Evernote can be anything to anyone or everything to everyone. With ubiquity that borders on infinite, for those that don’t want to dive into any other apps and simply master Evernote, you can make Evernote all you need to get things done.
But how?
It’s the versatility and flexibility that Evernote offers that makes it incredibly simple to do.
First off, Evernote is available for almost every single platform on the planet – even paper. That’s right…paper. Whether you want to access your Evernote data from the web, your computer, or your mobile device, as long as you have an Internet connection it will sync across all platforms. And if you don’t have a connection, you can add things and it will sync up the next time you do. With the addition of Evernote’s Smart Notebook (through a partnership with Moleskine), you can even enter your notes on paper and then use your mobile device to take a photo of the pages and they will become part of your Evernote data.
Secondly, the pricing for Evernote makes the barrier to entry exceedingly low. Even if you decide to forego the free account option, the premium pricing won’t break your bank and you’ll get a lot more storage as a result. So if you decide you want to store a ton of PDFs or photos in Evernote, you can if you’ve upgraded to their premium offering.
Evernote’s ubiquity doesn’t end within the service, either. I use IFTTT to send my favourited tweets there, I use Evernote to capture items for IQTELL (which syncs up with Evernote quite nicely), and I use Postbox in conjunction with it as well. In addition, zendone has made Evernote a key component in their task management system. The other offerings of the Evernote team include the following:
All of these integrate seamlessly with the main application. That means that you can use Evernote hello as your contact manager, Evernote Food as a way to keep track of your favourite recipes and eating spots, and so on, knowing that everything gets filed within Evernote – and you can get it at it anywhere you want.
Should you not want to integrate anything beyond the Evernote suite of products with the main product, that’s doable as well. You can still get things done by rolling your own system or using something like The Secret Weapon. Evernote’s flexibility and versatility is on full display the more you get familiar with it as you can pick and choose how you want to integrate with your life. Want to use it to journal? It’ll do that. Want to use it as a household inventory management system? No problem. Want to make it your primary writing tool? Evernote can do that, too. And you can share things like grocery lists with your significant other should you want to keep a shared notebook for such things – like my wife and I do. My wife isn’t exactly the most tech-savvy of people, and she gets what Evernote can do, so if you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t spend a ton of time examining apps, Evernote is an ideal choice for them.
The things Evernote can do are nearly limitless. The Evernote team continues to develop and support all they offer, as evidenced with their recent iOS and Mac app overhauls. Evernote really can be all you need to get things done. But even if you don’t want it for that, you really need to have it anyway. Because you just never know when it will come in handy.
Trust me on that.
(My friend Brett Kelly has put together a stellar book called Evernote Essentials. He knows way more than I do about Evernote, so do yourself a favour and get yourself a copy of this e-book. It’s helped me with Evernote big-time — and it will definitely do the same for you. Another great option is Daniel Gold’s e-book, which you can check out here.)
