Paper & pencil vs. Evernote

By TRAVIS STEFFEN - Special to The Globe and Mail - Monday, Apr. 08 2013

Curated by Duttry

Now, there are tons of apps, online tools and time management methods out there, but it wasn't until I began experimenting with more nontraditional, seemingly archaic means of managing my time that I truly began to harness the full power of time management. 9 unconventional tips that have helped me manage my time far more effectively:

Ditch the smartphone and use a paper and pen. Just because a method is more technologically advanced does not necessarily make it more effective. In my opinion, nothing beats a good old-fashioned notebook and pen – it’s clunky, annoying, inconvenient and therefore difficult to ignore. I could always place my smartphone in my pocket, and I often do. I can’t put my to-do list notebook in my pocket – nor should I. The annoyance factor is what makes it so powerful.

Use a to-do list template. Since your end goal is to manage your time more effectively, it would be ridiculous to spend a ton of time writing out your most common to-do list items each day. I created my own to-do list template which includes all of my daily tasks. This ensures I don’t spend time writing them down, and I can schedule them in with my more unique tasks that I only have to perform today.

Include even the most menial tasks. On your list, you should include every single solitary thing you do during the day that takes up time. Seriously. I’m talking meals, working out, etc. This is not a business task management list, this is a time management list. If you spend time on things you think you’ll remember on your own, still  include it.

Prioritize your list items. You can often squeeze three or four things into the same amount of time that it would otherwise take you to accomplish just one.

Start your list with 5 small, easy tasks. If I decide to start my day with five quick, simple tasks before tackling my first large list item, I look down at my list about an hour later and I’ve already made a dent. I feel like I’m on a roll, and I’m more likely to ramp up my productivity for the day. For every big list item, perform 3-4 small list items. 

Include a project management grid. Your to-do list not only serves as a way to manage your time during a specific day, but it also keeps you organized and productive across all your projects. If you’re an entrepreneur, juggling multiple projects is often a challenge, and that’s why most people assume it’s more productive to focus on only one project at a time. I disagree with this assumption. I think that you can truly be more productive by juggling multiple projects – if you manage them all effectively. Include a grid on the back of your to-do list devoted to project management, displaying every project in terms of phases of development (i.e. brainstorming, outlining, etc.)

Use shorthand. I use my own form of shorthand to populate my to-do list.

Make tomorrow’s list before today ends.  I take anything I didn't accomplish today and push it to tomorrow, and add new list items in where necessary, based on what tasks I need to perform next. I’ll also then number my first dozen items so I have some direction on what to dive into first.

How about some comments about these ideas!!!!

Another evernote fan - John Morris

From John Morris

For the past couple years, I have rotated what device I take meetings notes on. In some cases, I would use my iPad, my Blackberry, my iPod Touch or my MacBook. In the odd case, I'd resort just to a binder. With so many devices, it means storing a lot of data on different devices.

This can create a data management issue if I do not manage all the data properly. For instance, referencing where I may have stored a certain set of notes can become a problem. And going through the devices can be time consuming. As such, in recent times, I have changed one small component.
As with everything else, syncing it all to "the cloud" is becoming the norm. So I figured I may as well be syncing all my notes so I can access them remotely from different machines without worrying about which device I used to record the notes. So, if I type something into my Blackberry, I can easily bring it up on my iPad.

Welcome Evernote. Evernote is a web application which allows you to take notes on a wide range of devices and then store them remotely or, on the cloud. This way, you always have access to the notes no matter what device you are on.

So, let's say your writing on your iPad notes about a meeting. You then go back to your office. You can then easily access the notes written on your iPad through your office computer. You can then access your private notes through Evernote's application or through the Evernote.com website.
Just think of all those times you've written something down on a napkin and had to retype it out. Now you can do it once and it is available in multiple locations. With Evernote, you can snap a picture of the napkin and then share it inside Evernote.

Oh and did I mention, you don't need access to the internet to utilize Evernote. The applications available allow you to work in online or offline mode!
If sharing your documents is important, you can share your documents with others. This works in the event you wish to share notes on the fly. For me, sharing notes is great when it comes to longer tasks or items. Examples would include a grocery list, things to pickup and etc.
So how much does an application like this cost? Well, the best thing is the price. It's free. You can upgrade to a version that utilizes secure socket layer (SSL).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7463360

Ways to Make Information More Useful with Evernote

About a year ago JD Meier wrote in his blog about "10 Ways to Make Information More Useful"

It was full of ideas but I decided to curate his post specifically for newer Evernote users.

