Name: Glen Stansberry Profession: Writer and web developer Blog: LifeDev.net Twitter:@glennstansberry

Why I Use Evernote

Like many creative professionals with multiple roles and job titles, keeping track of the day-to-day things necessary to keep my life running was a nightmare…until I found Evernote. Prior to discovering Evernote, I was completely spread out using way too many different tools in far too many places.

My workflow looked something like this:

• Voice messages of random thoughts recorded using my iPhone were stored in my voicemail
• Things I wanted to reference or read later were saved across social bookmarking sites
• Random ideas were spread around various paper notebooks
• Drafts of business plans were stored as text documents in a bunch of different locations on my computer

When I actually needed to find what I was looking for, I would waste entirely too much time just trying to figure out where I’d put the stuff. My thought process was nearly the same each time “Did I record that idea on my phone, or was it in a notebook somewhere?” This was followed by me searching in a bunch of different places until I finally found it. Evernote takes the guess work out of my day. It’s comforting knowing that everything I might need in the future is searchable, always available and stored safely in one place.

Here are a few ways that I use Evernote to manage different aspects of my work.

1. Design research

Design projects require a lot of research. I’ll create a notebook with the project’s title, then collect inspirational sites and text documents of design ideas. I can also easily snag screenshots with Evernote, then I add some annotations to the note with relevant thoughts. I’ll use text notes to add client feedback, or I can simply forward emails straight into that specific notebook for future reference.

2. Idea generation

When I’m drafting ideas for new businesses or web applications, I’ll often use a regular paper notebook. As much as I love the way pen and paper feel when drafting ideas; paper notebooks aren’t that great for archival purposes. To get around this, I simply take a snapshot of the paper and upload the photo to Evernote.

Ideas can also come when I don’t have a notebook handy. When that happens I’ll use Evernote’s voice note feature to record quick ideas on the go.

3. Writing

I’m funny when it comes to writing. Oftentimes, I’ll outline a post in a text editor, while other times I’ll just make a note in Evernote with the title and maybe some bullet points for ideas. Regardless of where I start my writing, I’m always sure to have a copy in Evernote, backed up and available to work on whenever I’m ready.

4. Finances tracking

Before Evernote, I would try to hang on to receipts in a physical folder. This didn’t work out well. Now, I snap a picture of the receipt and upload it to Evernote in my “Business Expenses” notebook. If it’s an online purchase, I’ll email the receipt straight into that folder as well. Simple and easy.

5. Daily Planning

Lately, I’ve been using traditional paper notebooks to plan my day. I love the way it feels to write, and how I can do expressive things with pen and paper that I can’t do on a computer. But (again) as good as pen on paper feels, you sacrifice a lot of versatility when you use it to plan your day. It’s not easily stored, you can’t back it up or search it, and most importantly for me, you can’t track your progress over time.

So here’s how I use Evernote for daily planning. I still use my paper lists throughout the day and mark items off as they’re done. At the end of the day, I’ll take a snapshot of the list and upload to Evernote with the date as the title. If I want to know what I did on July 23, 2010? I just search for that date in Evernote.

Make Evernote Work For You

If you’re looking for ways to improve your Evernote workflow, check out Evernote Essentials. It’s a fantastic resource for getting under the hood of Evernote and getting the most from the service.
While my system is far from perfect, it’s a huge improvement over the way I used to work. Evernote just simplifies everything and it works great for me, give it a try and see if it works for you.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• How DJ Limelight uses Evernote
• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions
• 7 ways a professional photographer uses Evernote
• Using Evernote for Fashion Design

You can find some of DJ Limelight’s music here.

We recently caught up with Evernote user and DJ, DJ Limelight, to talk about the various ways he uses Evernote to keep his musical inspirations, ideas and projects organized.

Which versions of Evernote do you use?

• Evernote for Mac
• Evernote for iPhone
• Evernote on the Web
• Evernote on the iPad

Which features do you found most useful?

For me, the most useful feature is the cross-platform access—it gives Evernote a huge advantage over the sea of organization tools out there. Second to that, tags are a godsend. The ability to search very specifically for my notes is central to how I use the program. I use a lot of different tags to help make my searches much more powerful.

I come up with music, blog and twitter ideas at the weirdest times. I can tag those random memories with enough detail so that I can find exactly what I’m looking for when I sit down at the computer to blog or organize my music and production ideas.

