40Tech » Evernote

How Evernote Almost Died

Evan Kline — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:00:00 +0000

If you’re an Evernote fan, then Inc.com has a must-read article for you that takes a behind-the-curtain look at the company. Did you know that the company’s CEO was hours away from pulling the plug on Evernote and laying off everyone in the entire companya few years ago, but for a well-timed email from a fan offering a much-needed infusion of cash? The rest is history, as they say, with Evernote not only receiving millions in funding since then, but actually turning a profit and growing by a million users every month.

The article sheds some light on the makeup of the Evernote team, most of which has been together through a couple of other startups. I also wasn’t aware that the current Evernote team came about after a merger of the CEO’s startup (which had grand plans to do what Evernote does now) with another startup. That second startup was the one that actually had created an app called “Evernote,” which was a tool to snap a photo and do character recognition on text in the photo.

Evernote also has an interesting business model – give away almost every feature for free, and count on your users becoming so invested in the product that, over time, they’ll want to pay for it in order to support it. So far, it seems to be working (in fact, that’s why I pay for it). The article sheds some light on the conversion rate over time of freemium users into paying customers. At the point three years after a user first uses the app, that rate is 15%.

The article got me thinking about life without Evernote. There are competing products now, like OneNote or even Springpad, but I wonder if I would have latched onto one of them the way that I’ve made Evernote such a part of my daily workflow.

How would your life or workflow be different without Evernote?

Evernote: Company of the Year [Inc.]

For a look at one way to use Evernote, check out Dan Gold’s book, Evernote, the Unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done. The second edition is out, costing $5.00. If you follow the link to make your purchase, 40Tech gets a small cut. You can also check out our review of the book, which was written before we became an affiliate.

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How to Encrypt PDF Files and Put Them in Evernote for Mac

Evan Kline — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000

We’ve already talked about how you can encrypt files in Evernote. Two of the three methods in that post involved using other programs (one of which is also available on OS X). If you’re on a Mac, though, and want to encrypt PDF files and load them into Evernote, you don’t need any third-party programs at all. OS X can handle encrypting a PDF and getting it into Evernote, all on its own. There’s one slight catch, though.

If you’re new to OS X, you might not be familiar with a Mac’s ability to encrypt PDF files. This post will be based upon how Lion works, but the process will be similar in earlier versions of OS X. To encrypt a PDF, you must open the PDF in Preview (which is the default way a PDF will open on a Mac, if you haven’t changed it or installed another PDF program), and then choose File > Export. In the Window that pops up, put a check mark in the box by “Encrypt.” You then need to enter a password in the “Password” and “Verify” boxes, and hit “Save.”

You might think that’s all there is to it, but I found that when I dragged the encrypted PDF file into an Evernote note, it didn’t seem to recognize that there was a file there at all. Perhaps Evernote for Mac needs to actually be able to read the PDF file, and it can’t do that since the PDF is encrypted. To get around that, right-click on the encrypted PDF file, and choose the “Compress” option. That will create a zip file containing your PDF, that you can then drag into Evernote with no problems.

Do you know of a better way to get an encrypted PDF file into Evernote for Mac? How about a way to get multiple encrypted PDF files into Evernote for Mac? If so, let us know in the comments.

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AppSumo Contest is Giving Away 10 Evernote Premium Accounts — for Life!

Bobby Travis — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:41:59 +0000

We all love Evernote here. Evernote related posts are some of the most popular on the site. And it’s no wonder… Evernote is awesome! Well, the deal-giving giants over at AppSumo agree with us, and have decided to raffle off 10 — count ‘em: 10! — free-for-life Evernote Premium accounts with all the trimmings. You read me right: Evernote Premium — Free. For. Life. Save yourself $45 per year, forever.

