Evernote is note-taking software that can be the backbone of a capture system. It is the underlying library, a record of my activity, thoughts, reflections and doodles which represent the varied nature of inputs. ![[evernote-featured.png]] ## Many uses of Evernote Evernote can serve as a document library when focusing on or researching a domain. A detailed investigation may require a lot of information. Evernote is useful to store material and links easily, but also provides a note workspace to comment on the theme. Evernote is great for pouring out thoughts, mind-dumping, you can tag an item and file it away for a rainy day. ![[evernote uses of.png]] Evernote can be used as a central database and business library for everything, both work and personal subjects, and a note provides a landing page for the subjects under scrutiny, or a reference base, or items in incubation (reflection). If you have a question, issue or problem, create an Evernote and include all relevant information. Then add potential solutions (or lack of) and an indication of the direction to be taken, or next action. Use it to store business experience for analysis, and problem-solving. It’s about being mindful of what is happening, of challenges to get through, and is a record of activity. ### As a Document Library Google desktop was a fantastic product that indexed the local machine and allowed you to search documents by keyword, just as we now do on the web. But they stopped it – why o why? Perhaps to incite people to put content on the internet, or they just focused on their online business. But having discovered that and having it so cruelly taken away, I found a replacement in Evernote. It’s something Microsoft should integrate into their OS! Many examples of how to use Evernote come to mind. There's so much going on. You might have data on technical issues and solutions, bugs that you notice and that you might want to get in touch with the software company. Evernote helps to record experience and therefore captures the uniqueness of a business, particularly in a service environment where we are always looking for the next best offering. ### Unstructured information Evernote generally contains unstructured data/information, as differentiated from structured transactional data such as sales, purchasing and accounting. Now informal systems such as Notion also contain structured data. The freeform format allows you to place anything in a note. But when it comes to suppliers and customers, there is a formal set of data that can only be structured by a formal database. You can use templates in Evernote to make this data entry easier, but it's a real database. The labels and fields such as name, phone, URL are duplicated but are not database fields whose name can be changed across all common notes. ### Sounding board Evernote provides a base for thoughts, reflections, comments and in doing so, focuses the mind on the problem in hand. And a trace of what happened will remain after resolving the issue. This audit trail is useful when working alone, since Evernote becomes a mirror in which to reflect. A sole trader has many hats. Recorded events enable the sole trader to record the data and stand back to analyse it. It takes the feeling out of the auto-management process and adds objectivity. ### Problem-Solving workpad Problem-solving is about expressing an idea. However it is expressed, thinking about it, and then mobilizing internal and external resources for its implementation. Evernote is the set of cubbyholes into which you can place these problems and solutions. The trace, the memory, is not neutral. The added value of a business is what it knows, its experience, and Evernote can be used to share information across teams. ### Store Scanned Documents Documents that you scan into Evernote are primarily for reference. An example might be a copy of an insurance policy or an electricity bill. In the past my databases even from the days of the palm, I would copy my insurance policy number, insurance company contact details into the contact database. Now with Evernote I would be more likely to scan and estimate or policy document so I would have a much more complete picture. I would therefore have the policy number but also the estimates for payments over the year, the contact details of the person and perhaps some of the conditions all on one page. I could then, if I were working on say, comparing insurance quotes, brainstorm some other contact details, paste all those links into a note and detail my internal discussion on the pros and cons of the various policies. I could also combine that with an Excel sheet that would structure the finer details say monthly payment, specific conditions that need to be compared in a table. ### Other uses of Evernote ![[mindmap-uses-of-evernote.jpg]] - News stories - Office Memory - Blog Publishing - Organizing - Transversal tags - Linking between notes - For Writing - Recording thoughts Independent of Evernote, see the idea of capturing in the context of [[Getting Things Done GTD]]. # Key functions of Evernote ### Tags - The Horizontal Dimension What makes Evernote interesting is the ability to tag, which gives you an additional dimension with which to work. A vertical one from notebooks (like Windows folders) and a horizontal one, allowing you to navigate across files linked by a common tag. You don’t get exploitable tagging and indexing in the windows file system. ![[tags in evernote.png]] Use tags in Evernote ### Annotation Image annotation is one area where Evernote is better than the competition. Annotation was originally done using an add-on called [Skitch](https://evernote.com/products/skitch) that Evernote integrated. It is a very effective way to markup (annotate) any image or pdf. ![[Evernote annotation.png]] ### Web Capture Capture is why I originally came to Evernote after Diigo (which only captured URLs, not web page content). Evernote offered me the possibility of recording the link to a page but also downloading its contents. Then annotate, comment, analyse. I have at least 400 pages of technical terms for work. Nimbus and Notion also do web page capture but sometimes (Notion) leaves out headers. ## Journalling **Evernote** enables you to insert documents into a note, make comments on them, but it's much more than document storage. It is also a system to link and merge common content. And so becomes a content creation system, a valuable scratchpad, a playground, a fertile terrain for developing ideas. A place in which you can write to yourself! After years spent documenting