He took an interesting look at information seeing it as a continuum, flowing from data to information to knowledge to insight to wisdom. And I know we all want to be wise. Evernote is is the greatest tool I know of to funnel data down the path to knowledge and simplify information.

Here are some ways he suggests we do that:

1. Be specific. Specific is better than the general. It’s more insightful and you will be more able to take action using the information. One way to be specific is to use examples. Examples make it concrete and they make it real. For example, would you rather know that you could change some practices to improve your health, or would you like to know “9 ways to add 12 years to your life”?

2. Make it “glance and go” over “stop and stare.” One of the tests  is to think, “I don’t want to work too hard.” If somebody shows you something, and you have to work hard to parse the point, it’s not working. As one of my JD's mentors told him, “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”
3. Make a visual. As Confucius said, "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." If you want a point in a note to pop, visual is the way to go. The trick is to keep it simple and focused. You can test your visual by asking, “What’s the point?” If you don’t know what question the visual is answering, then it’s probably not working. Don’t make it visual, just because you can.
4. Say it in a sticky way. Writing things down makes it easy to over-complicated things. Read it out loud. The way to find sticky points is to say it out loud until you find a way that resonates. By saying things out loud, you can find the right cadence and the right linguistic simplicity. Dr. Sues and Yoda had a way with words. A just in time rhyme will do it every time. A test is, can other people tell your story for you. You want your words to be contagious. Related to this is the idea -- “Use a Metaphor.” Metaphors are sticky and they are one of the best ways to communicate an idea (if you can find the right one.)
5. Separate the view of when you use the information from the producer view while creating the note. It’s cliché to say, “Know your audience”, but it’s so true. You really have to answer the question, “Who is this information for?” That will take care of a lot of obvious problems when telling or selling your information. But here is the non-obvious thing … make your perspective explicit. If you are looking through the lens of a user or customer or producer or system, just say so. So many arguments start out simply because people don’t state what perspective or position they are speaking from. I’ve seen so many people swear up and down how right they are, and of course they are, from that particular perspective. And more people would agree with them, if they simply stated which perspective they are speaking from.If you’ve ever been to a requirements meeting you know exactly what I mean. A little context goes a long way, and perspective is everything.
6. Make surprising insights stand out. If you can answer the question, "What's the surprise?" or “What did you learn that surprised you?” or “What did you learn that you didn’t expect?”, you’ve just found the key to finding insight. The surprise is the prize.
7. Show the simple + complete. Don’t let your best ideas or key points get lost among the sea of complexity or the bane of completeness. You will at some point with Evernote have thousands of notes and maybe even notebooks. Start brief, then elaborate. Have a short list, then a long list. Summarize your long doc with a summary at the top. Have a short deck and a long deck. Have a one-slider, and a full deck. Have a one-page spec, and a full set of specs. Think major notebook, notebooks, notes, tabs, headings of a note etc
8. Turn insight into action. If you can answer the question, "What's the action?" or, "How can I use this?", you go a long way towards gathering more useful information. The translation layer between insight and action is often a tough one. It’s a skill you can quickly get better at though, just by attempting to answer those questions. It’s easy to describe stuff or say a bunch of things about each item you have added to Evernote. It’s tougher to distill, compact, and act on information. That’s where the gold is. That's why you use Evernote
9. Finally, wherever you are looking for something, that’s where it should be. If you have trouble finding information, move it to a more obvious position. Maybe a tab is needed, maybe an new notebook with specific information contained therein.

  

Livescribe Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen review by makeuseof

Livescribe Sky Wi-Fi Smartpen review

This smartpen works exclusively with Evernote, which is probably the most popular webservice for creating notes and archiving all your data.  For full review go to: 

http://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/mail?view=msg&id=315760

makeuse of has a free Evernote users guide They tell us to click on the following link download our free guide to Evernote. And with all downloads from them, always use this password for all downloads: makeuseof

Putting books away you don't want to forget about

Recently I was organizing my den and realized it was filled with book I would not be getting to for awhile. I had a hard time deciding to move then to a box out of the way in the garage. I knew as soon as I did that I would want to get one of them for a reference. And at least look at the Table of Contents to see what can be found in the book. Then, bam, the idea hit me. 

