Today I started using Evernote with my Mac and my iPhone.

I’ve been hearing so many other people rave about Evernote, and yet I never saw the practical use for it. Until earlier today. I was cleaning off my desk and noticing the number of postcards and business cards from various craft fairs, art fairs, knitting fairs, and so on. Plus scraps of paper ripped out from magazines and newspapers with books I want to read, and restaurants I want to go to. There were a few hundred, in a giant pile. What to do with them?

I realized typing the info into Evernote would take forever. So instead I used my iPhone to take a photo of the front and back of the business card or postcard. Then in Evernote I tagged each one as “yarn vendor” or “art” or “craftsperson” or “jewelry” or “nearby restaurant” or “books to read.

And that’s it! Plus I have a picture to remind me of what each one is!

I then downloaded the Evernote Mac app from the App Store, and synced up all the notes and photos from the iPhone app. So no matter whether I’m on the Mac or the iPhone, I have all my Evernote notes.

I paid for the Premium version of Evernote which means I have a lot more storage space (important because the photos take up a lot more room than just text), plus I have access to my notes on my Mac even when I’m not on the internet. It’s only $49 for a year.

And I haven’t even begun to explore the various apps and other products out there that are made to work with Evernote. They call it the Trunk.

Elephant photo by wwarby, courtesy Flickr Creative Commons.