Every time you create a new note you will choose which notebook to store it in by selecting it from the drop-down menu at the top of your note. In Evernote, your notebooks are the way you organize your notes. And when a group of similar notes are combined together? Yes, they form a book – a notebook to be exact. Think of each note as a page, with each page containing its own unique information. Each note can hold a variety of items: photos, documents, audio files, web clippings, and yes, even plain old text.įor example, one note might be a list of family members you are hoping to interview (be sure to try the nifty checkbox tool for this one!), the next may contain a scan of an old family photo, and yet another may contain an article from the web you are planning to read later. Notes will form the foundation of your family history organization within Evernote.
Select the plus sign to create your first note. On the left, you will see a variety of icons. Once your account has been created and you are signed in it should look something like this if you’re using the web version (the downloadable versions will look a little different and do have some additional features.)
Otherwise, enter your email and a password to create a new account.Īnd just a reminder, Evernote’s free account allows you to sync up to two devices so be sure to download the app on your mobile device to use it away from home, too. Image of the Evernote was created by Alan Dean under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.If you already have a Google account, simply click the “Sign in with Google” button and use your Google credentials to sign in without creating a new account. Evernote will help keep you organized and productive as long as you keep Evernote organized and productive. Once you have established the structure, just stick to your system, and of course clean it up from time to time. A clear, simple structure will do that for you and that’s what we outlined above.įind 3 hours by yourself, open up Evernote and get organizing. To be useful, a database like Evernote 1) has to have data in it, 2) the data needs to be worth having, and 3) the data has to be easy to retrieve.
Putting It All TogetherĮvernote is a database and like any good data it’s about data in and data out-but first that data needs to be organized. There is a line separator that is perfect for keeping thoughts and dates in the same note distinct. And know that it’s okay to have long notes. Use tags and keywords to make searches easier. You will be amazed at how you will find what you are looking for, not only with key words but with tags. One of Evernote Premiums (the paid version) best feature is the search function. In lieu of creating new notebooks for any new idea, combine notebooks with related topics into a single notebook and use tags to keep the topics organized (more on tags in number 3). If you use a new notebook for everything, soon you will have hundreds to thousands note notebooks-this leads to confusion. Combine Notebooks Wherever PossibleĪ common problem I see with Evernote users is they have too many notebooks.
The point of all this is you shouldn’t put your entire project management system in Evernote (you can, but you don’t want to overwhelm it), but this is a great place to do the first stages of your organizing. From there you can move essential tasks and projects to systems like Asana or Worflowy–we will go over these systems in future posts. That last one is for notes you might want again someday, but not any time soon.Īs for Daily, this is where you create and store your ideas, to-do tasks, and goals.
It’s not a lot, so they will have to be broad-Examples are Business, Side Hustle, Family, Daily, and Vault. Keep the stacks limited to about six or so. Create a “Stack” for Each Main Area of Your Life Start with setting up a simplified structure and stick with it Here’s how: 1. To take advantage of that potential, you have to organize it. When starting with Evernote, it is easily seen as great potential. The good news is there’s a simple way to organize Evernote so it works for you and not against you. However, like many tools and project managers it can become disorganized real quick if you let it. (Evernote Is the Tool of Choice for Organizing Your Blog Ideas)Įvernote is the most useful personal organization tools I have seen.