For Beginners Only - Simple Use of Evernote

A quick Google search on the keyword Evernote will return thousands of ideas on how to use this powerful software.  They are all great ideas and if you are not careful you can quickly lose your way.  Start simple.  Setup the following 3 folders:

1. @Inbox
2. @Reference
3. @Journal

Use @Inbox as your default folder.  Everything you capture should drop into the default folder first.  After you review what is in @Inbox,  move it to the @Reference folder.  This will be where you will store everything that you might need in the future.  Evernote has a powerful search tool that will allow you to find things quickly in your @Reference folder.

Finally, in your @Journal folder create one note and label it Journal.  Inside of your one note, space down a couple of rows and enter the current days date.  This is where you are going to keep all of your notes for the day.  At the end of the day, you are going to insert a horizontal line above the current date.  Evernote has a shortcut to enter the horizontal line, CTRL H.  The next day you will put the new date above the horizontal line and capture your notes for the day in the white space below the date.  Each day you should repeat this process.  What you will end up with will be a running journal of all of your daily notes with the most recent day at the top.  It is a great tool to go back and write monthly reports from or to use for a review of what work you have been focusing on.  Your journal will look something like this:

04/03/11
Need to finish monthly report by tomorrow.  John called and left a message.  Need to call him back.  Sales volume was up today.  Sold 8000 widgets.  Tony Robbins is scheduled to do a webinar on Wednesday.  Need to find a way to use GTD process to be more productive.
 _________________________________________________________________
04/02/11
Random notes go here.  Had a big problem with the operating system today.  Should contact Google corp to get technical assistance.  More random notes.  More random notes.
__________________________________________________________________
04/10/11
Had meeting this AM with Bill Gates to review the problems with Vista 64 bit operating system.  Received call from Travel agent informing me that I need to schedule flight to Seattle by the end of week.

Start simple.  You will find that before you know it, you will begin to add things to your process.  What are you waiting on.  Download Evernote here and get started.