I am a forgetful person. If I don't write something down within a few minutes of hearing it, it's as good as gone.
Thankfully, Evernote has alleviated a lifelong habit of scribbling notes on whatever paper is at hand.
Evernote is a better way to take notes. Users sign up for a free account and download the app, which is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and web browser. After that, creating notes is easy, just open a new note and start writing.
The use of Evernote lies in its organization and universality. I can write myself notes from my iPhone to check later on my MacBook, or bring them to meetings on my Android tablet. It also means I can't possibly lose my notes, barring a natural disaster destroying Evernote's servers.
Users can file everything into separate notebooks and add tags within the notes for further organization. For example, I added an "ideas" tag to my note of story ideas for The Plainsman and my note listing blog post ideas.
Evernote is also smart enough to recognize contexts and offer related notes. When I start composing a note listing movies on Netflix I still need to watch, it starts suggesting my note of movies I plan to watch with friends.
With all this, Evernote can become a catch-all productivity tool. I can compose stories for The Plainsman on my laptop in Evernote and not worry about hard drive crashes since everything is synced to the cloud.
I can also keep checklists of items within notes, making it even easier to keep track of sources to contact and interviews to pursue.
I also like that Evernote is free. Users can upgrade to a premium account for $5 per month for storing large files in notes, annotating PDFs and searching within scanned images, but most users won't need those features. They seem mainly aimed at corporate clients.
Evernote has a lot of useful features, but sometimes it veers into unnecessary complexity. Options such as location-tagged notes are a bit much for users who just want a way to jot down notes on the go.
For someone who wants a simpler note-taking app, Apple's built-in Notes app (iOS, Mac) or Google Keep (Android, Chrome) are faster and easier to understand.
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