Make an Evernote notebook called Books in the Garage and then take a picture with my smartphone of the cover and then the table of contents of books I want cleared from my den. Send the pictures to my Index notebook in Evernote. Click on one of the pictures and shift click on the second one. A window opens up  allowing you to merge the two notes into one. Now place the new note containing the new combined note into the books in the garage notebook, getting a good amount of space for new books. Oh no, here we go again. More books to record and put in Evernote.

Chrome's Evernote Web Clipper very powerful

Chrome's Evernote Web Clipper

Forget about bookmarks and open tabs, save the actual web page - text, links, images and all with a single click. Chrome clipper even lets you search through your notes.

Select one of the following ways to move web page material into Evernote:

• Article clips: Click the extension when viewing a blog or news site, and it will automatically save the whole article
• Selection clips: Highlight the text, links and images that you
 want to save, then click the extension
• Full page clips: Grab the entire page with a single click
• Links only: Choose the Clip URL option to grab just the link
• Clip to your notebooks or shared notebooks where you have permission to modify.
• Clip PDF's you view in Chrome directly into Evernote.

Related notes:
Evernote Web Clipper finds up to three notes in your account that are related to the page you just clipped and presents them in the clip notification view.

Find clips from this site:
Easily find all clips from the same site. 

Related results: 
See related results from your Evernote account whenever you perform a Google, Bing or Yahoo search. Enable this in the extension settings.

Works with Evernote Business
Clip content relevant to your business from the web directly into Business Notebooks.

Additional information:

Background uploads: clip and continue browsing without missing a beat. Evernote takes care of uploading your clipped articles and pages in the background.
Right click options for quick clipping, will save directly to your last used notebook.
      • Clip this page: will clip all available content
      • Clip selection: clips the selected content
      • Clip image: right click an image and clip directly
      • New note: opens new note view in web application
Stay signed in: when you check the Remember Me box, you will stay signed into your account permanently (or until you sign out using the extension)

You must allow 3rd party cookies from Evernote in order to use Evernote Chrome Extension.

★ If your toolbar icon disappeared follow these steps to bring it back:
1) Click on wrench icon (right hand side just below the [x]) .
2) Select "tools".
3) Select "extensions".
4) Re-enable Evernote Web Clipper.

Or you can right-click any extension icon and select 'Manage extensions' and then re-enable Evernote Web Clipper.

How to use video found here:  http://evernote.com/webclipper/

The Evernote clipper download  for FireFox, Safari, and 

Internet Explorer link is also found at this location.  

Huge number of notes - Extended search needed

Evernote Users with a huge number of notes: 

Extended Search Syntax a must

Overview

Evernote's search grammar is a simple list of terms which are evaluated within a notebook (or "all notebooks") to find a match. By default, the search results are the intersection of the notes that match each individual search term. This behavior changes if the "any:" modifier is found in the search. In this case, the search is executed as a union of the matches of the individual terms, and notes will be returned that match any of the criteria terms. The results are obviously identical if there is only one search term.

String matches are case insensitive, and multiple spaces will compare as if they were a single space.

The search grammar includes a set of advanced search expressions in the form of "modifier:argument". A note will match this expression if the appropriate condition is met. The matching terms vary by the type of the modifier, so that a date may be compared differently than a string.

Any matching term may also be negated by adding a "-" character to the beginning. This means that the term will only match a note if the conditional is NOT true. Each term in the search may be one of the following:

Search Terms

This section documents the way that the search grammar will interpret search terms within the search expression.

 

Scope modifiers

notebook:[nb name] - will match notes in a notebook with the provided name. This must be the first term in the search. Name matching is case-insensitive. Since notebooks have exclusive relationships with notes, at most one notebook can be provided for the search. If no notebook is given, the search will go over all of the user's active notes. The notebook is not included in the "union" created by the "any:" operator. E.g.:

• notebook:"Bob's first notebook"
  • Matches all notes in this notebook
• notebook:"Hot Stuff" any: mexican italian
  • Matches all notes in the "Hot Stuff" notebook that have the word "mexican" or the word "italian" in them.

any: - If this expression is found at the beginning of the search (after the "notebook", if present), then the search will return a note that matches any of the other search terms. If this is not found, then the default behavior will be used: a note must match all of the search terms. This expression cannot be negated.

