7 Use Cases for Highly Effective Evernote Users

Evernote, for those who don’t know, is a magnificent application. It synchronizes your notes to any Mac, PC, iPhone and Windows Mobile, or you can use the web interface. And it recognizes handwriting or printed text in images. I’ve used it actively since July, and I’d like to share my experiences with it.

I loathe excessive paper. The only paper I use is my Moleskine notebook for note-taking, sketching and brainstorming, I still enjoy books in dead-tree format, and there are some meetings where paper is inevitable. Other than that, Evernote has made me free from paper. Or rather, liberated from paper.

Here’s my most important use cases for Evernote:

1. Business card and paper inbox. Whenever someone gives me a business card, I take a picture of it on my iPhone (with the Griffin Clarifi, that is), upload it with Evernote, then give it back.

Evernote’s image recognition gives me a searchable database of business cards. Way better than crumbling them up in my pockets. And it’s simple to add them to my contacts later.

Incoming paper that can’t be made into a task or needs archiving of some sort immediately gets “scanned” in batches with my digital camera, then added to Evernote. The physical version gets thrown away.

I’m risking some trouble with warranty receipts and tax papers since I throw them away as well, but you don’t have to. Less paper is still better than it used to be!

2. Capturing creativity. Your group just did a creativity barf all over the whiteboard. How do you save it? Easy. Snap some pictures, upload to Evernote, and you have a searchable repository of it. Or snap your own sketches and add them to a shared notebook which you can conveniently pass on to a friend or colleague for collaboration.

3. Writing tool. I remember writing a press release this fall when I was elected to a position. I outlined the press release on the bus home on my iPhone using Evernote, I wrote half the actual content with the Mac client, went out again and wrote the last half on the bus, added an image at my destination using the web interface, and then emailed it (still via Evernote) to the recipients.

Evernote allows you to continue your work, especially writing, while on the road. It might not be incredibly efficient on the iPhone, but it’s a mini work environment with all the information that you could ever need. In front of my Macbook, it’s as good as anything else for writing.

4. Nutrition. Being a nutrition nazi, I need to carry simple 5-minute recipes that can be used anywhere. I also use it to store facts, research, supplement tracking, and calorie counting for some basic meals (in my case to make sure I get enough).

5. Goal tracking I track my personal mission statement and my goals in Evernote. Within ten seconds I know what I’ve decided to do and how far I’ve come in doing it.

My exercise log goes there as well. I managed 133kg in leg press, high intensity resistance training, in June 2008. A bit more than a month later, I did 165. How’s that for motivation?

In this sense, Evernote improves life quality. Reading my mission statement when I’m on the road and a bit down gets me up and running again. And I’ve stored Seneca’s Moral Epistles, which really puts me in the mood for mental performance.

6. Planning and journaling. My day-to-day tasks live in Remember the Milk. My weekly and monthly project planning, however, lives in Evernote. So does my journal, where I write down anything I want to remember.

7. Book indexes and note archiving. When I read non-fiction books, I create keyword indices. This way, I can review any book I’ve read in about a minute, and I know where to go back if I forgot anything. Typing these into Evernote makes them searchable and accessible anywhere.

I usually archive my notebooks once a week or so, digging up any action item or ideas that I might have overlooked. My ever-growing stack of Moleskine notebooks is nostalgic for sure, but I won’t lose anything if my place burns down.

I use it for a bunch of other things too. Web clips, memorable quotes, brainstorming ideas, collaboration, usernames and passwords, et cetera.

Evernote is a tool that, when used right, can supercharge your productivity. It can be the framework for all your information, and you won’t have to worry about forgetting anything again. No one is paying me to say this: Evernote is the Moleskine of software, and it’s almost as good as cheesecake. You should use it, and you should tell all your friends to do the same. It makes the world a bit better.

Do you have any more tips for Evernote? Please leave a comment!