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Evernote vs OneNote for Lawyers

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Several years ago, I used OneNote for note taking and organizing information. I loved the digital notebook concept. I loved having nested notebooks and pages and sub-pages where I could organize everything.

Ironically, one thing I wasn’t crazy about was something OneNote is known for: the ability to place notes and graphics anywhere on the page. I was used to a more linear approach to organizing things. I tried to get used to this free-form method of displaying content, but never did.

Another thing I didn’t like is that each page was itself a big graphic (I think) and each element on it was a graphic. I may have the tech wrong but it always felt a bit weird. Maybe I’m just a plain text kinda guy.

As my notes grew, I found that keeping them organized wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I had so many notebooks and pages and sub-pages, things got confusing. Tags and search weren’t terribly reliable in the version I was using and I started looking at what others were doing to organize their notes.

I read lots of blogs about OneNote and kept hearing it compared to Evernote. I had Evernote on my hard drive, but used it only on occasion. I saw that many OneNote users had switched to EverNote because of some of the same frustrations I had experienced, so I started using Evernote more and liked it. I made the switch and haven’t looked back.

Evernote is my virtual filing cabinet, my GTD platform, and my universal note taking system. I use it all day, every day, on all my devices and in every part of my work flow. If you’re a lawyer, you can see how I use it in my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

Microsoft just made OneNote free for PC and Mac users so I thought I would give it another look. I read an excellent article comparing OneNote vs Evernote. It concluded that Evernote takes the gold, but it also showed how far OneNote has come since I last used it.

I just downloaded OneNote and will take it for a test drive. At first blush, I can see how I might use it for certain projects, but I can’t see making my primary note taking system.

How about you? How do you weigh in on the Evernote vs OneNote for lawyers debate?

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized and Increasing Productivity is available here

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The Productive Life Show interviews me about productivity, Evernote, and GTD

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I was interviewed recently for The Productive Life Show, a podcast hosted by Andy Traub and Daniel Gold. We talked about productivity, Evernote, and GTD (Getting Things Done).

You can listen to the podcast, download the audio, and read a transcript here.

During the show, I mentioned that I also use Workflowy, primarily for outlining. I said I hoped it would someday allow links to be clickable so that it would integrate better with Evernote (and other apps). I was just notified that this is possible, although I’m not sure when it became so.

What this means is that you can use Worflowy as the front end of your productivity system, managing lists of tasks and projects, and link therefrom to notes in Evernote where you have stored more detailed information such as webclips, articles, and documents (i.e., Word, Excel, images, etc.)

Of course you can also link to websites or other cloud based apps. This opens up all kinds of possibilities.

I’ll do a in depth post about Workflowy at a later date.

I had a lot of fun on the podcast and want to thank Andy and Dan for inviting me. I’d love to get your feedback about the podcast or any questions you might have about the subjects discussed.

The ebook: Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity

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Evernote Essentials

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Evernote essentials ebook by Brett Kelly

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Holy shitakes, Evernote adds reminders!

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Evernote announced today the addition of reminders on Mac, iOS, and their webapp, and promises to soon roll out the feature to Windows, Android, and other platforms.

This is big!

This long awaited feature is the missing piece of the puzzle for those of us who use Evernote for tracking our tasks and projects. We can now add a reminder to any note, include a date and time, and receive notifications via the app and email. For the first time, we can schedule future due dates (or “start dates”), without having to use a funky workaround.

If you have a document due in 60 days but don’t want to work on it right now, for example, you can set a reminder for, say, 45 days and forget about it. On the 45th day, you will be notified that it’s time to work on that document.

Which means you won’t have to put a reminder on your calendar or in any other reminder applications.

We are told they are working on many more features. I hope that includes multiple reminders. If so, then you can schedule the due date for 60 days hence, and a start date for 45 days. Recurring reminders would also be welcome.

I’ve just started using this feature but I can already say this is a very exciting addition to my number one productivity app. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Want to see my Evernote set up? Get my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

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Post Google calendar events to Evernote with KanMeet extension for Chrome

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In Evernote for Lawyers I wrote about how I use Evernote with my calendar, specifically, to track future events and tickler items. Until Evernote comes out with a native solution, I use a manual workaround–posting “note links” on my calendar that allow me to call up the note that corresponds to the calendared event.

