Eleven years ago, I wrote on this blog in praise of Evernote:

My life runs on Evernote. It allows me to appear far more organised than I actually am. If anyone ever asks if I have a copy of something, I almost always know that the answer is ‘yes,’ and that I can find it in seconds with a simple search.

I stopped using Evernote many years ago, but I haven’t forgotten what it taught me. Evernote taught me the value of search over filing. I rarely file anything these days because search tools are generally too powerful to bother.

I realise in retrospect that much of the way I used Evernote–despite the above quote–was filing. For example, I would tend to have notes that combined emails and documents about a single topic. I wouldn’t bother with that nowadays: why bother to put all of that together in a single note when I could just search for the bits I need—usually emails—in their original location?

These days, I use OneNote—Evernote’s major competitor—the same way as I used to use a paper notebook: one ‘note’ per day. Anything I need to jot down during the day goes on the note—not in some separate topic-dedicated special folder. It doesn’t need to be filed because it is searchable. The only reason I use OneNote instead of Evernote is because that’s what my employers provide.

Evernote may not have stayed around in my life for long, but it’s clearly had a lasting impact on how I work.

I’ve mentioned on here previously that I’m a massive fan of Evernote, and ScanDrop is the main method by which I get paper stuff into my Evernote account. It’s another program which is brilliant for the fact that it just works. It scans and uploads directly to Evernote. I can specify which notebook I want the resulting note to appear in; I can tag them appropriately; I can even use the software to upload to other cloud services, or just save to my desktop.

ScanDrop doesn’t do anything that I can’t do manually. I could use my scanner’s proprietary software, or even OSX’s Image Capture, and then upload manually. But ScanDrop is an all-in-one solution that just makes life easier.

ScanDrop has a free version available, and works on Windows or Mac. Give it a go!

My life runs on Evernote. Evernote is my virtual filing cabinet, which contains both my work and my life. Evernote means that I can access important documents from anywhere – including my iPhone and iPad. It means that I don’t lose scraps of paper, either because things never make it to paper, or because I scan and upload to Evernote. Evernote means that I can search everything, including all of my scanned documents via OCR. And Evernote is fast, reliable, and has a generous free provision (though I pay for extra storage).

The best bit about Evernote is that it allows me to appear far more organised than I actually am. If anybody ever asks if I have a copy of something, I almost always know that the answer is yes, and I can find it in seconds with a simple search. That’s something that my haphazard filing system (comprising mainly a pile of documents on my desk) could never achieve.

I know that many people are evangelical about Dropbox for similar reasons to my Evernote evangelism. I understand why people love Dropbox, and I use it myself (mainly for backing up certain files that aren’t in my Evernote), but Evernote is something slightly different. I could replicate my Evernote organisation with a hierarchy of folders, but it wouldn’t feel the same, mainly because it would be displayed differently. I like that a note can contain multiple files as well as text – admittedly, a folder could do the same, but not in the same integrated way.

I was very sceptical about Evernote at first, but thought I’d give it a go. I was sold mainly on the search and anywhere-access capabilities, but have come to appreciate the whole way Evernote works. I’d strongly suggest giving it a go, and seeing if Evernote might just fit into your life and workflow.

This is my Livescribe pen and current notebook. I use them all the time, and think they’re pretty fantastic.

My life revolves around Evernote, and Livescribe means that I can upload everything I write without the hassle of scanning everything in. Evernote also does pretty good OCR on my handwritten notes, making them fully searchable. On occasion, the audio recording function of the pen also comes in handy, especially in complex meetings.

Basically, it’s a brill system that I use all the time and highly recommend!