(Archived) Please Explain the Appeal of Evernote

[ZachLach 0]

I would like to start out by saying that I have nothing against Evernote. I am posting this in a serious attempt to start using Evernote after multiple (failing) attempts using it. I assume the General Discussion section was the appropriate  forum to post this in. If not, sorry. I am hoping by posting in the Evernote forum its self I will get the most feedback because, well, you all use this program/application. I would appreciate any feedback negative or positive but please keep in mind I am not attack Evernote I am trying to better learn how it can be useful for me.

 

Lets begin...

 

 

To start I would like to make it clear that I use all Apple products (iMac, iPhone, iPad, Macbook)

Evernote - I do not understand how it is more useful then the stock apps I have from Apple. (I shall go on a rant....) For example one of the top features Evernote has is obviously note taking (right?). Now simple note taking I use Apples Note application (which syncs across all of my devices) - and for detailed note taking (school notes for example) I have Pages (Apple) or Word (Microsoft) for that and I can access them anywhere - especially with Office 365 (for Word) or iCloud (for Pages. Which I can use it on any of my devices. So notes I do not see a use for. Next - Reminders, well Apple, in my opinion has a great Reminders app that comes stock with all of their products (OSX and iOS) which sync automatically (via iCloud). Next 'Web Clippings' - now this is a great feature Evernote offers. When you are reading a website and want to read it later or you want to save it you can with Evernote - that's great. Apple has the same the thing though (which again comes stocked) its called the Reading List and when I add a page to it, it becomes available across all of my devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone, etc) regardless of where I book marked it from. And having files accessible where ever when ever I use Dropbox for that. Now the reason I prefer stock apps over others is very simple - Why download an extra application when the ones I have work just fine? Now I would always opt to download any app that can out preform the ones I currently use - which after trying Evernote multiple time I am unable to justify using it for any of the features I am aware they offer. My stock apps are free and a lot of useful tools Evernote has you have to pay $5 for each month. 

 

I am very willing to use Evernote everyday - as long as I can justify switching to/using it. Please explain to me why its worth it. I will be very open minded to any suggestions. 

 

Thank you.

 

 

[evb 30]

You do not have to use Evernote if you are happy with the programs shipped with your Apple products.

 

Within Windows environment, in particular with M$ Office products, you have the similar experience.

 

But beware you leave your environment - then EN shows its strength. In my case 1 Win 7 computer at work, 1 Win 8 computer at home, an Ipod at home and last but not least a WebOS Touch Pad.

 

You can have all that between the platforms for free, if you are no heavy user.

 

Welcome, EvB.

 

P.S.: Ups, forgot my BB device.

[ZachLach 0]

^ Very good point about cross platforms. I would like to state that I am willing to use any app regardless if its stock or not as long as it increases my productivity. I have no 'attachment' to Apples stock apps. I just feel like I am missing something obvious because so many people use Evernote (both average and power users). Thanks for the help!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

^ Very good point about cross platforms. I would like to state that I am willing to use any app regardless if its stock or not as long as it increases my productivity. I have no 'attachment' to Apples stock apps. I just feel like I am missing something obvious because so many people use Evernote (both average and power users). Thanks for the help!

If Apple Notes works for you, that is great. It is a pretty app with a lot of potential, though I doubt Apple is taking it seriously as something to use for 100, 1000, or 10,000 notes. I've got several tens of thousands of notes, so for me it would be unworkable. For example, let's say I wanted to move my notes into it right now and see how things go. There is literally no way to import notes. There is also no way to export them. That alone makes it a non-starter for me. My advice would be that whatever applications you use ought to have viable exit plans. If they don't, I wouldn't even consider using them. That kind of thinking is a throwback to the 90s (or before).

I use Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. They are great apps, but frankly they are all less powerful (in my opinion) than their Microsoft counterparts. It all depends, though, on your use case. I recommend you do what works best for you.

[Wern 246]

Hi Zach and welcome to the forums !

 

as others have said above, if you are happy to use your other programs and like the Apple environment you don't have to use EN at all.

Cross platform use is a big argument for EN, but if you really want to answer your questions, I'd suggest, just download EN, install it and start working with it for a while. Only using it for your individual needs will tell if EN is for you or not.

 

You cannot lose, as you can always go back to your old setup.

Wern

[ZachLach 0]

Thanks for all of the help! Glad this no one so far has taken my post the wrong way. I appreciate all of the feedback. Any suggestions of use of EN would also be helpful (besides the obvious ones like reminders or school notes). I just feel like I am missing out not using EN but I can't figure out what I could use it for with my current set up. I have downloaded EN on all of my devices and I will obviously give it a try =)

[markg 26]

As others have said, if you have a system that works for you, that's great. I guess for me the key benefits of Evernote are...

