Mountains of papers, emails, letters, notes, reports, drawings my kids made for me, receipts and lots and lots of other logistical crud. How to store it all and keep it organized? There’s one app that can do it all. Just about. I use it on my smart phone and laptop every day.  And of course I use it on my iPad I don’t have.

Here is a general overview of some cool features and what I use this app for so far. “So far” because the more I learn about this app, the more I realize how much more I can do with it.
O.k. enough suspense.
Drum roll….

Evernote.

Yep, that’s it. That’s the app.

This app is slowly but surely taking the place of  a lot of traditional tools I use.

I use it for journaling, notes, ideas, brainstorming, shopping lists with check boxes, saving my kids pictures and lots of other stuff.

A friend of mine even writes his books using Evernote as he commutes to work.  He just lays his notes out on the passenger seat, and starts orally recording through his iPhone as Evernote transcribes what he’s saying.

Here are some features I like about it, and some of the secret sauce you may have not heard about.

1. It’s free and it works on Mac/PC and iOS/Android.

There is a paid version that allows more data to be synced per month and some other perks, but so far I have been happily using the free version, and have not yet needed to upgrade.

If you have a Mac or iPhone, then just head to the App store.  If you use an Android phone or Windows, then you can easily download the app from Google Play or download the program for windows on the Evernote site.

2. Tags. Forget about folders.

On my computer I’m sort of a folder freak. I put everything in folders and sub folders. I have to say however, Tags just really trump folders in a lot of ways.  Anytime you create a note, you can tag it.  And you can create any tags you want like “shopping lists” or “meeting notes” that you can use to tag relevant notes with.  These tags help sort notes according to tags.  So if I have thousands of notes but I want to only see shopping lists, I can click on the “shopping lists” tag and only notes tagged with that tag will show up.  The thing I like about tags for organizing notes compared to folders is that a note can have multiple tags whereas a file cannot exist in two different folders simultaneously. For example I have a tag called “Internship”.  But what if I have a note that really would be good to sort as an “Internship” note, but also as a “meeting notes” note also?  Well, if I was using papers in folders I would have to choose one or the other folder to store the file. With tags, I could just add both the “internship” tag and the “meeting notes” tag to the same note.  This way that same note will show up under either of those tags.

3.  Go paperless.

Many people are using Evernote to go completely paperless. When they go through their mail, they simply scan the important stuff and put in Evernote with relevant tags. No more keeping thousands of bills and letters. Their new home is the trash basket while the documents are well organized and stored in Evernote where they can be accessed from virtually any device anywhere.

4.  Never underestimate the power of a… NOTE.

When you think of a “note” you probably think of a little piece of paper with a list of what to buy at the grocery store. Or a simple file with primal unformatted text. In Evernote however a note can contain just about anything. Literally. You can store absolutely any type of file within a note.  That could be a website, a video, a picture, a document, a spreadsheet, an audio recording etc. So basically you can use “notes” in Evernote as containers to organize just about anything you have on your devices. (There is a size limit however)

5.  A Search Engine with X-ray vision.

The search engine of Evernote works so well, you could probably get by without even using tags. X-ray vision? Well not really, but the feature I’m about to tell you about is just about as impressive as x-ray vision. The evernote search engine can search text within images. For example you visit a cafe called “Cafe Barista Italia” and you take a picture of the sign outside and save it in Evernote in case you forget the name.   Even if you didn’t add any text, if you do a search for “cafe” Evernote will find that image, because Evernote like us humans can read text in images.

That’s just a few features that I like.

And, once again, if you really want to get the most out of this phenomenal app, make sure you read Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly.  It’s really worth it.  I’ve almost finished reading it and I am very impressed.

So, are you a paper person or a digital person?  In any case you may want to give Evernote a try.   :)

Feel free to comment below.