If you’re a smartphone owner, then you’re likely aware of Evernote. The note-taking app has steadily grown to one of the most utilized and versatile apps available.
Though Evernote is powerful and robust, many have trouble getting started when it comes to actually using the app beyond basic to-do lists. Having been using it for sometime, I thought I’d pass on some quick tips for getting started so that you too can unlock the magical power of Evernote.
Evernote Quick Tips
Tags
Tags are used like keywords to quickly reference material and notes stored within Evernote. They make finding notes related to the same topic easy and help to organize your notes with very little effort.
The trick with tags is to utilize them wisely. Overuse can kill your productivity while sparse use will leave your notes cluttered. When creating tags, envision their future use to determine continued tagging. If recurring use of the tag is unlikely, then don’t create the tag. Instead, create a Notebook which will organize those random thoughts. More on Notebooks later.
Essential Evernote Tags:
- Calendar Months: Month tags are an excellent way of tracking notes referencing past business and appointments.
- Year: Create tags with the current year and subsequent years to help with archival of notes.
- to_buy & to_read: Consider these tags when storing notes from webpages or retailers.
- Social Tags: If you’re a social maven, then try using tags for social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc.
- Travel
- Approved & Rejected: Great for anyone who’s involved in a lot of proposals or in a decision making position. Having an accepted tag seems logical, but having a rejected tag means saving the nonstarter ideas so that time isn’t wasted on repeat ideas.
- Action: Have something that needs to get done or on a timeline? An action tag could be just what you need.
- *frequent: Frequent is just an example, but if you have a tag that you want quick reference to, then add a * in front of it to place it at the top of your tag list.
- Small business owners may want to explore tags such as advertising, marketing, etc. to keep notes separated even though they may be located in the same notebook.
Learn Evernote: Evernote for Dummies
Notebooks
Notebooks are like folders which most of you should be accustomed to from working with computers. Notebooks store notes which, presumably, are associated with the Notebook title.
Use notebooks liberally. They are the best way to sort your notes and thoughts and over time will positively impact your organization.
Evernote Starter Notebooks:
- @Inbox: Inbox is just an example. Place the @ symbol in front of any Notebook name to place it at the top of your Notebook list. I use @Inbox to store items quickly when I don’t have time to read or consume the information. Later I return and access the @Inbox Notebook and read through the notes, saving, tagging, sorting, deleting as needed.
- Ideas: Found something online that you want to try? An Ideas Notebook is the answer.
- Cuisine: Although Evernote Food is great, it might be more than what some users need. Thus a Cuisine Notebook can handle everything else.
- Evernote: Seems silly right? Not so much. Use this notebook to store all your Evernote tips, how-tos and guides. Tip: Save these tips to your new Evernote Notebook for future reference!
- Receipts: Once you get fully entwined in Evernote, you’ll start to wonder just how far you can push it. Receipts are the perfect spot for storing photos of receipts or digital receipts for safe keeping. Tag them with the year (see above) and suddenly you are organizing your tax year.
- Warranties: No more losing important warranty information.
- Diary: Perfect for jotting down your daily thoughts for safe-keeping.
- Medical: Self-explanatory for the most part, but a great way to track medications and known allergies.
Stacks
At first, Stacks can seem confusing. They are groups of Notebooks which typically fall into similar categories. For example, you may operate your own business and have many notebooks about Social Media, Marketing, Sales and the like. Create a stack with the name of your business and group all those notebooks under your business name Stack.
Stacks are essential for trimming the amount of scrolling through notebooks and an excellent way to separate business from personal.
How To create an Evernote Stack:
- Click or tap the arrow next to a Notebook.
- Click or tap ‘Add to Stack’.
- Click or tap ‘New Stack’ or choose an existing Stack.
Evernote is available for all mobile platforms as well as Windows and Mac computers.
Visit Evernote
If you enjoyed or found this article useful, please show us some support by liking us on Facebook or by sharing us on your favorite social website. Thanks!
Be sure to subscribe to our Newsletter for updates and contest information.