I probably don’t need to tell you what you get with an Evernote Premium account: here’s a few of the highlights, if you need them, though:

1GB of uploads per month
Single notes can be up to 50MB
Offline Notebooks on Android and iOS
Security pin-locks on Android and iOS
Allow others to edit your notes
Super-fast image recognition
PDF search
Priority support
and more…

AppSumo will require you to give them an email address, of course. They’re not doing this for nothing. Even if you don’t win, though, the weekly email deals they’ll send you are pretty awesome, and there’s a nice sprinkling of seriously great free stuff as well. Once you enter, you can get additional entries by sharing on Twitter and Facebook, or by sending people your AppSumo link to the contest. If other people sign up via your shares, you get extra contest entries. You can also Like them on Facebook for other ways to win, and you should follow them on Twitter, as that is one of the ways to find out if you win.

The contest ends October 30th and 11:59PM CST, so get your ballots in now. You can get there by this link: http://appsumo.com/~hqPz. Yeah, clicking the link will give me additional chances to win, as well, but it’s all love, right? If you don’t want to help me out, that’s cool — a pox! a pox, I say!!! :P — then just head over to the AppSumo website and start from there.

So what are you waiting for? It’s Evernote Premium. Free. For life! Get clicking, people!

Let me know in the comments if you entered!

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The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done in Evernote [eBook Review]

Bobby Travis — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 05:45:46 +0000

Just over two years ago, I wrote my first post for 40Tech. I had discovered the power of GTD while trying to manage life, new parenthood, and the crazy tech-startup marketing job I was working. I had also become an avid fan of Evernote. The mere idea that I could capture anything, anywhere, and put it in a searchable digital filing cabinet that I could carry in my pocket was mind-blowing for me. Naturally, I spent a large amount of time and effort in marrying together my two new obsessions. They seemed a great fit to me, and they lead to that fateful first post that is still one of the top articles on this blog: GTD in Evernote With Only One Notebook.

I say this post was fateful for two reasons: one, it set me on a path of productivity and tech that has, in many ways, defined my current career path; and two, it brought about a tremendous amount of great conversation and connections with people I likely would never have met, otherwise. One of those people was Daniel Gold, lifestyle and productivity blogger, and author of the eBook this post is really about — an eBook that would have made my life a lot easier if it had been around when I first considered implementing GTD in Evernote.

Daniel’s book, The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done in Evernote, isn’t a step-by-step how-to manual. It’s not a mind-bending piece of literature, and it’s not going to cook you breakfast. What it is, wonderfully, is a straightforward, conversational look at why Evernote is a great tool for productivity in general, and how easily it can be used to apply GTD principles effectively. The book never talks down to you, and it never assumes you know too much or too little — it is simply honest and genuine; experienced, but uncomplicated. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a fun and easy read, either.

Daniel starts out by giving you a little background on his own experiences in searching for a productivity tool that would change it all for him. This is a conversation that he is very open about on his blog, and one that he has brought to 40Tech through several insightful and helpful comments. He openly admits that he was just as lost as the rest of us, and that it was his search and his failures in discovering or hacking together the perfect productivity system that ultimately led him back to Evernote. Evernote brought him back to basics — back to simplicity and a straight ahead means of getting things done. This eventually led him to the sense of “mind like water” that inspired his eBook.

He does a good job of breaking down his GTD implementation in Evernote, giving plenty of examples while keeping things light. As I mentioned earlier in the post, the book is not a GTD instruction manual. It does, however, work well as an introductory guide to a system that has been working out very well for him, and is easy to implement.

If I had to pick out a negative — and a review isn’t a review if you don’t — I would say that my only issue is that there are a few rough patches in grammar and a few missed words that might cause you to have to re-read a sentence or two. Even still, the author’s message is always clear, so don’t let the nit-picky things hold you back. Besides, Daniel has stated that his eBook is going to receive quarterly updates — for free — that will include new content and will likely add a few edits in as well.

Conclusion

The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done in Evernote is an easy, informative, and entertaining read of approximately 40 pages. If you are looking for a decent overview of how GTD can be effectively accomplished in Evernote, it’s definitely worth the $5 price tag, especially considering the free updates for life that you get with it. You can find it here, on Daniel’s blog, and on the Evernote Trunk. [UPDATE: We now have an affiliate link that you can use to buy the book, which means we get a buck or two from each purchase if you purchase through that link. We only use our affiliate link for products that we believe in.].

