Add Evernote to your productivity kit
Posted by Jered | Filed under Recommended
People talk about their productivity toolbox, but I find my productivity kit is more like a garage. Tools have a pretty unique use, but being a person who signs up for everything that comes out, I have a lot of tools that do the same thing, but each has their own unique style. Like having a garage full, two cars, a bike, maybe even a motorcycle, I can only ride in or on one at a time. That is how I feel about my productivity tools. It depends on how I feel. Most days I will use my car, but others I like to use my bicycle.
Evernote has made it past the 3 week tech trial and is now a car in my productivity garage. I am dumping a lot of information into it, via the web, desktop and email interfaces. Most of the notes I am adding are personal, but the ability tag and search are excellent. My wife and I have added questions for the doctors visits, blog post ideas, software I want to try, webpages I want to be able to keep and search.
The couple of reasons I would recommend Evernote include:
- The text search with in images is amazingly good. even cellphone camera shots are searchable, which means I can snap a photo of a business card and then search for it later
- The tagging feature lets me apply my personal taxonomy to my notes, which increases the chance that I will find what I want when I need it.
- The multiple vectors of entry are amazing! Being able to email notes and retrieve them on my iPhone (now in a fabulous iPhone interface) takes care of me on the road, while the desktop client lets me get everything the mobile does and then some. Adding check boxes and encrypting notes are slick features. The added ability to search on those check boxes, checked or otherwise, allows Evernote to be come a idea manager (checked for ideas I have blogged about).
Michael asked the question: “How may tags are too many tags?” I don’t think there can be too many tags. I don’t keep the tag sidebar expanded, I only do so when I am looking for something. The search is much more effective, and does the image search.
Pardon me while I go a fill up my Evernote car, I’ve got some more thoughts to capture.
Tags: capture, evernote, evernote.com, image search, search, taxonomy