I said I expected we would see various third party tools for coordinating calendars with Evernote. I’ve tried Tusk Tools, a Windows app, and Zendone, a web and iOS app. Both connect your Google calendars to your Evernote account, and do this well.

Yesterday, I discovered KanMeet, an extension for Chrome. It does not offer two way synchronization between calendar and Evernote, but simply sends newly created calendar events to Evernote as a new note. Not a perfect solution, but what it does it does well.

When you install the extension, it adds an option to the new event creation page to “Post to Evernote.” Events are sent to your designated Evernote notebook when you click, “Create Event,” or “Save.”

After installing the extension and restarting my browser, I created a new event, filled in the details, and saved. A new note appeared in my default Evernote notebook with the details of the event. I can then add additional details, documents, checklists, or anything else that might be needed for the appointment or event.

Very handy.

But because KanMeet does not offer two-way synchronization, on the day of the event, you have to find the note manually. Here are three ways I can think of for making this easier:

  1. You can record the “creation date” of the note (the date you created the event) in the details section of the event. Then, you can search for the note in Evernote by creation date, with or without additional key words.
  2. A second method is to add an “Event” tag to the note and click on that tag to find all of your event-related notes. They will, however, be listed in the order you created them, not the order of the event date, so you would also want to use key words or other tags in your search. Alternatively, you can put all event-related notes in an Event notebook.
  3. The most accurate way to find the note is to paste the Evernote “note link” into the details section of the event detail on your calendar. This is what I currently do. On the day of the event, that link will call up the corresponding note. However, the note link is not clickable (Google’s limitation) and you have to copy/paste the link into a new browser window to launch the Evernote note. It’s a clumsy extra step but it works. (NB: on iOS, the note link is clickable in the calendar apps I’ve tried.)

Despite its limitations, KanMeet works well and does save time. Until Evernote provides us with another option, such as the long awaited “Due Date” field which will allow us to add future dates to notes and sort by those dates, this allows me to quickly create notes from calendared events.

To use KanMeet, you must use Google Calendar and Chrome. You can find it in the Chrome store.

Have you found other ways to coordinate your calendar with Evernote? Please share in the comments.

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity is available here.

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Digitize your life with Evernote’s “Paperless Challenge”

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When I want to find something stored in “My Documents” on my Windows machine, I have to open and close a lot of documents to find the one that has what I’m looking for. When I want to find something stored in Evernote, I rely on its ability to search through the entirety of those documents to find what I need. Very fast, very accurate.

Finding something in paper files are even more challenging, of course, and that’s one of the reasons so many people are “going paperless.”

If you’d like to join the crowd, Evernote is conducting a “Paperless Challenge” to help you. It started January 8 but there’s no reason why you can’t get started right now. Make sure you download Jaime Rubin’s “Paperless Challenge Checklist” to use as a guide.

Lifehacker just posted a comprehensive article, “How I Went Completely Paperless in Two Days.” I think two days is a bit ambitious for most attorneys due to the amount of paper in our possession, questions about security issues, and our innate resistance to change, but even if it takes two years instead of two days, it’s worth it. I’m not yet completely paperless but my file cabinets are empty, I’ve trashed dozens of boxes of paper collected over thirty-plus years, and we get very little (important) postal mail these days. I’m well on my way to digitizing and simplifying my life.

Speaking of security issues, this article has a summary of some of the options. (Hat tip to Robert Oschler, developer of the forthcoming Evernote search client for Windows desktop, BitQwik.)

Finally, my own Evernote for Lawyers ebook discusses security issues and how to deal with them, as well as helping you through the process of going paperless.

By the way, even if you don’t use Evernote these resources can still help you in your quest to reduce or eliminate the paper in your life.

Did you know: Evernote for Lawyers has a chapter on using Evernote for marketing.

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Evernote for Business: Is it right for your law firm?

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Evernote has launched Evernote for Business, which promises enhanced sharing capability for the workplace. For lawyers, the idea is that your firm would have it’s own business account, with a library of shared notes (documents) which employees (with permission)  can access. You and your employees can also have your own personal Evernote notebooks which are private.

Does your firm need this capability? I’m not so sure.

