I've been living with Evernote for a bit and really really (did I say really) love it. Evernote is the first piece of software that works the way my brain fails to work AND built into Evernote are the means to harness the schizo-manic-popcorn nature of my mind. I can access my "stuff" anywhere I can access the internet, and I can add things to it with my Iphone. I'm using Evernote for three things; Research, Notes, and Document Storage. Me show you.


Research: I'm into way too many things. I love making music and design and art and film and writing and photography and etc etc etc. I want to work in, dabble in, monkey with and be involved in all of these things, but this does not a productive person make (alas.) I have files and documents and images, sketches, half-done book covers... In general, I can't ever find what I want to, I lose web links, I can't find that pic of the purple and gold cut-paper flower thing I wanted to remember, or the amazing interior I want to save for inspiration. Even when I save images or bookmarks, sorting through them can be counter-productive. In comes Evernote. Whatever I'm doing: browsing design sites, taking pics of locations I want to remember or compiling information about a subject I want to write about, I throw it into Evernote (into a notebook of like subjects,) tag it, and there you go. When I want to find it again I search by the name I gave it (if I remember) or by the tags I assigned to it or even just browse the notebook I put it in (click image below for a larger view of my "design" notebook.)



Notes: My wife thinks it's funny how I write lists. I don't know why, but I work things out making lists. I can get my lists off napkins and get them up on Evernote, I can even record snippets of songs I'm working on or record my father-in-law's astonishing snoring in the night at Red Rock Canyon and upload these files to Evernote for later use (hilarity and efficiency together at last.



Document Storage: My mind likes new, unexpected chaos. This means I can never find that manual for the delay pedal I bought a year ago, never find the list I wrote of songs I want to get posted to Pump Audio; the sad tale jumbles on. Evernote takes this problem and gives me a centralized place to store it all. What replacement water filter goes in my fridge? Search Evernote for the word "refrigerator," or browse through the "manual" tags or whatever. Found. Search the "music" notebook for lyrics to one of my songs? Found again. Me like.

Another amazing thing is the text recognition in photos. It doesn't always work for me (I have horrible handwriting) but it gets it right enough to make this a very compelling feature.

It's not perfect, but for me it's very near perfection; it's like someone asked me what I really wanted in an app and then built it. I actually feel less burdened by the many things I want to keep tabs on, and that gives me more creative "juice" to put towards whatever whim I'm chasing at the moment. So for that I have to tip my many hats to the good folks at Evernote. Bravo...

Labels: art, design, Evernote, music, writing