Why You Need Evernote
If you have opposable thumbs and a pulse, then you should have Evernote. It is easily one of the most versatile tools in my kit as a writer and human being. It’s free to download, works on almost any device, and has saved me countless times from my poor memory. Seriously, sign up now.
(Note: Evernote does not sponsor or endorse this post, I’m just a fervent fan.)
What Is It?
Evernote is a note-taking program that works on basically any device that takes notes. It’s free (with paid upgrades) and syncs your data across all devices attached to the account. They don’t spam you with ads and they don’t throw annoying pop-ups in your face to try to upsell you. All you have to do is make an account, download the app on your devices, and get cracking.
What Does It Do?
As I said before, it’s a note-taking app, but that’s not all it can do. Each ‘note’ has a pretty wide range of features. You can do normal text editing (obviously) with all the normal fonts, sizes, bolds, italics, underlines and strike throughs you’d expect from any text editor. You can also make tables, bulleted or numbered lists, interactive checklists and even add code blocks.
But that’s not all!
You can take pictures and record audio inside the app and save it to a specific note. You can also create hyperlinks or attach files from your computer or Google Drive. When you’re ready to share whatever you’ve created, you can send the note directly to people via e-mail or send them a link. Try clicking this link to see what I mean. When doing so you can even choose whether they have read or write permission to a specific note or an entire notebook (more on that in a second). It will also send notes to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you’re social media savvy.
Each of your notes can be organized into ‘notebooks’ which are just folders for similar notes. You can also add your own ‘tags’ or keywords to each note, allowing you to filter by certain tags. It also has a built-in search function to help you find stuff you’ve written but maybe didn’t label properly.
All of these features, plus even more under the hood, are all part of the free version.
That’s Cool, But Why?
Apart from everyday note taking such as grocery lists or random story ideas while out and about, you can record voice messages to yourself or use it to record a meeting or class for transcription later. When I did my initial research on agents, I went to Barnes & Noble and took pictures of covers I liked straight from the app. When I got home all the pictures were already synced to my computer, and I began researching the authors and their agents without missing a beat.
I also use it to write longer posts for mobile only apps like Instagram and Twitter. I can type the post on my computer, then open the note on my phone and copy/paste the content. Easy peasy.
I always do my first draft of any blog posts inside Evernote as well because I can add all the pictures and hyperlinks. When ready, I just copy/paste into WordPress and fix anything that got weird.
If I haven’t sold you on this (FREE) software then I don’t know what will. Maybe you enjoy living in the stone age or get a masochistic pleasure in other forms of note taking.
You do you, but I think you should give Evernote a try.
I won’t shut up about it until you do.
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