Two guest posts from Evernote addicts like me

I’ve been pretty clear on this blog about how much I love Evernote.  I wrote about it in the Products I Loved in 2009 post and its listed in the My Tools section of this blog.  It’s the one app I can’t live without.  I use it on my laptop, my iPhone and yes, my iPad.  I store receipts in it, take notes with it, save things to read later, I record audio from meetings…I pretty much max it out.

I decided to ask my Twitter community if there were any other Evernote-obsessed folks out there and I got a few hits.  I asked them to if they wanted to tell my readers how they use the tool and they happily obliged.  So here they are, hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did!

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Evernote, you complete me. By Ward Silver

Information professionals have a name for the post-it notes our mind generates
continuously and ever-increasingly every moment of every day: ephemera. A Wikipedia
description calls it “transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or
preserved… the class of published single-sheet or single page documents which are
meant to be thrown away after one use.”

Both infuriatingly uncontrollable and necessarily precious, these scatterlings of our ripe
imagination have long searched for a place to call home; a vacation home if you will,
somewhere to go for reflection, to gain perspective from the confoundingly linear, literal,
methodical working world that damns the right-brain with faint praise.

In my world, that dwelling has a welcome mat in the form of an icon that says “Add to
Evernote.” No matter where I am online, I can capture the page, or select an object, or a
block of text, and instantly create a new (Ever)note. With the mobile app loaded on my
robotic underlord Droid, I can easily dictate an audio note, or snap a pic as a visual
reminder, and it will be added to my Collecta Ephemera (that’s my appellation, btw).

So great, now we’ve created a virtual repository for all the cerebral chuff and shiny
objects that would have otherwise sent us spiraling downward in unproductive digression.
Of course, Evernote never intended to design an intellectual attic where once-useful and
entertaining things are sent to ultimately be forgotten.

No. As I see it Evernote represents (with others) the leading edge in what might be called
Personal Knowledge Assistant applications. Why, because it appeals to our desire for
order and utility? Well sure. But more important, it is semantic and it plays (nicely) by
your rules. Create tags for your notes. Group these tagged notes in multiple notebooks.
Browse and select from the tag list sidebar. Alternately, a simple keyword search will
return all occurrences of your term, whether it’s a tag or not.

Right now it’s baby steps for these PKAs. Early adopters understand the more they put
into it (tagging), the more useful it will be. One assumes Evernote gets where personal
information management is going and will be tweaking the app regularly. Ultimately we
all win by using these tools, as substantive, contextualized data recall grows more
precise, personalized, and at our digital fingertips.

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My Favorite Uses of Evernote… By Randy Arrowood

1) Meeting Notes – using whatever device is closest or most appropriate, Evernote is the finest way to capture meeting notes and share with others

2) Quick Reference – when i find the hidden answer to an issue, it’s great to have a central repository to store the URL and excerpt, also a great way to store instructions or quick reference information you regularly need

3) Frequent Copy-Paste Buffer – great place to hold common text snippets like web form content (eBay standard payment terms) and terminal commands (find

4) On-The-Go Voice Memo – make a mental note of things… tag and type more details once stopped

5) Looking Cool – looking like someone that knows what they are doing… evernote is a great part of a productive and integrated life (http://techdrawl.com/Geekery-D/Press-Played/From-Desktop-To-iPad-Seamless-Productivity-Apps-That-Will-Make-Your-Head-Explode)

I’m a huge fan.  — more from Randy here…