If you’re like most of us, you write yourself notes to remind you of things. Things to do. Things to buy. Things to tell other people. Things you see on the Internet. You write these messages on sticky notes and scratch paper. Maybe you type some of them into documents on your computer. Perhaps you jot them down on the palm of your hand. But later, when you need to find them, it seems like an alien has snatched them and hidden them away.
Sound familiar?
Prepare to be amazed by Evernote, a free note-taking, picture-capturing, voice-recording, handwriting-recognizing memory service that lets you capture, organize, and (most importantly) FIND all your important stuff. The CEO of the company calls it your “external brain.”
In its first year of operation, Evernote signed up 770,000 users and won Mashable’s 2008 Open Web Awards for Best Mobile Application and TechCrunch’s 2008 Crunchies Best Mobile Startup. There are versions for the MAC and the PC as well as the iPhone, iTouch, and Windows mobile. There’s also a version you can use with SanDisk U3 flash drives. There’s even a Mozilla extension designed for use with Firefox and Flock browsers.
Here are just some of the things you can capture:
- Copies of all those sticky notes piled on your desk
- Pictures from your webcam or camera phone
- Photos of business cards
- Pictures of expense receipts
- Text notes
- Clippings of web pages
- Voice notes or other audio
You store these items in virtual “notebooks” and you can synchronize all your data (with one simple click) across all your devices so you can access it from virtually anywhere. In my opinion, the best feature is that all the saved items are searchable. So now I can get rid of all the scraps of paper that I keep on top of and close to my desk. You know, the ones that just have to be out in “plain sight” to make sure I can find them, but which inevitably get buried or otherwise obscured by more important things.
I’m really excited about the advanced search capabilities of Evernote. It can search through text and handwriting in images; that’s why I can snap pictures of the sticky notes and be confident that I’ll be able to find them when I need them. I don’t know of any other free or inexpensive software that can do this.
It can also search audio files and recognize spoken words that you’re looking for. Now, for example, I can quickly find all the recordings I have where I discuss self-employment taxes.
Do you see why I think this is the coolest organizational tool I’ve seen this year?
Evernote supports these formats now: text, html, pdf, jpeg, gif, png, wav, and mp3 and will likely be adding more in the future. You can send snapshots from most popular cell phones via email or MMS. If you don’t have a camera or scanner or you’re feeling somewhat technically challenged, you can still take advantage of Evernote’s powerful searching capabilities. Just type a note in an email message and send it to the special Evernote address you get when you sign up.
Their free account gives you 40 MB storage per month, enough for about 20000 text notes or 400 mobile snapshots, 270 web clips, 40 audio notes or 11 high resolution photos. Need more? A premium account gives you 500 MB for $5/mo or $45 /yr.
Your notes are stored in a notebook that’s set to be private by default, but you can share it with other people by giving them the URL. You can have multiple notebooks. It’s so loaded with features that I haven’t had time yet to try them all out, but what I’ve seen so far is quite impressive.
One of their newest features looks particularly appealing now that it’s tax time (in the US). Evernote has teamed up with Shoeboxed, a service that will scan all your business cards and receipts and make them available to you on-line. You can send any of the content that you’ve shoeboxed to your Evernote account and presto, it’s now searchable.
Shoeboxed isn’t free, but you can get a free trial.
How do you think a free Evernote account could help you be more productive? Please share your ideas by leaving a comment.
Sheryl Schuff is a Certified Public Accountant and founder of the Business Startup Success Club. She specializes in consulting with solopreneurs about business formation, taxes, recordkeeping, and technology. She’s the author of “Save$100’s in Taxes With a Home Office Deduction,” and “How to Get Your Business On-Line for Under $10.”
