If I Could Only Remember…A Story about EverNote

My friend Derek Massey already wrote about this, but he’s a left brainer & I’m a right brainer so I thought I’d talk about why I have grown to live and love Evernote.

Derek is very into systems and folders and files and being hyper-organized.

In short, I am not.

I have about 700 random thoughts in one day and would like to keep track of them instead of creating .txt after .txt or .doc after .doc and dropping them in my To Do folder in Dropbox.

I was very reluctantly coaxed into using Evernote after complaining that I lose emails in my Gmail inboxes (this was before my ascent and triumph over Mount Inboxes – 5 in all) that were my reminders to do “stuff,” and after I failed at Google Tasks.  (Remarkable insight – If you fail to add an email to the Task List, it won’t be there.)  Then I resorted to the tried-and-true method of affixing Post-It notes in my DayTimer, which only resulted in my DayTimer looking like an ugly, rainbow-colored quinceanera dress.  Also, I lost several of those notes, and am only now recovering their dirty, torn remains from the underside of my car’s floormats.  Clearly, I needed an intervention.

Enter Evernote.

First, I downloaded Evernote to my desktop.   This was fabulous for keeping track of random ideas when I have 18 tabs open on 3 browsers as I sometimes do.  [Side note: I've heard Mac users have even niftier features, which if true increases my Mac envy.]  However, even the most lazy of real estate agents has to escape their computer at some point.

So, yes.  I went mobile.  And yes, Virginia, there is an Evernote app for that.

With relative ease, I downloaded and enabled the Evernote app on my HTC Android Incredible.  What do I use it for?  Well, when I walk the dog, I think of random snippets of things or that really, super-important thing I was supposed to do ASAP and which I will most certainly forget in the next 30 minutes.  But now, I can leave myself voice reminders to do things.  This is also handy for when you’re in the car – especially when stuck in the infamous NoVA/DC traffic – and want to “write” a blog post or a reply letter to someone.  I can also take snapshots of things, or attach pictures/audio/video to notes as supplements to what I’m creating.  Finally, I take notes.  Lots and lots of notes.  Anything from grocery lists to “you MUST do this today to emailing myself really interesting blog posts that I want to read later.

The glory is I can search what I’ve recorded to my heart’s content, whether I’m on my home laptop, online remotely (using Evernote.com web login), on my work laptop or on my phone, because everything is synced.  I can even be more anal, like my friend Mr. Massey, and tag my notes and/or arrange them into different notebooks so the content is even easier to find.  (Note: I’m not there yet.)  So now I have no more excuses, at least when it comes to remembering things.

Evernote.  Electronic Post-Its on steroids, and I’m never looking back.