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Springpad Clipper for iOS and an Evernote eBook

Bobby Travis — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:00:46 +0000

Heads up folks! Great things are happening surrounding two of your favourite apps: Springpad and Evernote. Firstly, Springpad is doing something that has been long-awaited and needed — namely, adding a web clipper that is optimized just for Mobile Safari. They’ve also caught up with Android by finally giving us iPhone and iPad users a Quick Add button for the home screen.

More importantly though — and this is no slight to the awesome Springpad, but credit where credit is both due and needed — my friend and one of our most informative and helpful commenters, Daniel Gold, has just released his first eBook! It’s about Evernote, it’s about GTD in Evernote, it looks awesome — and it’s only $5 bucks!

I will be testing out the new Springpad awesome for a full report next week, and will also read and review Daniel’s Evernote eBook. I’m already a bit biased in its favour, because I’m familiar with Daniel’s work on his blog and his many awesome comments here (where I met the man). In fact, he has been a major contributor in both inspiration and expertise to several of my posts on this blog. Nonetheless, I’ll be as narrow-eyed and judgemental as any good reviewer should be… :P

Stay tuned for more next Wednesday night!

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Evernote for iOS Update Brings Rich Text Support, Shared Notebooks, and Other Goodies

Bobby Travis — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:48:47 +0000

Last week, when it was still August (where the hell did the summer go?), Evernote released the mother of all iOS updates. There was a lot to it — a cool redesign, a lock feature for premium users — but the big deal was the inclusion of a rich text editor and the ability to access notes in shared notebooks.

The new features aren’t as robust as the desktop version of Evernote, of course, but are nonetheless dripping with the sort of awesome that makes you want to find your Irish roots and dance a merry jig.

Here are the highlights:

Rich Text Editor

The new editor allows for basic bold, italics, underline, bullets and the like, as well as strike-through, header text, highlighting and linking. You can also edit notes that were already created with rich text, which is great, but don’t think the append prompt is gone for good. If the note has too much fancy in it, even the new editor may not like it. There is a new option, though, that saves at least a bit of headache: the ability to simplify the formatting to be workable in the iOS apps. This way, you only lose some of the formatting, instead of everything.

Note: Checkboxes are still not able to be created in Evernote for iOS. You can check them, but not make them.

Shared Notebooks

Tired of not being able to access a note or notebook that someone shared with you? Now that Evernote has added shared notebooks into iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, you can breathe easy. Note that I said access, however. You can only read them, not create new ones. Yet.

Another handy feature is the new ability to search within notes. Want to find a word or turn of phrase from your note? Now you can, quickly and easily. It’s no desktop search, but it’s definitely a good start.

This is only the tip of the update-iceberg. There’s a lot more going on under the hood and in the form of a new look and feel for Evernote’s iOS apps. If you haven’t updated yet, you should. Get the full list of new features here.

Thoughts on Evernote’s new iOS features? Head down to the comments!

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Memonic: A (Not So) Quiet Rival to Evernote and Springpad [App of the Week]

Bobby Travis — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 06:42:05 +0000

I just confirmed with the CEO of Memonic that the crazy premium account deal ($3.33 Euro for 10,000 notes and 50GB storage) link works until the end of October. And it works for whomever, not just the Swiss/Germans. Translate the page from German and get it while it’s hot!

There’s been a lot of discussion on 40Tech about which is the best note-taking app. While the battle is generally between Springpad and Evernote, occasionally a new option steps in for a punch or two. This week’s contender has been watching, learning, and in many cases even improving upon the competition. I’d like to introduce you all to Memonic — there’s a reason it made App of the Week.

When it comes to note-taking apps, there are five key things to look for: how easy it is to get information into the app, organization and sharing features, overall usability, cross-platform possibilities, and personal preference. That last is a huge factor in user adoption. Depending on what you need your notes app to do, one or another may work better for you.

