Many Evernote Users are doing it wrong

It took a firestorm to learn something about how many people use Evernote.

Three weeks ago Evernote announced changes to their service tiers. The Premium price went up, and the Free Basic level was restricted to two logged in devices at one time.

Those changes set off a firestorm on Evernote's Forum filling 139 pages in three weeks with complaints, recriminations and threats to move elsewhere.

A common pronouncement among the dissatisfied was

"I am an active user of Evernote. I've created 3000 notes in five years!"

They expect Evernote corporate to be impressed by their spirited use of Evernote. Instead, they underwhelmed me with their Notes per Month rate.

I am probably not the typical user. I have 24,000 notes accumulated over eight years. That is 3,000 notes a year, or 250 a month.

So anyone accumulating 3000 in 5 years is only doing 50 notes a month.

I'm going to assume most of these people pay their bills online. Where are they putting their receipts?

I assume they have insurance. Where are they putting their insurance papers?

Where are they capturing their investment transactions?

When they research something for work, or a home improvement, or buying a home for that matter, where do they store their research?

I am believing those capturing only 50 notes a month, are not even coming close to using Evernote to its full potential.

I believe those under-users are thinking before they capture "Will I need to see this again?"

That's the wrong question to ask. Instead, they should ask "Is there even a remote chance I might need this again? Maybe for a lawsuit, or a payment dispute, or because I might have to do something like this again?"

In a previous blog post a little over a year ago, I summarized my attitude towards what to capture :

IF IT COMES INTO YOUR LIFE, AND THERE IS THE SMALLEST CHANCE YOU'LL WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN, THEN TYPE IT, SCAN IT, PHOTOGRAPH IT, IMPORT IT, WEB CAPTURE, SCREEN CAPTURE, AUDIO RECORD IT, INTO EVERNOTE.

The Shorter version was :

IF YOU ENCOUNTER SOMETHING YOU MIGHT REMOTELY WANT TO SEE AGAIN,

IT GOES INTO EVERNOTE.

If you are capturing 250 notes a month, you are getting excellent value out of Evernote, and will not mind paying for it.

Comments

Notes Folder : My new note taking system

I'm in the process of moving to a new way to keep my notes. It would be best to make a separate post on my long time notetaking app, Evernote, and how it now disappoints me. Bottom line, I no longer trust the company behind Evernote since it was acquired. My first inclination was to finally look at alternatives. like Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, etc. I was not enamored with any of them, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with Evernote. The situation made me think about how I use Evernote. To keep up additional posts on this topic, search on the tag Notes Folder Updates : January 24, 2024 and in updates noted here. Most of the things I store are quick notes, lists, online receipts for online bills, that sort of thing; kind of an online file cabinet if you will. If I were a doctoral student though I could see storing PDFs of papers and research materials. If were working on a large project, then plans, communications etc. would all be there. Back when I began using Evernote way b...

Recording your own notes with Google Voice

Note : April 2016: Frankly I don't know if this works anymore. It is 7 years old. I stopped using this when Google Now became useful on my phone, and I could dictate reminders using it. I found a way a while ago to use Google Voice to record a personal note, transcribe it, and email it to me. A recent Lifehacker post "Five Things We'd Like to See in Google Voice" lists that need as their #5 request, so I realized what I'd figured out is not common knowledge. In GV's Contacts, create a Group "Special Transcription" To avoid listening to my standard voice mail when I call, I recorded a short voice mail greeting for this group simply saying "Record note now" I added a contact with my own cell phone number as the only number, and made it the sole member of this group. In GV's phone settings, I edited the settings for my cell phone. In the section "Direct access to voicemail when calling your Google number from th...

Your First Day with Evernote

I've written many times before about Evernote . I love this program. It is my brain's memory on steroids. I have over 6000 notes in it now. And I keep finding ever more uses for it. While originally written in 2009, this post has been frequently updated. New January 2012: If you like what I write about Evernote, check out my 136 page e-book, " Get Productive Fast with Evernote ". Just $10. Sunday October 11, 2009 I wrote about Evernote in my print column, Family Tech. If you are wondering what is Evernote, and why would I want to use it, start with the column . I promised in that column this post to help new users get efficient fast with Evernote. I thought I'd write a quick plan for someone's first day with Evernote. This is really meant for after you've installed the client to your computer, so this picks up after you've gone to Evernote's Get Started Page and created an account and downloaded and installed a clien...

Ideas from Mark Stout

Search This Blog