Turntables, Drops and Evernote

Music artists will often record “drops”, which are personalized shout outs to the DJ or radio station. I use Evernote to record the drops on my iPhone. I tag the drops with the artist’s name, their current popular song and where in the show I want to place the drop. I import the audio file from Evernote desktop into Logic Pro and edit it for length and background noise. Evernote helps me because I have a centralized place to keep everything. I spend much less time organizing and more time creating. With just a few clicks, I’ve recorded the drop, tagged and saved it in Evernote, all in less than a minute. It’s not fancy, but it works.

Click to hear a drop done by Robin Thicke

Organizing a radio program

Evernote is a huge help for me on the radio and for the events that I DJ. A lot of prep time goes into organizing my radio show. One Evernote use that I’ve came up with is to create a text note with all the details of that particular show, including songs played, song length, segment, and talk breaks. Each show’s note are organized by date in Evernote. This way I have a complete database of every show I do with all of the important details. This is a big deal for me because if the program director asks me what song was played at 12:22 am on a certain date, or some other detail, I can quickly search through my show notes and pull up the info. Having this personal show database matched with the ability to easily search through it, saves me from having to go through complicated radio station logs.

Planning and playlists

When I was out and about, I started writing notes to myself about my sets and songs I wanted to remember. An example: I heard a really nice dub reggae record in Negril, Jamaica that I had never heard before, so I saved a clip of the song in Evernote. When I got home, I played it for a DJ friend I knew who would recognize the artist. Before Evernote, I would have been forced to hum the song from memory. That’s never a good option.

What was the last note you added to Evernote?

A note to self: “It’s better to be creative and one-of-a-kind, than to be technically perfect”.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions
• 7 ways a professional photographer uses Evernote
• Using Evernote for Fashion Design

Here on the Noteworthy Blog we have been showcasing a few of the many ways that people use Evernote as part of their creative process. To cap off our Creativity Series, we’ve teamed up with the Fujitsu ScanSnap folks to throw a fun event meant to get those creative juices flowing.

Join us on Thursday, September 30th for an event at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Come out a see the great exhibits, meet some cool people and have a drink with your fellow Evernoters.

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, September 30th
• Time: 6:00pm – 8:30pm
• Location: 655 Mission Street, San Francisco
• Get your FREE tickets. Space is limited so be sure to pre-register. We will be charging at the door, so make sure to get a free ticket now.

Private cartooning class

We’ve partnered with the Cartoon Art Museum for a special private drawing class that will take place at the museum on the night of the meetup. You’ll learn the fundamentals of cartooning and actually create your own superhero. Then, you’ll use Evernote and ScanSnap to save your work. Space is very limited.

If you’re interested, leave a comment describing a superhero (existing or new) that best suits you. We will randomly select a handful of people from among the commenters to participate. We will contact the selected individuals directly, so be sure to use a real email address when leaving your comment. To be considered, comments must be submitted by 12pm PT on Wednesday September 29th. Good luck!.

* The class starts at 6:00pm and lasts approximately 1 hour. After the class you can join the event at the museum.

About the Museum

The Cartoon Art Museum is the only museum in the western United States dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of cartoon art in all its forms. This unique institution houses approximately 6,000 original pieces in its permanent collection. A complete volume research/library facility is located on the museum’s premises. In addition to seven major exhibitions a year, the museum has a classroom for cartoon art.

Special thanks to Fujitsu ScanSnap

A very special thanks to Fujitsu ScanSnap for partnering with us on this event. Here’s the blog post that shows how our products work together. They’ll be there showing of all the ways you can use the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners to capture  your creativity and store it digitally in your external brain, Evernote.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions
• 7 ways a professional photographer uses Evernote
• Using Evernote for Fashion Design

Fuel Brand Network

We’re extremely pleased to announce the addition of the Fuel Brand Notebooks to the Evernote Trunk as part of our Creative Series. The Fuel family of websites are the perfect resource for creative people of all types. From writers to photographers to designers, Fuel’s editors have been providing readers with great ideas and insights to help make the most of their inspirations. Now that they are in the trunk these excellent creative resources are available to easily add to your external brain, Evernote.

The Fuel notebooks are a great starting point for your inspiration. Collect your favorite hints, tips and inspiration from your life and around the web to keep the ball rolling and Fuel your creative passions. They make a great addition for anyone looking to kickstart their creativity.

The Notebooks

Fuel Your Creativity
Designers make it look so easy. What may seem like a natural gift for combining color and style to create something that is functional and visually appealing, is actually a keen understanding of certain techniques and principles. The Fuel Your Creativity notebook will show you how to use complementary colors, how to consider layout, and how to think about your design projects.