Evernote, for example, is well suited to those who just need a straight ahead, highly searchable portable filing cabinet. It can do many other things, true, such as be used for a GTD system, but portable (and searchable!) filing cabinet is what it does best. Springpad, on the other hand, is great for taking notes, but has this fantastic capacity for making certain types of notes “smart.” If you like to comparison shop, find good deals, or get value from what the people in your network are interested in, Springpad’s note-alerts system offers you something no other note-taking app can match.

Memonic doesn’t have the budget that Springpad or Evernote has. They’ve been bootstrapping their system for a while now, and when you consider that and then see what they’ve put together, I have no doubt you’ll be impressed. I was — and am. Just as Evernote and Springpad differ in their approach and target markets, Memonic has brought its own angle to the field: research and collaboration. Now, before the Evernote lovers start touting shared notebooks, and the Springpad-enamoured bring up the oh-so-very-cool Board, hear me out. Those are all excellent features — but if you want an app that makes it easy to share and organize notes on a project (or projects), easy to be notified when new notes and research snippets have arrived or been commented on, and ridiculously simple to gather information in the first place, then Memonic is the clear choice. Here’s why:

Groups

Memonic can be used as a central collaboration notebook for research, planning, and discussions on projects. You can create a group, invite a few people, and then get to work. The group gets its own page with its own activity feed, too, which makes it simple to be notified and to keep an eye on progress.

If you run into the ever-present problem of working with someone who doesn’t want to use the service, sharing notes with people outside of Memonic is easy, too. You can share via Facebook, Twitter, email, or a link, RSS feeds, and you can even embed notes on web pages — which is a nice touch.

The Dashboard

Memonic’s group and contacts features are fully realized with the feed-like Dashboard. The Dashboard not only shows you a quick clip of everything you’ve posted recently, but it also shows the public posts of your contacts — which can be opened and read in full right from the dashboard itself. See something you like? Copy it to your own collection of notes, or share it with others via email, link, Facebook, or Twitter (or even copy it to Word) with just a few clicks.

The Best Clipper I’ve Come Across

I love the Evernote Web Clipper, and I like the Springpad Clipper even better, but both can get a bit irritating if you’re in a hurry. Memonic’s clipper does away with the click and drag highlighting and breaks each section of content on a page into regions that can be selected with a single click. You can do multiple parts of the page, or even the entire page in one go. When you’re doing a lot of web research, this speeds up the process immensely.

Quick content selection isn’t the only reason the Memonic clipper stands out over the others. The other big one is Gathering Mode, which is a little toggle switch that allows you to lock in your settings for where you want to put your notes — folder, privacy level — and save you the trouble of having to re-establish those settings for every single clipping. It’s awesome — and I have no idea why other clippers don’t do the same. The only thing I would like to see added to Gathering Mode is the ability to lock in tags, as well.

Finally, the Memonic clipper has a variety of other useful modes that can replace a number of other services with just this one:

Read Later mode that allows you to grab entire pages
Bookmark mode (which provides a nice snippet description as well)
Screenshot mode that attaches an image of the visible browser area
Write a note (to get to the note taking without even opening the service)

The web clipper works with all major browsers — and even works by bookmarklet with Safari for iPad. If that isn’t enough, there is also a clipper for Windows that allows you to clip content outside of the browser.

Clean and Simple Design — Across all Platforms

Memonic focuses on the minimal. The way notes are displayed in expandable windows that are neatly separated from one another is easy on the eyes and easy to use. The look and feel is distinctly uncluttered, and is fairly persistent across all versions of the app. And you can get Memonic pretty much anywhere: Windows and Mac desktop apps, iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and the web app for everything else. Mobile versions don’t have the Dashboard, unfortunately, but everything else you could want is there, both online and off.

Crazy Integrations

For a small operation, Memonic is throwing around some important integrations, especially for the business set. Here’s just a few: Salesforce, SugarCRM, Confluence, Sharepoint — and guess what… they are planning to integrate with Evernote! That may seem a bit weird, but soon, all those who can’t bear to walk away from Evernote, but love the power of the Memonic clipper, will be able to use the super-awesome clipper to save content directly to their Evernote accounts. A nice, tidy little bit of genius on the part of Memonic, if you ask me.

