Using Evernote: Key Features

Using Evernote is back! Today’s post has a lot of information, so it’s okay if not all of this works for you and your system of Evernote. One of the great things about Evernote is the arability of apps. There’s the web browser, your desktop app, your iOS and android platforms, I think there’s one for Windows, too, but don’t quote me on that.

The point is, almost anywhere you go, you have the ability to be connected to Evernote. You can even back up your notebooks for offline use (with a premium or plus subscription), and use them even when you think you can’t.
Using Evernote for notes and only notes is great, but Evernote has several great features that can help enhance your productivity, and I’m going to break down my favorites.

Web Clipper

The web clipper is a super powerful tool, and I love it. You can clip notes from the web, take screenshots, and organize the note (add it to a notebook and tag it), all in the web. You can use it to save the page of a product you want on Amazon. I love to save articles to a notebook so I can read them, distraction, free on my tablet. You can also add the web clipper to your iOS devices and your android devices, though it works a little bit differently on each. Steve Dotto (a fantastic Evernote resource) has a video on setting the web clipper up on both iOS and android. The possibilities are endless, and if you want to see a little bit more about it, I talked about it in my post about Evernote last year.

Reminders

Lately, I find myself using reminders more and more often. Now that my to-do list app and  Evernote have cross-platform, first party connection with one another, I can take a note in Evernote, put a reminder on it, and it’ll pop up in my to-do list app (I use Todoist), and I never have to manually add it. For instance, last week, when my friend and I went to the movies, I bought the tickets online the night before, and set a reminder for the time we’d be getting to the theater. Right as we walked up, Evernote popped up and all it took was a swipe to see my movie ticket order.
Reminders in Evernote are nothing fancy, but they sure do get the job done.
[bctt tweet=”Evernote is a great resource, but these key features make it even more fantastic! “]

Email

Every Evernote user gets an email address addressed to them (well, once you’re a plus or premium member). You can forward emails to that address and wahlah! Your email shows up in Evernote. There’s even tricks you can use to make sure it goes to the right notebook or has the right tag. You can see the options here.

Sharing

I haven’t used this one that much, but by all accounts, sharing on Evernote is super easy. You simply add someone’s email and you have it. There’s also a new feature called “Work Chat” where you can chat in Evernote.

Scannable 

Scannable is an extra app from Evernote, but it’s so worth downloading. You simply hold it over your piece of paper, and it picks up the paper from the rest of the picture frame. Now, if you’re like me and you have a super shakey hand, it may not work as well, but it does make your handwriting searchable. You can save things as a document, PDF, a picture, and it can tell when you scan business cards and post-it notes. Yes, Evernote can tell when you take a picture of a post-it note. You can even set it up so that certain colors of post-it notes go to certain notebooks. Haven’t set this up, but I need to.

Skitch

The other extra app that I use from Evernote is Skitch. I don’t know how exactly to describe Skitch, but it takes some kick ass screenshots. You can take a shot of part of the screen, the whole thing, and you can annotate things. It’s like the Web Clipper, but for more than just the web, and much more powerful. I used it to capture screenshots on all my pictures that have laptop mock ups. There’s a mobile app for iOS and android, but I haven’t tried them on either, just on my mac.
These are my favorite features in Evernote, and while I’ve shared mine today, you can obviously get creative and think of many more ways to use the service! What are some of your favorite key features?