Falling in love with Evernote

Until I rooted my Nook Color, I didn’t really give much thought to the conversations and blog posted swirling around me about Evernote.  I couldn’t really see what the hubbub was about.

Then, last week, I rooted my NC (meaning, I got a memory card that makes it a fully functioning Android tablet).  I noticed the Evernote app in the Google Play store, so I downloaded it, since I like downloading apps.

After installing it, I asked around and saw that many folks used it on a daily basis.  They used it to keep track of recipes, genealogy documents, articles they’ve enjoyed, etc.    They could save things on their PC or laptop and review them on the tablet and vice versa.

I installed the PC version and then set out to figure Evernote out.  First, I created some notebooks.  I created some for genealogy research and some for blogging.

Next, I tried to work with it.  It put a little elephant icon in my Firefox toolbar, so I figured pressing that would do something.  I brought up an obituary I had saved to my bookmarks.  I clicked on the elephant.  A little window came up.  I picked a notebook, added a tag, and added a comment about the obituary.  I save the entire article by clicking the Clip Article button.  (I could also choose to clip the URL only)

I went back to see what I had done.  My article is in the notebook I saved it to.  And, it saved the URL too.  Awesome!

I did some more saving to Evernote.  Then called it a day.

Later, I decided to check my NC to see if the same articles I saved were listed there too.  I couldn’t remember if I had linked them together, but I am assuming I did.

I opened the Evernote app, opened the notebooks I was working in, and there were my articles.  Magic!

I can see how this will be beneficial to me.  First, I keep up a couple of blogs and website.  Often, I save the URL to my bookmarks so I can refer to it when I’m writing an blog entry or article.  But, half the time I couldn’t find them because the name saved wasn’t anything I recognized.  I’ve never been good at organizing my bookmarks.  It hasn’t been an effective tool for me.  Now, I can save those links and articles to the notebook for the blog or website I want to use them on.

I’ve applied the same method for genealogy research.  Before I would copy and paste a record like an obituary to email and email it to myself.   Or, I would save it to my bookmarks.  And, then I would forget that I’d done it.  Now, I save it to a notebook on Evernote.  When I’m ready to input, I can go to the notebook and there is the page I want to reference complete with the URL if I need it.

I’m going to go through my old bookmarks and organize these things.  Genealogy documents are only helpful if you can find them.  Lots of work to do, but this is going to be worth it!  I’m sold on Evernote!

If you’d like to learn more about Evernote, visit their website:  Evernote