As you guys know, I was in San Francisco this weekend for the Evernote Trunk Conference where I spoke on the uses of Evernote in the daily life of a design/lifestyle blogger. It was mostly to an audience of people who had a background in development (either for this app or others) and were interested to hear of the regular users take on the application. I also got to hear a bunch of other inspiring people (like the founder of Uppercase magazine) talk about their uses for it as well!
If you don’t know about Evernote, it is a free app (for iphone, ipad, and computer download) which allows you to save ‘notes’ that can be organized, tagged and saved on any of your devices, and then retrieved from any of your other devices. I use it a ton because I have a terrible memory and literally have to write everything down. The random post-it notes and emails to myself were getting a little disorganized, so I started using evernote. I wanted to give you guys some details because it’s so so helpful to collect design inspiration and sources all in one place.
Above is a screenshot of my ‘homepage’ which shows my last several saved notes. Its laid out kind of like an email inbox, but each note shows a snippet of a photo, which is so helpful for finding something visual. If I’m looking for GOLD things in a product round up, I can scan the thumbnails and pick out from all of the notes I’ve saved.
More than that, however, you can tag your notes (in my case they’re mostly photos) with any keywords you want. Later, I can search by keyword to find exactly what I’m looking for. One photo might get ten keywords, but it helps me to recover the idea later on. Some of these things are clipped from a website (using their web clipper) and some are photos I took with my iphone in a store and saved to evernote.
Another amazing detail? The webclipper saves all of the URLs for me. One of the hardest things for me (in life and in blogging) is remembering where I saw something. I started clipping from the web and Evernote it stores the webpage for me. That’s how I can recall some of the more obscure finds that I may feature.
I don’t want this to sound like a big advertisement. I don’t work for evernote, and they don’t pay me anything, I just love it. It’s a free app and helps me by working as an ‘external brain’. It could definitely be helpful to anyone who is looking for a place to capture inspiration (and the sources) that can be accessed from anywhere. If you want to know more about it, give me a shout and we can chat!
Have a wonderful Monday!
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I used Evernote forever ago and don’t know why I stopped. Maybe I started using things like Pinterest and other services instead? But now, all my online organizing tools are so jumbled that it probably makes sense to put it all in one place again! Thanks for sharing how you use it!
I just learned about Evernote a few weeks ago, and it’s such a good idea. I currently have all my ideas/ references saved in utterly disorganized Bookmarks- not the best system!
I used it and never got fully into it. But this might inspire me! Love this post and that cute little graphic with all the items above your head!
I might actually be interested in chatting with you about this. I started using it about a month ago, and I’m finding it really helpful when I am doing a tutorial. For example, I’ll snap an unpretty pic of my fabric cuts and (electronically) jot down the sizes of the cuts to reference later when I’m actually writing it up. Believe it or not, I don’t usually plan my cut sizes. i just cut what I think looks right at the time. Anyway, I feel like there’s more potential there, and I haven’t harnessed it yet.
My husband just showed me this app because he’s started using it as a teacher to keep track of ideas! I was impressed but now I’m really wanting to try it as a shop owner/blogger to keep organized! Thanks for all the tips!
I’m normally a pen and paper kinda guy when it comes to lists and organisation but I have to say Evernote does look great. Thanks for the intro, will defo check it out!
Will – there is also a very new (just unveiled last weekend) collaboration between Evernote and Moleskine where you can photo a page from your notebook, and the words in the page are actually searchable. The notebook also comes with color coded stickers and Evernote will read the color coding and file/tag the page accordingly! I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks awesome!
Evernote sounds great. I´ll be sure to try it.
I installed Evernote on my phone and computer but never got to using it. Perhaps I’ll give it a second chance
That black pendant was on a recent episode of Candace Olson.
I love Evernote!
Hmm. I’m going to give this a shot!