• Cross platform. I use a Macbook Air as my main machine, a Windows PC (at the behest of a client to access their CRM system), a Samsung Chromebook, an Android phone and an Android tablet. I can access my Evernote data across all those platforms seamlessly.
• One "bucket" for everything. All my "stuff" is in Evernote and is searchable. A lot of time management methods work on the "one book" concept where you keep everything together so don't waste time locating it. I don't need to remember what tool I used to capture a particular idea, document, etc.
• Easy capture methods. I use my phone's camera to capture business cards, event posters, bills, whatever. I can email stuff directly into Evernote including attachments, which are then searchable (Word, PDFs, etc). I can share notebooks with other people and access their notes.
• Richness of features. I can't do a feature by feature comparison with the Apple tools that you use, but Evernote is now a very powerful tool with loads of options for capturing, editing, finding and sorting data.

--

Cheers

Mark

[jonnyb 3]

I used to have files all over my computer. Inspirational stuff, pdf's, etc. And a ton of bookmarks on my browser. Now I'm consolidating all of that and the myriad of blog posts, images, tutorials etc that I come across on Pulse and on Twitter. I was just tired of not finding something because I couldn't remember if I have saved it on Pulse or on Twitter or bookmarked it. For me it was about getting everything organized. You can still use word but you can throw those notes in your evernote. Plus tagging notes is really great and the search function is awesome. 

 

I'd use evernote to store everything but I don't think it accepts PSD's, AI or INDD files and those can be very large. I am kind of forced to use box or dropbox for large file storage. 

[NeoDeepak 0]

Also look at the secret weapon option (http://www.thesecretweapon.org/). 

[HurakanEspresso 3]

Evernote is amazing, but only as long as you use it for EVERYTHING. Because everything is inside one place, and indexed, and tagged.. you can easily find that one note you wrote down 9 months ago about that little place you wanted to visit... or that amazing fudge recipe that your grandma' gave you... or that list of things you had to buy for the house... or that receipt for those headphones you bought and you need it now because they're broken.

 

Evernote does a lot of things, and it doesn't do them perfectly, but when it becomes your only app to manage all of your life data, then the magic happens.

 

Also, the optical recognition within pictures is pretty amazing. Liked that bottle of wine? Take a picture of the label within Evernote. Evernote will recognize and index the text on the label... Later on, you want to buy it again but you only remember that it was a syrah... no problem, you search for "syrah" and it will return all these bottles you took a picture of and had "syrah" written on it.

 

Doing research for your next trip? With the Webclip extension, you can easily capture all those hotels and restaurants and museums you wanted to visit, easily and effortlessly.

 

Plus, as others pointed out, its truely multiplatform. Everything syncs from your Mac to your iPhone to your iPad, but also to any Android device, any PC... Plus, everything is accessible from their website, so if you're at a friend's house, you forgot your phone but still need to access that note.. you can do it.

 

You can use note links to tie two notes together, like you would do on the web.

 

So yeah, Evernote is really amazing. But as with many users, I didn't "get it" the first time around, and was failing to really appreciate its value. It's really when I started using it for everything, without exception, that the magic happened... I am now an Evernote fan, and I no longer forget anything....

 

 

[RobD 47]

I too had tried EN twice in the past and for whatever reason it just didn't work for me at that time.  I'm back now for the 3rd time and I think I'm here to stay.  The clincher for me was the integration between my Livescribe Wifi Sky pen and EN.  My notes, both written and audio are now synced enterprise wide.

[anjoschu 67]

Evernote means very different things for different people.

 

For me, it's the promise to finally have everything in one place. Receipts, plans, ideas, documents... All available through one search field. Yes, I know Spotlight and Dropbox and all the other nice applications on OS X and iOS, but this is different. Now, I have spotlight-like access to all my information on my iPhone, iPad, Mac, and at work through the web interface. Through one single search field.

 

I changed my way of handling new information as well. Now, when I stumble across information or ideas that might be interesting in the future, I simply save ("capture") them in Evernote and am sure I'll find them when I want to come back to them. I don't have to make the choice whether to make a bookmark, or create an "Ideas for later" file on my hard drive, or a todo in the reminders application. I will not remember this choice in nine months anyway, which reduces the chances of finding the information when I need it. If the information exists - at all -, I can find it in Evernote.

 

P.S.: There are exceptions to this rule (as always ;-)): I don't duplicate my e-mails in Evernote, I maintain my contacts in Apple's Contacts application, and I maintain my schedule in Calendar.

[TechBarber 100]

Last night I received a certificate in the mail for the extended warranty on my washing machine. It was very official-looking and it said right across the top "do not misplace this document". 

 

I put it into my file cabinet (which is very small by the way), and then immediately scanned it into Evernote. Now, in the event my house burns down or my computer explodes, I will still have a copy of that document in the cloud.

 

Never mind the fact that if my house burns down my washing machine will be gone too. 

 

Anyway, Evernote's best use in my opinion, is storing documents like this. Six months from now when my washing machine breaks I can type "Washing machine" into the Evernote search box and boom, there it is.  

 

It's the save-to-Evernote-boom-there-it-is that I find so useful. No rifling through file boxes or stacks of paper - everything is in one place and searchable.

 

Also, feel free to use #SaveToEvernoteBoomThereItIs on these forums. I won't be offended. 

[logandb 227]

Last night I received a certificate in the mail for the extended warranty on my washing machine. It was very official-looking and it said right across the top "do not misplace this document". 

