So yesterday I mentioned that in my highly organised state I was making Christmas gift lists using Evernote.

The lovely Jane mentioned to me while she had downloaded Evernote, she had never gotten around to using it and it would be great if I shared how I was using it. And, as it happened, in my highly organised state, I had not planned nary a blog post this week. So Jane, consider it done!

Now, first a little bit of background. Dim the lights, cue the music, let’s set the mood.

What is Evernote?

Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web.

It allows to save photos, web clips, audio and  scan documents to to carry anywhere you want to go, as well as allowing you to take notes and write lists. And it syncs from device to device so your information is current, wherever you go.

And you’ll note it’s elephant icon ~ cause elephants never forget. Clever, huh!

I use Evernote on my computer – both work and at home ~ and on my iPhone and my iPad. Evernote offers a robust free version of its software as well as free apps for practically any device. I’m using it conjunction with Teux Deux for my week’s action plan, Google Docs for writing longer items and Google Calendar for scheduling. The beauty is all of these are available at my fingertips, wherever I am.

This article covers the way I use Evernote, along with some nifty tips I found. I am by no means an expert and certainly don’t know all the ins and outs. When I recently overhauled my online life, I finally got a place and a gist for where Evernote fits in my life. And I must say, it’s starting to work for me.

I use Evernote primarily as my ideas catalogue. For instance, it’s where I store future blog post ideas, perhaps with a short outline, appropriate links, inspirations, anything that might be of use some day. I store technical information I find that might be useful in my work, and where I’m storing Christmas ideas as it is easy to lay it out in an easy to search and “flip through” format.

Where to start: Evernote uses notes organised in notebooks. I like my structure. So I create over-reaching notebooks to store my notes. Then as I label each note, I drill down the particulars. It’s a good idea to start as you mean to go on  set up your notebooks and tags to make searching down the track even easier.

So for instance for Christmas I have a Christmas notebook > then each person’s name is a note > where I store gift ideas, snapshots, web links or whatever.

new tip //  I then discovered you can stack your notebooks – I love this. This was the icing on my structure cake! To create a stack, just drag a notebook into another one and give it a name. For instance, my stacks are named Blog (for ideas, articles and links to do with the blog}, Information {for more generic technical articles and links I want to remember} and Me {for the personal things like my Christmas gift list}.

Add Evernote to your Address book: This has got to be one of my favourite features. When I’m in Google Reader, when I’m surfing on my iPad, stumbling in stumbleupon, if I see something I want to remember for later, I can just send it to Evernote via email. Each Evernote account has its own email address. You’ll find your email address in your settings. Add this to your address book and you will never have to remember it again. The minute I start typing Ev … it comes up, I hit send and it is in my notebook for later. If you use Outlook as an email program, there is also an Add to Evernote feature in there for your emails which I use to file things for blog post ideas and items I want to find easily while out and about.

tip // To designate the notebook: in the e-mail subject line, type “@” followed by the name of an existing notebook. To designate a tag: type “#” followed by the name of an existing tag (by the way, it must be in that order – notebook first, tag second, and both the notebook and tag need to already exist, otherwise the note ends up in your default notebook).

Evernote and Twitter: It doesnt’ stop there. Link your Evernote to your Twitter account and you can send links and tweets you want to remember or read later to Evernote.  Any direct message (DM) sent from your linked Twitter account to @myEN will automatically create a new note in your Evernote account.

how to // Follow myEN on Twitter. myEN will follow you back, and send you a DM with a link. Click the link, sign into Evernote, and connect your Evernote and Twitter accounts

It can do that thing that you to do:  The one thing I thought was lacking in Evernote was a check list. A good old-fashioned to do list. But it turns out there is! It doesn’t appear you can create them in iOS devices yet, although you can mark them off, but there is a little box in the toolbar that when you click on it will create a little checkbox in your note. Perfect for grocery lists, Christmas shopping lists and of course, to do lists.

But wait there’s more: Evernote does so much more and these are a few of the features I haven’t yet but probably will use in the future.

• Share and share alike: Evernote allows you to share certain notes and notebooks with other users or indeed the world. For instance I could share the big Christmas list with my husband allowing him to add ideas for family members, or if I had like-minded friends, use it for committee projects and party planning.
• Audio: The portable device versions have an audio component that’s quick and easy to use where you can record your ideas straight into Evernote. Great for when you are unable to do some tapping.
• Search: With the right tags and structure, your Evernote files are searchable. So much easier than flipping through a notebook. I haven’t needed to do this yet, but if I keep using it, this might come in handy.

Resources and sources:

• Get Evernote and the getting started guide
• 10 tips to use Evernote to its fullest
• Evernote tips and tricks cheat sheet
• Get the Evernote web clipper
• How to create a checklist in Evernote
• Evernote + Twitter

Do you use Evernote? Do you have a favourite tip to share?