Capture - Manage - Remember
Your notebooks are searchable ( by key word, by tags or by title) so it is very easy to find a note previously made.
You can share a note via message, twitter, Facebook, mail, (or other apps ) or you can copy or print your note.
You can send or forward emails to your Evernote account. For example, if you receive an email with a meeting itinerary, you can forward the email to your appropriate notebook ready to make notes or action points during the meeting.
When you create a notebook you have the option to share the notebook either as a public notebook or with nominated people. If you share with someone who doesn’t have an Evernote app, then they can access Evernote via their web browser.
The main point about Evernote is that all your notes are in one place, grouped and (hopefully) organised. The notes are on the cloud so don't take up storage space on your iPad or phone.
What do I use Evernote for?
Business uses:
* In meetings I often make a brief note of an item of interest or make specific notes relevant to a particular task. After the meeting I will dictate (or write) my thoughts on the meeting. This makes it easy to review the minutes of the meeting or to refer to the notes if there is any discussion relevant to the topics discussed.
* I will start project outlines in Evernote. It is easy to create a new notebook or tag and make notes about the project. Later, review of the note in Evernote allows me to extract the main salient points to a fuller project plan.
* I will create specific to do lists (mini projects) as an aide memoire.
* I will photograph receipts for minor expenses and can attach a note of the purpose of the spending and who was with me at the time.
* I take clips of web pages as ideas for projects or articles and insert them into a note.
Personal uses:
* I keep notes on holiday plans eg places to visit on a weekend trip to Paris and keep web clips of flight prices etc.
* I create lists of gifts for Christmas, birthdays, holidays etc. (you can make a bullet list, a checklist or a numbered list).
* I keep PDF copies of insurance documents in a notebook. These can be referred to or printed as required.
* I take photos of meals to keep as recipe ideas.
Other
*If I was more collaborative I could keep notes in a notebook and have an assistant organise or act on the notes using the sharing feature.
I have saved several search parameters which allows a quick repeat of a search. eg find all notes created in the last week; find all notes with a specific tag; find all notes with no tag attached.
Why use Evernote?
It is good to keep notes in one place. In the physical world I tend to have lots of notes all over the place. It is good to have notes in one place and, assuming I maintain a systematic notebook and tagging system, I can always find what I need.
The free service from Evernote has most of the features that I need in a note taking app. (except the offline notebook).
However there are upgrades.
For £35 per year you can upgrade to a premium account which gives 1Gb of content per month (from 60mb), attachments up to 100mb per note, searchable PDFs, and offline notebooks. This is especially usefull if -like me- you use the iPad. (There are other features - see the Evernote site) Evernote.com.
If you have business needs for Evernote, there is now a business version which gives more collaboration tools, Business notebooks and Business libraries.
This service costs £8 per user per month. I think it is worthwhile investigating this service as it would cost less than £1,000 per year for a 10 person company. Think of the savings that can be made in IT admin, and business servers let alone the benefits of closer collaboration.
See Evernote.com/business/features.