 

I put it into my file cabinet (which is very small by the way), and then immediately scanned it into Evernote. Now, in the event my house burns down or my computer explodes, I will still have a copy of that document in the cloud.

 

Never mind the fact that if my house burns down my washing machine will be gone too. 

 

Anyway, Evernote's best use in my opinion, is storing documents like this. Six months from now when my washing machine breaks I can type "Washing machine" into the Evernote search box and boom, there it is.  

 

It's the save-to-Evernote-boom-there-it-is that I find so useful. No rifling through file boxes or stacks of paper - everything is in one place and searchable.

 

Also, feel free to use #SaveToEvernoteBoomThereItIs on these forums. I won't be offended. 

 

For me, this is one of the seemingly straightforward, but most essential uses for me.  The Page Camera has helped me enormously with this too, saving having to fire up the scanner every time something comes in.  If I simply need a readable facsimile of the document, I take a snap and it's done!

[cynwren 9]

The things that immediately came to mind when I read the OP were:

1.  everything on one place, no need to remember which app I used to store a bit of info I need to retrieve.  Plus when I search for an item in Evernote I will also be reminded of other, related notes that might be helpful vs. going to Pages to fetch the pages document, and forgetting about the relevant web clip or PDF or whatever stored elsewhere.

2.  search capabilities - regardless of format, from pictures to notes to attachments 

3. cross- platform and web access - notes available to me everywhere in a nice interface

 

These have all been mentioned and described well by previous posters.  One more that's a big deal to me, that has been alluded to but not described in detail:

4. Tools for linking related information.  It's kind of like the benefits of having everything in one place (#1) but more direct and pre-planned.  For example, I love being able to put a meeting agenda and prework documents and either all together on one note or (if there's a lot of info or I want to tag some items differently) in linked notes.  Then I can bring up that one note while I'm in the meeting and have all the necessary documents in front of me regardless of what format they're in.  I can also take notes during the meeting in the same note if I want to.

 

I used to have docs in EN, Dropbox and Pages/Numbers but I was forever looking in the wrong app for what I wanted.  So I went "all in" with Evernote and as others said, that's when the magic happened.  That said, I do still use OmniFocus and iCal for reminders and task/time management.  It's info storage that I choose to consolidate in EN.

 

Edited to add: as you can see from this comment, I would say Evernote's main value to me is fast, efficient info retrieval.  Note taking is a common but secondary use.  I use a lot of different tools to create content (including EN), one tool to store and retrieve it.

[May 268]

Evernote is my external memory.

a quote from Inc. magazine:

"Libin has different ways of explaining it: It's your brain offloaded to a server. It's Google for the Web of your life"

The ideal solution is to keep all information organized in a single place because then you have to search only in a single place

Evernote makes this possible.

[May 268]

Though it's kinda hard to fully explain the appeal of evernote now that I'm so used to it, it's literally like my brain.

"Don't know what you got till it's gone"

lol

[May 268]

Btw I obviously looked up that Phil Libin quote in Evernote

If it weren't for Evernote I would have never remembered it (among all kinds of other things) lol.

I can look up all kinds of stuff... For example what exactly I ate 2 years ago. Prescription for my eyeglasses. Some tips I saved for myself on how to render out a movie in After Effects. That photo from Thailand. Wishlist of books I want to read. Etc.

I could go on forever really... It's literally my external memory.

How do you do that with any other app? You can probably do all of that by storing data in all kinds of different apps... but then it's not anywhere near as convenient.

[WishIWasFishin 13]

To me ... Evernote is a backup to my brain.  It stores documents that I know I have, but seldom can remember exactly where I have them.  With EN, and a computer or personal device, I can retrieve that information fairly quickly no matter where I am.

[mdsd77 12]

Heck just seeing this thread made me realize how important EN is to me - even though I have used it minimally but often, I now realize I should be using it almost as my only go to app.

 

have a song I am writing? - boom hit the record button and lay down some riffs and words

 

have a bet I make with buddies sitting around - Boom record it live and they can't argue the BET ! - you should see the look on their faces when 

 I whip out the recording - ends the damn argument right there and then when they remember we recorded it.

 

always have my football pool / golf pool whatever right with me - hell I photo my golf score cards - and just about everything other important document or membership card - credit cards etc... which are password protected..(even photo coupons and stores take them right off my phone!)

 

at a store and see something -? photo and record a comment in one note and share or save for future reference

 

I send/share everything I do with other apps to EN - this is a great option

 

it is its own platform - the ONE GOTO platform -   they even have an add on to tell me where I parked my car, I use it for hiking as well.

 

could sit here and go on and on but I just thought of a passage to put in one of the many books I am writing - all stored on EN !  

 

in a Nutshell - its the One stop place for all your needs really - and it just keeps getting better... Rock On EN !

[May 268]

Some articles that answer this exact question

http://lifehacker.com/5964285/whats-all-the-fuss-about-evernote-why-do-people-use-it

http://lifehacker.com/5989980/ive-been-using-evernote-all-wrong-heres-why-its-actually-amazing