If, for some strange reason, you need more than the promise of Evernote integration, well, Memonic also integrates a save button into Facebook so you can save your favourite photos, status updates, and wall posts. Want more? How about Google Reader integration so you can clip your favourite posts while reading your feeds? How’s that tickle you?

Memonic’s co-founder, Dorian Selz, and the rest of the team have worked their butts off on a bootstrap budget to put together one of the most robust note-taking apps I’ve ever come across — a definite rival for Evernote and Springpad if it gets the notice it deserves. The only issue I personally have with Memonic is that their free version is limited to only 100 notes and doesn’t have Gathering Mode. To get the full service, though, only costs $28/year — which isn’t bad considering Evernote premium is $45/per year — and Memonic doesn’t have any advertising to clutter up your experience. If you do a lot of research on your own, or as part of a student or business team, give Memonic a try — you just might love it. And there are discounts for students, too.

What do you think of Memonic?

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GTD, Producteev, Evernote — Bridged!

Bobby Travis — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:01:30 +0000

As you probably already know, GTD and Productivity are creatures that live somewhere deep in my bones. They speak to me, manipulate me, and generally run my life. Not in a bad way, you understand — even if they come across as a little obsessive, the little monsters really do have my best interests at heart. They’re the reason I’m always looking for new and inventive ways to refine and apply workflows. They’re also the reason that I’ve met some cool people who have their own little creatures that bitch and nag them into action.

During a recent conversation on Google+, with a circle of those people, we were discussing the benefits of both Producteev and Evernote as GTD tools, and how it would be great if they worked together. We decided to test out a means of making that happen, with Evernote as the ultimate collection tool, and Producteev as the magic task management/Google Calendar integrator.

Here’s what I proposed (have a read and tell me what you think):

The Gist of the Idea

The first thing to do is make Evernote able to send email directly to task@producteev.com. To do this, you need to register the email address that your Evernote uses (to email out a note) in your Producteev workspace(s). Now, any tasks in Evernote that you want to process into Producteev can be done directly from within EN.

The next thing you need to do is make sure your Evernote notes get to the right place in your Producteev setup. Producteev’s email2task functionality is fantastic. It incorporates a lot of simple language that allows you to easily do things like schedule a task from email by writing “Do this task tomorrow at 2pm” in the subject line (more on syntax below). If you are working in the Evernote desktop app, you can easily send out an email by selecting that option under Share, and then changing the subject line to reflect the appropriate email2task syntax. If you are in a mobile app, or unable to change the subject line for some reason, then you can simply change the title of your note to reflect what you want the email subject line to say.

These two steps make it possible to collect information in Evernote and share it with Producteev quickly and easily. Producteev can connect to Google Calendar, as well, for two-way sync (coming first week of February, 2012), which gives you the opportunity to finally connect Evernote to Google Calendar, if only by proxy.

Finally, using the Copy Note Link or Copy URL to Clipboard features found under the Note and Share buttons in Evernote, you can add the note’s own link to the email or note body, and leave an easy to follow link back to Evernote in any Producteev task you create.

GTD Use Cases for a Evernote-Producteev Bridge

You could manage your GTD system in Evernote, doing everything from collecting to archiving, but use Producteev during processing to set up automated reminders and Google Calendar events. You could also add in email or IM Producteev functionality to easily close and update tasks, including sharing and delegating without ever logging in to the tool itself.

You could also manage your GTD in Producteev and simply use Evernote as your main collection tool, as well as for keeping all of your reference material and archives in one easily searchable place. Producteev has many ways of inputting tasks, but Evernote can utilize voice, image, and text entry, as well as the clipper, and a crazy number of integrations, to collect and organize information.

Why Bother?

Evernote has superior collection capability but no true task management functionality.
Producteev’s notes system and ability to add attachments simply can’t compare to Evernote.

Notes

When you send an Evernote item into Producteev, the body is converted to a note. Actually, you end up with several notes, as any images that Evernote uses in the background of the note are added as separate (and useless) note items in Producteev. HTML is stripped out entirely, and this will sometimes leave garbage code in the text of the Producteev note. See the image below (thanks to Daniel Gold for doing the first test run!).
Even though the Producteev notes are in plain text, the note itself is still in both tools. In Producteev, the notes system can be used to conduct a conversation around the task with others who have access to the workspace, or to leave additional notes for yourself if you are using Producteev as your main management system.