 

Matching literal terms

If no advanced search modifier is found in a search term, it will be matched against the note as a text content search. Words or quoted phrases must exactly match a word or phrase in the note contents, note title, tag name, or recognition index. Words in the content of the note are split by whitespace or punctuation. Words may end in a wildcard to match the start of a word. Searches are not case sensitive. (A wildcard is only permitted at the end of the term, not at the beginning or middle for scalability reasons on the service.) Multiple whitespace and/or punctuation characters in the quoted phrase or the note will be compared as if they were a single space. The backslash escape character ('\') may be used to escape a quotation mark within a quoted phrase. E.g.:

• potato
  • matches: "Sweet Potato Pie"
  • does not match: "Mash four potatoes together"
• Ever*
  • matches: "Evernote Corporation"
  • does not match: "forevernote"
• "San Francisco"
  • matches: "The hills of San Francisco"
  • does not match: "San Andreas fault near Francisco winery"
• -potato
  • matches: "Mash four potatoes together"
  • does not match: "Sweet Potato Pie"
• ham
  • matches: "green eggs&ham."
• "eggs ham"
  • matches: "green eggs&ham."

Punctuation is used to split the input query and document into words, but it is ignored for text matching. The behavior of a quoted search should behave as if the following operations were performed on both the search query and the target note: 
1. All XML markup is removed from the document, leaving only the visible text as a string 
2. The string is converted to a list of words which are separated by one or more whitespace and/or punctuation characters. 
3. The case of each word in the list is normalized 
4. The list of words in the query must match with the same sequence of words in the converted Note 

For example, if a user searches for the phrase "Spatula! City! For Bargains..." against this ENML document: 

Come down to Spatula
      City - for bargains on spatulas

The algorithm should convert the search phrase into a normalized list of words:

[ "spatula", "city", "for", "bargains" ]

And the document into: 
[ "come", "down", "to", "spatula", "city", "for", "bargains", "on", "spatulas" ]

The search should match, since words from the target phrase are found in the list of words extracted from the document. (The same result could be implemented without literally converting each note into a list of words, but this gives the intended behavior that we see from major search engines like Google and MS.)

Matching Core Note Properties

tag:[tag name] - will match notes that have a tag with the literal name (word or quoted phrase). This requires an full case-insensitive match on the tag name. The tag name may end with a wildcard to match the beginning of a tag. The pattern will match from the beginning of the full tag name, and punctuation will be included. I.e. the tag and the search string are not tokenized by whitespace and/or punctuation. This can be used multiple times to specify all tags that must match the notes. E.g.:

• tag:cooking
  • Matches any note with the "cooking" tag
• tag:cook*
  • Matches any note with a tag that starts with "cook"
• -tag:cook*
  • Matches any note that does not have a tag that starts with "cook"
• tag:*
  • Matches any note that has at least one tag
• -tag:*
  • Matches any note that has no tags

intitle:[literal] - will match notes with a title that contains the literal word or quoted phrase. Can be used more than once. E.g.:

• intitle:chicken
• intitle:"tale of two"
• -intitle:beef
• Matches notes that do not have the word "beef" in their title.

created:[datetime] - will match any note that has a 'created' timestamp that is equal to, or more recent than, the provided datetime. (See Section C.2 for details on the legal format of the datetime argument.) E.g.:

• created:20070704
  • Matches notes that were created on or after July 4th, 2007, based on the client's timezone.
• created:20070704T090000
  • Matches notes that were created on or after 9:00am on July 4th, 2007, based on the client's timezone.
• created:20070704T150000Z
  • Matches notes that were created on or after 3:00pm GMT on July 4th, 2007.
• -created:20070704
  • Matches notes that were created before July 4th, 2007, based on the client's timezone.
• created:day-1
  • Matches notes that were created yesterday or today
• -created:day
  • Matches notes that were created before today
• created:day-1 -created:day
  • Matches notes that were created yesterday (only)
• created:day-30
  • Matches notes that were created within the last 30 days (or today)
• created:week
  • Matches notes that were created in this calendar week (Sunday-Saturday)
• -created:month
  • Matches notes that were created before this month
• created:year-1
  • Matches notes that were created last year or this year

updated:[datetime] - will match any note that has a 'updated' timestamp that is equal to, or more recent than, the provided datetime. (See Section C.2 for details on the legal format of the datetime argument.) 

