Sometimes you don’t know you need something until you stumble across it.
I’m pretty well organized. When I come up with an idea, I write it down, usually in my iPhone. Until recently, I was using either the Notes program that came with the phone or Action Lists for iPhone. Notes works pretty well, but I admit, I forget to look there sometimes. I check Action Lists religiously throughout the day, but it’s really a task manager, not an idea manager. I found I had to keep things very short, and sometimes I’d go back later and have no idea what I had been intending.
Then Evernote crossed my path in a tweet. It’s a dedicated note-taking application that can be used and synchronized with a number of different platforms. Of course, there’s a version for the iPhone. And Windows, Mac, Blackberry, Palm Pre and others.
Now I can make a note on the iPhone and sync it to my computer. So I have it exactly where I need it. Mostly, I use it to make notes of future blog posts and ideas for my book. If I am writing on my computer, I pull up Evernote on the computer. If I am on the go, I pull it up on my phone.
But that’s not all! It also can be used as a web-clipper. If I see a website I want to review later, I can clip it, and the text will show up on my phone the next time I sync. That allows me to easily review content when I don’t have a good connection to the Internet, or if I’m just impatient and don’t want to wait for a web page to load.
If you need to keep track of ideas (speakers, authors, bloggers, etc), and you need access to your content in multiple places, I highly recommend checking out Evernote. Did I mention that it’s free? There’s a paid version, but I haven’t needed it yet.
Tags: blogging, iPhone, task management, time management