General Workflow & Syntax

Collect in Evernote
Process to Producteev via Evernote email-out and Producteev email2task syntax (with scheduled items going to Gcal, as well, for the visual calendar)
Manage tasks in Evernote with Producteev used only for scheduling and reminders OR
Manage tasks in Producteev and/or email with Evernote for archival reference

Syntax tips can be found here, but the basics are as follows:

today, tomorrow, days of the week, next week, specific dates (today 8pm, August 10 8pm, 8pm August 10 when combining date and time)
done (to register a task as being completed)
@ to assign a task to a workspace collaborator (@Michael, @Michael Lewis, @Lewis, @ML)
* to indicate a priority level using our 1-5 starring system (4* or ****)
# to indicate workspace name (#Personal)
## to indicate the appropriate label (##Marketing)
“” to add task notes (“follow up” or ‘follow up’)
/ to have the beaver run searches for you (/today for a list of all of your tasks due by the end of the day)

Your Turn!

So what do you think of the possibilities of integrating Producteev and Evernote into one system that is relatively seamless? Thoughts? Concerns? Is this worthwhile? Let us know in the comments!

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GTD On the Go With Awesome Note and Evernote [Reader Workflow]

Guest Poster — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:00:55 +0000

40Tech has a serious interest in productivity technology, especially as related to GTD (Getting Things Done). We love talking about workflows with our readers, sharing our own techniques as well as learning how you use technology to keep your life on track. As we’ve come to expect, grown-up geeks are fonts of information, and you’ve inspired us to invite you to post your genius here on 40Tech. The first to step up was Chase Mann with his combination of OneNote, Evernote, and Outlook for GTD, and now we are pleased to bring you the first of three posts by Nina Kefer. Nina is often mobile, and has put together three systems that she has tested extensively, using some of the prettier iPhone and web apps out there as her GTD hub.

First up: GTD in Awesome Note with a side of Evernote!

Beauty and Brains: Getting Things Done™ In Style

I have always been a firm believer in the principle of “Form Follows Function”. However, I do not believe that “Ornament is Crime”, as is often extrapolated by proponents of FFF. As long as eye candy isn’t at the expense of functionality I can’t see anything wrong with it. On the contrary, it actually helps me to Get Things Done because a pretty user interface makes me want to look at my to-dos and makes taking care of them fun. If my to-dos look bland or, God forbid, ugly, I avoid looking at them until I forget that they even exist. Thus began my quest to find a to-do system that is as beautiful as it is powerful. As a frequent international traveller, I often rely on my smartphone to keep my life organised, so I needed a system that was built around an iPhone app that stays in sync with the web and/or desktop of my netbook.

Part 1: Awesome Note

The first app I explored was Awesome Note, a note-taking-cum-to-do app that syncs with Evernote and Google docs. Notes created with Awesome Note are designed to look like real life paper notes that are kept in colourful manila folders. By default, the app randomly assigns one of fifteen available background patterns and a default font to each new note, but backgrounds and fonts are customisable, as are the colour, icon and default theme of each folder. You are limited to five folders per screen, but you can create as many folders as you like, arrange them in whatever order suits you best and then simply swipe through them from screen to screen. It’s a pity that GTD doesn’t offer more opportunities to sample the neat animation, like “turning pages” while browsing from note to note within a folder.

Being an Evernote front-end, Awesome Note’s functions, are very flexible. Every note can be transformed into a to-do, a check list, a calendar item, a page in a diary or photo album, or a birthday or anniversary reminder, simply by changing the view or type of note or by assigning a due date. You can also tag your notes and to-dos and use the built-in search function to look up tags or keywords. To help you keep on top of all the notes inside your folders, there’s a little notebook at the top of each screen that shows how many notes there are in total, how many to-dos are due today and if there are any unassigned notes waiting to be processed. Next to it, there’s a quick memo pad where you can jot down ideas, via keyboard or handwriting input, or draw a sketch. Lastly, you can share your notes and to-dos via SMS or email, send them to a compatible printer or lock your folders with a passcode. This may sound a bit overwhelming, but everything can be done with just a few quick taps.

