started using it to catalog pictures that I took and wanted to add some notes to. Then, a few months ago, I got really busy with work and the blog. I had a new iPhone and I began to evaluate other ways that Evernote could help me with my workload. Since then, I’ve started to use it a lot more often, and it’s become a lifesaver!

You can take inspiration from everywhere and apply it to the smallest things.

The best thing about Evernote is that it helps me catalog virtually anything — websites, contacts, photos, and errant thoughts — nothing slips through the cracks anymore.

For finding home design inspiration

 

  • Capture furniture and accent pieces over time. Anytime I visit websites like West Elm, Etsy, or check out antique shops, I use the Web Clipper or Evernote’s snapshot feature on my iPhone to capture images. I’m a very visual person, so it helps to throw everything into Evernote and then look at thumbnails of all of the pieces I’ve captured to see what jumps out at me, what items might fit into my home, and which items would look great together. Often, I don’t find two corresponding items (like a side table and matching lamp) in one outing, so it helps to be able to capture things as I spot them and then see what they look like side by side in Evernote.
  • Let one idea generate another. I love how Evernote allows me to go down a rabbit hole of ideas, even if they don’t all come to me at the same time. By constantly capturing inspiration for my home into Evernote, I don’t feel the pressure to act on them immediately. When I’m decorating, I’m not looking for something very specific. Often, my ideas are dormant until I’m visually browsing my account and a lightbulb goes off: this is what I’ve been waiting for!
  • It might be for now, or it might be for later. I clip stuff that I don’t need or might never need, but the beauty of Evernote is that these notes and ideas will always be in my account, and one day they might rise to the occasion. Who knows, maybe someday in the future my mom might mention that she’s looking for a colorful side table and I’ll immediately be able to share my finds in Evernote with her.
  • Don’t just bucket ideas. Tagging allows me to categorize an idea for different purposes. For example, I might tag something as a gift idea, but it might also make a great addition for the ‘Friday Faves’ feature on my blog. Any note can have multiple purposes.

Above: web clipping, drafting posts, and sharing a home find via Twitter

For work

 

  • I freed myself from being chained to my work computer. Now, when I receive emails that I think I might need to respond to after I get home, I simply send them to my Evernote account, where I can review anything work-related later, without actually being in front of my work computer, or logging into my work email. I use the Outlook add-on, which makes sending things to Evernote totally seamless.
  • I work on the go. Since I work in fashion detail, I’m always looking for new materials. I use Evernote on my iPhone to take in-store photos of clothing labels, and up close photos of material textures. This extends into my personal life, too. I often see things in stores that I like, but want to change. A side effect of working in retail fashion is knowing that you can change and customize everything. I’ll often find myself snapping photos of individual items like tops and accessories so I can see how these items might fit into outfits I already have. I can also snap photos of items and add text saying how I would change the item (i.e.: love this chair but prefer if the arms were lower).

For blogging

 

  • Evernote as a visual reminder. I see so many things in a given day or week, and as I’m clicking through a site or my emails, I methodically clip and forward things to my Evernote account, adding tags (one of my favorite features) so I remember to go back and look at things later. I never know if I’ll end up using something on my blog or entertaining, or maybe for work, so certain notes end up being tagged for multiple purposes.
  • For writing blog posts as a two-step process. Often, blog ideas will come to me throughout the day. No matter where I am, I can quickly type them up in Evernote and finish them later. I’ll write the main gist of an idea, or notes to myself like ‘add a photo of X’ to make the process of finding supporting photos later much easier. The outline eventually becomes my blog post. Approaching my blog writing in this way also helps me revisit posts to re-evaluate how reader-friendly they are.
  • For creating collages. When I’m creating a collage, I look for similarly-sized items with complementary color characteristics. Seeing a lot at once helps me create collages, making Evernote the perfect starting point. I collect all of my images in Evernote, then head to my photo editing program to create the collage. I then save the finished collage back to Evernote, where I can access it later.
  • For accessing photos on my iPad. I use Evernote on my iPad when I travel and I love being able to scroll through all of my photos and graphics on it because my photos can be tagged and include my notes, making them easier to find. It makes writing and working on the go much easier!

Evernote for gifting

I have a bad memory and I would often find myself forgetting little things, so I started making a habit of sticking everything in Evernote. My sister-in-law loves French Bulldogs and I recently saw a French Bulldog calendar online, so I clipped it with the Evernote Web Clipper and tagged it with her name. When her birthday was approaching, I did a search in Evernote and found the calendar. If it wasn’t for Evernote, I would have never remembered the idea of giving it to her as a gift.

Evernote for helping you pursue a new hobby.

My Evernote account evolves with me as I take on new projects. I recently started attending floral school; it’s a new hobby and I’ve been using Evernote to help me capture inspiration and lessons.