• The Lost Principles of Design
• The Definitive Color Wheel
• The Steps of Creative Communication

Fuel Your Photography
What does it take to get the perfect photo? This notebook is full of ideas to help you get the most out of your photography. The Fuel editors show you how to set a scene, how to use lighting to your advantage and teach the techniques behind HDR photographs.

• Using Natural Light
• Don’t Leave Home Without It (your camera)
• Creating Drama With a Turn of The Dial
• Creating a B&W HDR Photograph
• Creating a Remote Studio

Fuel your Writing
Getting started on a writing project can be tough. There are numerous questions that need to be addressed before diving in. How to stay organized? How to use Evernote to get the best writing results? What are the recommended resources? How to get put your best foot forward during the submission process. These are the important questions answered in the Fuel Your Writing notebook.

• Useful Writing Websites, Submitting Your Writing
• Practical Tools For Writers
• Organize Your Writing Using Evernote

How to add the notebooks to your account

Adding a notebook take a few simple steps. Go to the Evernote Trunk, which is available on the web, Evernote on your desktop, or Evernote on your iPad. Once there, click on the Notebooks menu item. Click on Fuel and select the notebook to want to add. Then click the Add to Evernote button. Evernote will automatically sync and your new notes will appear.

Be part of the Evernote Trunk

If you are interested in contributing a notebooks to the Evernote Trunk, contact us here.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions
• 7 ways a professional photographer uses Evernote
• Using Evernote for Fashion Design

“In the end, it’s all about fusing inspiration and knowledge with practical use”

During Annching Wang’s fourth year of fashion design school at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Richmond, British Columbia, she enrolled in a fashion trend forecasting class. She enjoyed the course, but was annoyed that all the classwork was only accessible from a specific university lab computer. In this class, she was working with large comprehensive reports that consisted of images, texts and other content. Annching needed a way to access her project on her own time, instead of being tied to the computer lab.

Enter Evernote

After a bit of research, Annching discovered, and quickly became obsessed with, Evernote. It allowed her to collect everything she needed for her projects into a single, always accessible place. Also, the process was significantly faster, more convenient and more visual—ideal for a creative individual. Evernote ended up simplifying the entire workflow.

Capturing ideas and inspiration

A self-described information hound Annching researches and saves relevant things that are useful to an aspiring fashion entrepreneur and blogger.

• Screenshots for inspiration (which can come from just about anywhere)
• Collecting ideas for textile projects
• Clipping and archiving articles and blog entries of interest

Visual timeline

Annching also uses Evernote to take screenshots of the various stages of her designs in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This creates a visual timeline that also acts as an archive of works-in-progress for future reference. “Now I don’t have a gazillion files on my computer in folders I often never look at again. [Evernote] has made me feel a lot more confident and relaxed about my research process, which in turn, boosts my creative process. In the end, it’s all about fusing inspiration and knowledge with practical use.”

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions
• 7 ways a professional photographer uses Evernote

Cramer Gallimore is a professional photographer based near Raleigh North Carolina where he owns and operates the Cramer Gallimore Photography Studio. Cramer has more than twenty years experience as a professional photographer, with an emphasis on location work—events, industrial and technical environments—for clients worldwide.

7 Ways a professional photographer uses Evernote

Evernote is a great tool to keep all the aspects of my photography business running smoothly. I put it to use for my day-to-day business operations, and to keep me organized when I’m out and about on-location for shoots. Having Evernote synced across my desktop, laptop, iPad, and iPhone keeps everything I need in order.

1. Location Scouting

Photographers will often visit the site of an important shoot prior to the actual date of the assignment. Evernote provides a great place to store notes about each location, such as sun angle, power availability, obstructions to the photo, legal permits necessary, etc. You can even put the information in a notebook and share it with a client. If you use an iPhone or other phone that geotags photos, then the latitude/longitude of each note will be recorded in Evernote. There is even a “View on Map” feature which works perfectly with Google Maps.

2. Keep a shoot list for different types of assignments

I create a shot list in Evernote of all the different shots required for a given photo shoot. A great example of this is a wedding day shot list, which includes the groom and father, bride and mother, best man and groom, etc. It’s helpful to have this list available on my iPhone throughout the day so that I can be sure to get all the different important photos.

3. Research your replacement camera equipment

The reality of my industry is that you have to perform major equipment upgrades every two years or so. Evernote’s Web Clippers are great when researching these purchases. For me, this is an ongoing process as I am always trying to stay current on new gear.

4. Lighting Setups

One of the most important elements in a successful photo shoot is the lighting setup. When I get the lighting right, I take a snapshot in Evernote on my iPhone, or scan a sketch of the configuration.