GTD Setup in Awesome Note

Awesome Note comes with pre-installed folders, but they can easily be renamed or replaced and new ones can be created as necessary. For my GTD setup I created ten folders, five for each screen. Since the sync of tags between Awesome Note and Evernote is limited (more on that in a moment), I combined Next Action and Context to create five Action folders that I review daily. I placed those on the first screen, so I can see them as soon as I open the app:

1.1 @Computer
1.2 @Contact
1.3 @Errands
1.4 @Home
1.5 @Waiting

On the second screen I placed the folders I review weekly or less often:

2.1 Projects
2.2 Someday
2.3 Goals
2.4 Reference
2.5 Wishlist

Working With Evernote

As my back-end I chose Evernote because it has both web and desktop versions and is generally more versatile than Google docs. Sync between the apps is speedy, but due to their different functionalities not really tight enough to use phone, web and desktop interchangeably. For example, Awesome Note’s folders appear in Evernote as notebooks that are easily identifiable by the prefix [aNote], but while Awesome Note allows you to arrange the folders in whatever order you want, Evernote automatically puts the notebooks in alphabetical order.

You can attach up to nine pictures to a note, but they will only sync from Awesome Note to Evernote, not vice versa, and due dates, status, font and background formatting don’t sync at all.

Finally, although both apps use tags, tags added in Evernote don’t sync to Awesome Note and tags added in Awesome Note are merely included as a footnote in Evernote. Fortunately, the powerful Evernote search finds them there, so there’s no need to double-tag. Since I do most of my GTD in Awesome Note and use Evernote web and desktop only for convenient text entry and backup, none of the above was a deal breaker for me. I just numbered my folders so they would appear in the same order on all three platforms and didn’t worry too much about the order of the notes inside.

The “No Category” Inbox

The “No Category” folder at the top of the screen is my inbox where I collect emails, tasks and ideas that come to me during the day, things that I need to buy or adverts I see on my way to work and want to follow up later. This is easy since notes that aren’t assigned to a specific folder automatically get dumped in there, no matter what screen you are in when the note is created.

Emails and URLs can be copied/pasted into the body of a note, photos can be attached from the camera roll or taken from within the app, and Google maps can be added. Alternatively, you can forward emails to Evernote and then sync with Awesome Note. Making a note read-only makes URLs, email addresses and phone numbers clickable, but unfortunately there is no option to link notes to contacts in the iPhone’s address book, so they have to be copied over manually. Quick memos that are saved as notes also end up in “No Category” (whatever you scribble down on the memo pad stays there until you either save or clear it). These are great for basic drawing. For example, you can ask someone how to get from A to B and then take the sketch with you or email it to a friend.

I review my inbox daily and process its contents according to David Allen’s GTD methodology:

If a task takes less than 2 minutes, I do it right away
If it takes longer or I can’t do it where I am I move it to the appropriate Next Action folder
If it takes more than two steps to complete I move it to Projects and create a to-do for the Next Action in the appropriate folder

Time sensitive to-dos can be assigned alarms. Awesome Notes uses local alarms, so you will be reminded even if data roaming is disabled or the phone is in airplane mode. If a task should be delegated to someone else it goes into @Waiting with a review date to remind me to check up on and, if necessary, chase the person I have delegated the task to. Lastly, things I may want to do at some point in the future are parked in Someday and anything that doesn’t require action is either archived in Reference or deleted. If a note is moved into one of the Next Action folders it is converted to a to-do and, if possible, assigned a due date. Additionally, while Awesome Note doesn’t sync with any third party calendar, every folder, including “All”, has a calendar view that displays the to-dos within that folder, marked with the folder’s colour.

Next Actions

Next Actions that have been assigned a due date pop up automatically as they become due. A red badge on the app icon shows how many to-dos are due or overdue; within the app this is shown next to the red tick box at the top of the screen. Additionally, I check the Next Action folders whenever I have a spare moment. For example, when I sit down at my PC I check if there’s anything else I could do while I’m at it.