resource:[MIME type string] - will match notes that have a resource with a MIME type that matches the argument. E.g.:

• resource:image/gif
  • Matches notes with at least one image/gif resource
• resource:audio/*
  • Matches notes with at least one audio resource
• -resource:image/*
  • Matches notes with no images
• resource:application/vnd.evernote.ink
  • Matches notes with one or more ink resources

Attribute Matching

The search expression may also contain a matching term for any attribute that is defined in the data model. These are defined in the NoteAttributes and ResourceAttributes structures in Types.thrift. This will match against the Note attribute, if NoteAttributes contains an attribute with that name, or else it will try to match against the Resource attribute if if one exists with that name. The match is performed based on the type of the attribute.

String attributes will be compared using the standard string matching as above (case insensitive, normalized spacing, optional wildcard at the end of the argument). 
Datetime attributes will be matched in the same manner as "created" and "updated", above.

Boolean attributes will be matched based on the argument of "true" or "false". A boolean attribute will match the wildcard ("*") argument if it has any value set for that attribute.

Double expressions will match notes where the attribute that is greater than or equal to the argument (see "latitude" for examples). Double comparisons are numeric, not lexical, so an argument of "99.9" is less than an argument of "100". A double attribute will match the wildcard ("*") argument if it has any value set for that attribute.

subjectDate:[datetime] - matches notes with a subjectDate attribute that is equal to or later than the argument datetime.

latitude:[double] - matches notes with a latitude that is greater than or equal to the argument. E.g.:

• latitude:37 -latitude:38
  • Matches notes with a latitude that is greater than or equal to 37, but do not have a latitude greater than or equal to 38. (I.e. 37 <= latitude < 38)

longitude:[double] - matches notes with a longitude that is greater than or equal to the argument. 

altitude:[double] - matches notes with an altitude that is greater than or equal to the argument. 

author:[string] - will match notes that have an "author" attribute set with a name that matches the argument string. E.g.:

• author:"robert parker"
• author:robert*
• -author:*
  • Matches notes that have no "author" attribute set

source:[string] - matches notes that came from an application or data source that matches the argument string. Not all notes will have a "source" attribute. Standard source attributes queries include:

• source:web.clip
  • Matches notes that were clipped from a web page using an Evernote Web Clipper
• source:mail.clip
  • Matches notes that were clipped from a local mail client
• source:mail.smtp
  • Matches notes that were delivered to the service via the email gateway.
• source:mobile.ios
  • Matches notes that were created on an iOS client of some form.
• source:mobile.android
  • Matches notes that were created on an Android client of some form.
• source:mobile.*
  • Matches notes that were created on a mobile client of some form.

sourceApplication:[string] - matches notes that have a source application string that matches the argument. This string is not guaranteed to be structured. Standard sourceApplication attribute queries include:

• sourceApplication:food.*
  • Matches ntoes that were created by Evernote Food
• sourceApplication:hello.*
  • Matches notes that were created by Evernote Hello
• sourceApplication:skitch.*
  • Matches notes that were created by Evernote Skitch

contentClass:[string] - matches notes that have a contentClass string that matches the argument. E.g.:

• contentClass:evernote.food.meal
  • Matches notes created using Evernote Food
• contentClass:evernote.hello.*
  • Matches notes created by Evernote Hello

placeName:[string] - matches notes that have a placeName string that matches the argument. E.g.:

• placeName:home
  • Matches notes with the placeName attribute set to “home”

applicationData:[string] - matches notes that have an entry in the applicationData map with a key that matches the argument. This can allow an application to find all of the notes that it has added application-specific metadata. E.g.:

• applicationData:myapp
  • Matches notes with a “myapp” entry in the applicationData map
• applicationData:*
  • Matches notes that have at least one entry in the applicationData map

recoType:[string] - matches notes with a resource that has recognition data that specifies this recognition document type. If this attribute is set on a resource, it will have one of the following values: 'printed', 'speech', 'handwritten', 'picture', or 'unknown'. E.g.:

• recoType:handwritten
  • Matches notes with at least one resource that was recognized as handwritten
• recoType:*
  • Matches notes that contain at least one resource that has recognition index data

Advanced Content Matching

The following search terms are expressed as attributes, but these do not correspond to literal attributes in the NoteAttributes data model. Instead, these perform advanced matching against the content of the notes. These do not match standard words in the notes, but rather match special elements embedded within the ENML document.

todo:[true|false|*] - if the argument is "true", this will match notes that have ToDo checkboxes that are currently checked. If the argument is "false", this will match notes that have ToDo checkboxes that are not currently checked. If the argument is "*", this will match notes that have a ToDo checkbox of any type.

• -todo:false todo:true
  • Matches notes that have completed ToDo items, but no uncompleted items.

encryption: - matches notes that have an encrypted region within them.

Date/Time Arguments

Various expressions (such as "created:...") take an argument that is interpreted as a date or a date and time. This date is translated into a universal time value for comparison against the timestamps on the notes. The search grammar includes datetime expressions using either an absolute specification (including year, month, day...) or an expression that is relative to the current day/week/month/year. The former is required to support searches in a specific date range, but the latter is particularly useful for saved searches which may return notes that are (e.g.) no more than 7 days old.

Absolute Date/Time Arguments

h4 Absolute datetimes are specified using a compact profile of ISO 8601 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 ). An absolute datetime must fit one of the following three forms: 
yyyyMMdd - Used to specify a date with no time component. Equivalent to "yyyyMMddT000000" for the same values. The date is converted to a universal time based on the client's desired timezone before comparing against the internal universal timestamps on the notes. E.g. "20071031" evaluates to 12:00am on 31 October 2007 in the client's timezone. 
yyyyMMdd'T'HHmmss - Used to specify a date with a time component. The date and time are converted to a universal time based on the client's desired timezone before comparing against the universal timestamps on the notes. E.g. "20071031T093000" evaluates to 9:30am on 31 October 2007 in the client's timezone. 
yyyyMMdd'T'HHmmss'Z' - Used to specify a date and time in absolute UTC (aka "GMT" or "Zulu") time. This time can be compared against notes as a universal time, which will produce the same results regardless of the client's current timezone preferences. E.g. "20071031T153000Z" evaluates 3:30pm UTC on 31 October 2007.

Relative Date Arguments

Relative date arguments are evaluated based on the client's notion of the beginning of the current "day", "week", "month", or "year". They may include an integer delta to indicate a previous day/week/month/year instead of the current one. If no delta is provided, the argument evaluates the the beginning of the current day/week/month/year. The following examples show how each expression would be evaluated by a client with a local date and time of: Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 13:30:56

• day - would evaluate to: Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 00:00:00
• day-1 - would evaluate to: Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 00:00:00
• day-14 - would evaluate to: Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 00:00:00
• week - would evaluate to: Sunday, 28 October 2007, 00:00:00
• week-2 - would evaluate to: Sunday, 14 October 2007, 00:00:00
• month - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 October 2007, 00:00:00
• month-1 - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 September 2007, 00:00:00
• year - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 January 2007, 00:00:00
• year-1 - would evaluate to: Sunday, 1 January 2006, 00:00:00

Examples

Find notes containing the word "chicken", tagged with "cooking", and created this year:

chicken tag:cooking created:year

Find notes tagged with "cooking" but not "mexican" that include the word "beef" but not the word "carrots"

tag:cooking -tag:mexican beef -carrots

Find notes in my "Travel" notebook with San Francisco in the title:

notebook:Travel intitle:"San Francisco"

Find notes that either include the text "San Francisco" or are tagged with the "SFO" tag:

any: "San Francisco" tag:SFO

Find image notes from the Sunnyvale region:

resource:image/* latitude:37 -latitude:38 longitude:-123 -longitude:-122

Find untagged audio notes that I edited in the last week or two:

-tag:* resource:audio/* updated:week-1