5. All the info for a location shoot

Evernote is a great place to keep all the information I need when heading to a location. Directions, Google maps, notes about the location, are in Evernote ahead of time so I can call them up on my iPhone when I’m on the shoot. I also forward emails from clients into my Evernote account so that they are available to me.

6. Equipment database

I keep all the serial numbers of my cameras and equipment in Evernote. I also keep all of my digital manuals (PDFs) in Evernote so that I have them at my fingertips if I need to looks up an obscure bit of info.

7.Checklist for your photo equipment

Each photo shoot is different and requires a unique mix of gear. I snap a picture of my gear bag and equipment cases along with their contents. Then, I tag or title it with specifics about the type of shoot (industrial, wedding, aerial) and include a written list of all the gear. This way, the next time I have that type of shoot I can be sure to pack all the necessary equipment.

You can view a shared notebook of some of my photograpy notes here.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote
• How Aviary.com uses Evernote for whiteboard sessions

What they do

The Aviary team uses Evernote as a key part of their whiteboard/brainstorming process. They sketch everything out, then take a snapshot with Evernote. As Michael points out, there was always a fear that important ideas might get erased and lost, but now with Evernote they have an easy way to capture it all forever.

As an added bonus, Evernote’s image recognition technology processes all of those snapshots and makes the handwritten text searchable, so it’s easy to find all of those great ideas.

Be sure to check out Aviary.com.

Evernote Creative Series Posts

Part of the Evernote Creative Series

• Creating a Mood board with Evernote

Name: Julie Gomoll Profession: Designer, Entrepreneur, Marketing Strategist Twitter: @JulieGomoll Blog: Jules Says

When dealing with a client, how does one elicit the kind of presence they want to convey? Sure, there are plenty of questions you can ask to learn about their company, their products and services, and their culture. You can encourage them to point you to websites and brochures and business cards they find appealing. Even so, it’s really easy to head down the wrong path, and spend hours or days or weeks on some design work that falls flat with the client.

What exactly is a mood board?

Mood boards are a great way to get you and your client on the same page early on. They’re especially great when you’re starting from scratch on a design package for a new company, or reinventing the image of an existing one. The idea of a mood board is to create an emotional scenario that’s congruent with what your client wants — sort of an ambience collage. It’s photographs, illustrations, screenshots, color swatches, words, shapes: whatever conveys the feel of your design plan. There’s no “right” final presentation for a mood board. It can be a big poster, a .pdf or even a video (I’ve never actually seen a video mood board, but why not?).

Evernote and mood boards

For me, Evernote provided the perfect starting point for my most recent mood board. I’m working with Berkeley Bionics on a complete marketing package: everything from a new corporate ID and website to signage to social marketing. They’re a high tech company (they make exoskeletons — how cool is that?) based in Berkeley, and I’m in Austin, so everything I do for them needs to be presentable in digital form.

Basically, I was starting from scratch. I knew they wanted a new, cutting-edge image, but of course that means different things to different people. And it’s very easy to end up with a cliche design. So I started first with a mood board.

Getting started

I started a new notebook in Evernote with the client’s name, and clipped everything I ran across that was relevant. Everything. Logos I liked, promising color schemes (included a few I created), creative website designs, stock photos, words. I immersed myself in their industry, looked at the competition, and examined their audience. And I looked outside their industry to other companies who were making people’s lives better. I didn’t edit myself at all. If something clicked, I put it in the notebook.

After a while, I had a pretty hefty notebook. Time to cull. I started thinking about the words and messaging we would be creating, and removed the clips that didn’t fit. I put all the competitor clips into a separate notebook for reference later. If I were presenting the mood board in person, I’d have printed everything out and made a giant poster. But they’re in California and I’m in Texas, so I made a big collage using Adobe Fireworks. I added the words myself. I then made a .pdf of the whole thing.

Even though you’re trying to create an overall sense of direction with a mood board, you’ll find your client is likely to like some parts of it and dislike others. This is absolutely fine. It’s great, in fact, because it helps you narrow down your direction. For example, your client might particularly like one of the website screenshots. There’s nothing wrong with taking that design and making it your own, providing it can accommodate your functionality plans.

The new Berkeley Bionics corporate ID and website is actually done, but isn’t public yet. Ultimately, I used quite a few elements from this board. I’m really eager to show it off:

For me, doing mood boards for big design/redesign projects isn’t an option. It’s a necessity. It’s part of doing the job right, a job made easier with the help of Evernote.