In order to make my tags more prominent in Evernote, I start the title of a to-do that I want to be searchable with the appropriate place, person or project name. This has the added benefit of being able to search tasks alphabetically in Awesome Note. Usually I sort by due date, but if I’m going to contact person ABC I can alpha-sort the to-dos in my @Contact folder to make sure I cover everything “tagged” ABC. One tag per to-do is usually enough for me – a place tag for to-dos in @Errands, a person tag for @Contact, a project tag for @Computer and so on – and it only takes two taps to sort. Awesome Note does have a search function for both tags and keywords, but no saved searches, so this doubles as a quick-and-dirty search.

The project folder is reviewed weekly, or more often if I have extra time. Awesome Note doesn’t support sub-tasks or checklists, so I list the sub-tasks of each project in the body of the parent note, e.g. Project XYZ, and then cut/paste them into individual to-dos as I work through that project. I do the same for checklists or shopping lists. Alternatively, if you want to be able to check off each item individually, you can make a dedicated folder and create a to-do for each item.

Awesome Note may have been created primarily as a note taking app, but its to-do capabilities are powerful and lend themselves well to GTD. The limited sync with Evernote forces me to keep my setup simple and fuss-free and the cheerful design makes Getting Things Done fun. I just wish that tags would sync properly with Evernote, as they do with Egretlist, and that tasks would sync with the iPhone calendar.

Let me know what you think of Awesome Note’s GTD capabilities in the comments!

Nina lives in the UK and works in Financial Services. A frequent international traveller, she has extensive experience of managing life on the go. A trip to Japan opened her eyes to the possibilities of mobile phone technology and she has been attempting to achieve a similar level of connectivity ever since. This is her first technology article.

Nina’s next iPhone GTD setup: GTD with 2Do and Toodledo.

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Evernote Web App Gets a Makeover–Adds Social Sharing

Bobby Travis — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:55:42 +0000

Normally I try to avoid doing Evernote posts every week, but this latest update is too big to pass up! It marks an end to Evernote’s stoic insistence that its service is strictly for capturing information, not sharing it — and if that wasn’t huge enough, the overhaul to the web app makes Evernote a pleasure to use on machines and OS’s without a desktop version. Excited yet? If you’re an Evernote fan, you know you are! See below for details.

UPDATE: The recent pre-release version of Evernote Desktop for Windows (4.3.0.4293) has added social sharing features, including Twitter, which is not yet included in the web app. Word and character counts have also been added, along with a few other niceties and bug fixes.

The first thing you will notice when you log into the web app is that the new interface refreshingly familiar, adopting a three-panel approach that is very much like the desktop version. Notebook stacks are also included, as well as snippet view — which provides a preview of the note’s content to speed up browsing — and the ability to CTRL/CMD + click multiple notes and drag them to notebooks, tags, or trash. The easy to use updated interface also includes a handy toggle to control auto-save — a handy feature when writing in shared notebooks.

While the update is impressive, it’s not perfect yet. For example, some of the more advanced functionality, like filtering, printing, attaching files, viewing note history, and creating saved searches, is still only available in the older version of the web app. If you want or need any of these features, you will need to switch back to the archaic mode for the time being.

I love the work that Evernote put into the new version of the web app, but am absolutely thrilled by their decision to include some social sharing capability! Until now, I honestly thought that the only way to share notes I collected would be using tools like Springpad and Shelfster, but Evernote’s inclusion of Facebook sharing, with plans to add Twitter in the near future, gives users the added freedom they need in today’s social web. It would be nice to see them open up sharing to the same extent that Springpad has, but baby-steps, yes? Sharing to Facebook, (soon) Twitter, via email, or by adding a link into your social platform of choice will have to be enough for now. You can also revoke shares at your discretion, which is handy. The Evernote blog promises that the new sharing features will find their way into their other apps in future updates.

So how excited are you about Evernote’s foray into the modern web — and its revitalized web app too, of course?