We live in an age of information. We have phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses and lists – lots of lists to remember. So as a youth worker who has killed one to many brain cells playing Cubby Bunny I have a solution for you. The big green elephant – Evernote.
As we head in to the end of the program year, and you have promised yourself that this summer you are going to get more organized, let me help. One excellent FREE tool for doing just that is Evernote. Evernote is essentially a cloud-based personal filing cabinet that can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection, from a dedicated Mac or PC application, or from one of many mobile devices. And it syncs across every one of these devices, making it a powerful on-the-go tool. The handy web clipper allows you to capture anything you find on the web, and the camera and microphone integration allow you to capture image and audio notes.
- Get an email with your travel itinerary you want to save – Forward it to your custom Evernote email address
- See a bible study idea on the web you don’t want to forget? – Use the Web clipper to send it to your evernote notebook.
- Listening to an awesome presentation. – record the audio from within evernote and add a few written notes.
- Taking notes on a legal pad from a meeting. – Use one of the many Evernote ready pads, to just snap a photo and its in.
- Did you get the email confirmation with the new web log in information – Save it to evernote and delete the message.
- We all are taking photos of stuff we want to remember – now snap them into Evernote for easy tagging and retrial later!
- Too many paper lists in your life? – San them into your evernote files and shred the hard copies.
I have been using evernote for more than four years now to organize both my professional and personal lived, and I find Evernote to be invaluable. It’s one of the five most used daily apps on all of my computers and mobile devices. Unlike Dropbox, Evernote actually indexes all of my Notes (PDF indexing and text-in-image indexing are Premium upgrades*), Notebook titles (containers that hold your Notes), and Tags (descriptive topic words you attach to Notes)…so I can search for items instead of having to browse through Dropbox folders and try to make sense of a filename.
Because of the tags feature of Evernote you can use this amazing digital file cabinet for personal and ministry use at the same time – no need for two different applications.
I use it with:
- My home PC Computer
- My Window’s Phone
- My ipod
- My Ipad
- My office computer
Did I mention that it is it FREE? They also have a premium version that once you start using it you will find well worth the price. The current price of the preimum version is just $5.00 a month or $45 per year. Here’s some of what you get from the premium version:
Smarter Searching Search inside PDF’s, documents, and images. Rediscover content with related notes, which displays relevant notes while viewing or creating new ones.
Peace of Mind Access your notes even without an internet connection and add a passcode lock for additional security on mobile devices.
Better Presentations When in business meetings or at home with family, quickly display your notes in a beautiful, full-screen view.
Put more in. Get more out.Get 1GB of uploads each month and a 100MB maximum note size. Store more files, more photos…more of everything you need to remember.
Open your eyes to the Evernote world all around you. For the next few days as you look at tech apps, and programs as well as hardware and software for your minsitry, pay attention to how many of them reference their ability to link with Evernote!
So what are you waiting for? Set up a free evernote account now!
How do you use Evernote in Ministry? Share your idea and encourage us all.
<>< Craig
For more on Evernote check out this great article from American Express: 11 Evernote tools that boost productivity.