Evernote

 

What is Evernote?

No two workflows are alike, but Evernote could help keep you productive and organized.

First, Evernote is relatively easy to use. There are tutorials everywhere because of its popularity and wide user base. With a shallow learning curve, you won’t have to take much time to understand the app.

Evernote organizes your notes into Notebooks, which are essentially file folders.

The notes themselves are text files with a standard blog-style GUI for formatting text, inserting images, or putting in basic code blocks.

The two most useful features are note tags and the Evernote Web Clipper browser extension.

Note tags work like the tags in a blog post or like a hashtag. This gives you a second method for organizing notes. The tags are useful for searching through notes and categorizing them for later use. All notes tagged with “biology” or “research,” for example, can be found and searched through, no matter what Notebooks they might be in.

Now let’s get into the Web Clipper, one of Evernote’s most useful features.

What is Evernote Web Clipper?

Evernote Web Clipper is a browser extension that copies web content directly to your Notebooks. It’s hard to imagine using Evernote without Web Clipper.

Once installed, Clipper lets you grab images, text, and even whole web pages. These can be sorted into whatever Notebook you choose. You can also add tags when you clip.

Why would you do this? How is it useful? Well, for one, you can grab simplified versions of web pages and send them to your notes. If the web page is one you need to look at frequently for research, it’ll save you time. It’s also useful if you need to access the info on that web page while you’re offline or traveling.

If the website in question is littered with annoying ads and pictures, the Web Clipper can strip them out.

Being more productive with Evernote

Anyone who needs to save a lot of information, access it anywhere, and organize it for reference would find Evernote to be handy.

Students can organize their classes into Notebooks. Ideally, they’d store all of their class notes there, accessible from their laptop or their phone. They could use the tagging system for easier studying later on. If you learn a test is on three specific topics, you can sort your notes by those topics by searching the tags. And since the notes are stored to the cloud, you won’t lose them. And depending on the price tier you choose, you could share them easily with other classmates.

Teachers could get similar use out of Evernote by sorting their lectures by topic. Teachers could also open up a Notebook for each student or each class. Then, all personal notes on the class or individual could go in the Notebook. Professional development could also have its own Notebook. That way, all of the lectures or classes you attend could be saved and sorted later. Those training notes could then be shared with colleagues.

Writers of all stripes are perhaps the most obvious audience for Evernote. Research gets a Notebook. Article, blog, or book ideas get a Notebook. Timelines, characters, persons of interest, word-building all get a Notebook. And the mobile nature means Evernote is always close at hand. Get an idea, jot it down, save it to the cloud.

Lastly, though it requires some extra work, Evernote can be synced with your calendar. This could help your productivity by tying your notes or reminders together with actual dates. You can also set it up so that your calendar events all go into a Notebook automatically, allowing you to take notes on the m