processes, pouring thoughts and ideas into Evernote, diagrams, flowcharts and plans to develop my life and my business, I ended up with a wealth of content. But levering it into change means finding ways of associating valuable actions. Either individually or grouped into some logical common theme. What follows are some of the techniques and methods to define a project, an action plan, a list of actions. How to think about prioritizing them. ## Evernote tasks Example of a task in Evernote: ![[task in evernote.png]] The new Evernote tasks feature. - It would be helpful to sync with Google calendar like Todoist. - It would be nice to be able to manually order tasks, not just sort by the due date. ![[evernote-task-form.png]] It would be nice if the task due date synced with Google calendar like Todoist. Cronofy says Evernote API does not make task due date available. # Evernote integrations with other services A few excellent connectors to Evernote have died, notably Carddesk and moh.io. It is unclear why they were unable to find a stable business model. [Ayoa](https://ayoa.com/) survives in its own right and connects to Evernote, [Nozbe](https://nozbe.com/) too. ![[ayoa kanban task manager.png]] Evernote integrates well with Nozbe. ![[Evernote integrates with nozbe.png]] ### Different types of link 1. Add an ‘In link’ to reference a note in another. 2. Use a reference link to include a useful source of background information. 3. The standard inline link, referring to another note as part of a text. We are used to URLs now on the internet, but Evernote provides that function on your desktop. You can refer to a piece of work or a document by a URL within Evernote and is shareable publicly. Linking documents together builds valuable references. Your files are no longer isolated. Filing, tagging and linking notes help to compose posts by bringing together initially disparate data into writing. ### Evernote and Kanbanote It's important to get an overview, a visual overview of what's going on. Kanbanote can give you an overview of a set of Evernotes. [Kanbanote](https://www.kanbanote.com/) turns Evernote into a kanban presentation. ![[evernote combined with Kanbanote.png]] A note can be opened directly from Kanbanote. See how to use a [[Kanbanote to filter Evernotes]] and focus on Evernotes that you tag for action. Use tags current, next, soon and waiting to focus both on all Evernote for action and individual projects. ![[kanbanote-dashboard.png]] ### Publishing with postach.io Publish from your Evernote document library. One way is with [postach.io](https://postach.io/), a blogging platform which allows you to create a blog directly from Evernote. The second is using shareable link. Once you share a note, it has a public URL, to which you can refer anywhere on the web. ![[copy a shareable link for an Evernote.png]] Copy a shareable link for an Evernote ### Mohio to model Evernotes #mohio Sadly moh.io no longer exists, but was a very useful system to link Evernotes together in a visual environment. This can now be done in Obsidian. ![[mohio-map.png]] Moh.io enabled you to model Evernotes graphically in a visual environment, to link them together. These arrows could be seen as project dependencies, functional links, arrows on a flowchart. Evernote was much more when [moh.io](http://moh.io/) was around; it allowed you to connect notes visually and tag notes by dragging. Extremely useful to combine quickly notes into domains, organize notes, collect subjects. Evernote should buy it themselves. ### Linking in obsidian #Obsidian > [!Obsidian] Obsidian for linking > This linking is now admirably implemented in Obsidian. # Critique of Evernote It has been difficult to leverage stored items into action or content. Tasks came in only recently. ### Syncing Syncing was fast and effective in Evernote Legacy. When you changed a note, it was updated very quickly on all other platforms (baring mobile). We had file storage and retrieval. Now syncing, particularly on mobile is slow. The green sync icon takes ages to disappear. ### Tagging Tagging contributes to retrieval. Tag things and find them by tag but if you want something to be important you have to tag it 'important' and filter by the 'important' tag. In OneNote, you can just position important things at the top of the list. I am wary of just filling one note which is what I did with Evernote. Now I have 14,000 notes in Evernote and everything feels jumbled up. ### No Manual Ordering Nimbus unfortunately is like Evernote, there is no manual ordering of notes. Shame - great feature. In Notion, you can create a database, in which you can manually set the order of notes. # Feature Requests Reluctant to raise feature requests with Evernote support. Evidence shows that their development cycle is very long, they favour new functions over fixing bugs and they are still getting over 'teething problems' with the new (Electron?) architecture. The following could be useful. - The Return of Speed - Sync reminder or task due dates with Google calendar. The current calendar widget in Evernote is the wrong way round. It brings Google calendar into Evernote, fair enough, but also needs to push dates into the calendar. - Would like to shorten Evernote shared links (like Nimbus). - Requested reminder available on the web (as on windows desktop) - Be able to [sort a filter by tag](https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/139530-sort-by-location-and-sort-by-tags/#comment-595209) ## General issues and remarks I like using quality for a basis for continuous improvement so I'm continually noting things about the way I do things, my operations ways that I can improve. That all goes into Evernote. **Only 2 Levels of Notebooks** The lack of nesting in Evernote somehow puts mundane items on the same level as business strategy. But in reality not all things are equal, there are hierarchies. I’m not sure what fomented this recent hate of Evernote. Reddit users. The really quite good but not as good alternatives? But better in some areas. Notably nimbus and Bear for clean writing. Obsidian for most of these requirements. Once you have collected sufficient ideas or issues to initiate a project, make a mind map to focus on the scope. Use Simplemind or Ayoa for this, as a design environment, and to pull information together. Kanbanote also connects to evernote and allows you to display notes in a kanban structure. Evernote coined the phrase note taking. I take so many notes, but the Obsidian generation has helped me stick it all together. In the end, each one is a tool in the tool bag.