Personal Evernote accounts already allow sharing. You can set up one or more notebooks in your account and share those notebooks with others in the firm. Sharing basic firm documents such as email templates, checklists, and blank forms is pretty straightforward. Where things get hairy is with sharing client files or other non-public information.

In Evernote for Lawyers, I discussed the idea of storing client files in Evernote. If it’s just you who is accessing that information, your comfort level will depend on whether you feel the need to encrypt that information before uploading it. The more critical issue is sharing that information electronically with others in your firm.

Evernote can be accessed anywhere there is an Internet connection, so if your employees aren’t as careful as you are, someone who is not authorized to access those shared notebooks might be able to do so. If your secretary’s laptop is stolen, for example, your client files could wind up in the wrong hands.

I don’t know how Evernote for Business handles permissions and other security issues, but if it makes shared access to private information more secure, that alone would make it worth considering. The added functionality it promises would be icing on the cake.

Evernote for Business is $10 per month per employee, a small investment if it allows you to set up a secure virtual filing cabinet for your firm. But that remains to be seen.

Are you planning to use Evernote for Business? Let me know in the comments.

Evernote for Lawyers shows you how to use Evernote for marketing, GTD, blogging, AND storing client files.  

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Evernote search just got easier. Well, sorta

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Although I use it extensively, I don’t write much about technology. One reason is that by the time I’m up to speed on a new piece of software or hardware, it’s usually old news. One exception is Evernote, my favorite tech tool.

I’ve written before about how I use Evernote for everything from note taking to writing to managing all of the information in my personal and professional life. I also use it for Getting Things Done (GTD).

In fact, so great is my love for Evernote, I wrote a book about it: Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity.

I included in the book’s resources an extensive list of Evernote’s “Search Operators”–the syntax used by Evernote to find notes. These search operators are powerful but can be difficult to remember, so many of us use “Saved Searches,” another Evernote feature that comes in handy, especially with complex searches. But Saved Searches don’t help when you’re looking for something for the first time.

I just found an alternative that looks promising. BitQwik is free software (for PC’s and Mac’s that can run Windows) that serves as a front end portal for searching your Evernote database using natural language. That is, you don’t have to remember precise search operators to find something. Instead, you can use a regular query, much like you would ask Siri.

Here are some examples, from the BitQwik web site:

  • “Show me notes created between May 1st and March 15 that are tagged with robotics, surgical robots, or telepresence”
  • “I want notes sent to me via the E-mail gateway”
  • “Find my encrypted notes that have the words financial data or private in the title but leave out notes I created yesterday”
  • “Give me notes with pictures from Skitch”

I usually find notes in Evernote by browsing tags and using a few simple search operators. But as my database has grown to over 5,000 notes, I find myself relying more on search, and BitQwik looks like it might be just what the doctor ordered.

I just downloaded BitQwik, so I don’t have a lot to report just yet. If it pans out, I could see Evernote adopting this technology, and that would be great because I don’t like the idea of using yet another piece of software. But I’m not holding my breath because everything Evernote does has to work on ten platforms, not just one, and that doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’ve tried BitQwik, let me know what you think. You can add your comments below, or join me on the Evernote Forum.

Get your copy of Evernote for Lawyers. Unless you don’t want to be organized and productive.

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Marketing legal services the Evernote way

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You know I’m a big fan of Evernote. I use it all day long for everything I do in my work and in my personal life. I detailed my use in my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

I’m also a fan of how Evernote does their marketing. They use a “freemium” model–giving away their apps and service for free, believing that users will fall in love with the product and sign up for the paid service.

Their free service is not stripped down. It has everything most people would want. The paid version provides additional capacity and features.

Evernote understands that the more people who use their free service, and the longer they use it, the more who will subscribe and pay.

Evernote does not advertise. They rely on word of mouth–satisfied users sharing their experiences with the product.

Their model works. Evernote has some 40 million free users and 1.4 million paid subscribers. They have recently achieved a billion dollar valuation.

Attorneys who offer free consultations are following a similar marketing model. The more free consultations they give, the more paying clients they get. Some attorneys take things a step further, offering not just free consultations but free services to get prospective clients to “try before they buy”. If you offer a free will, for example, a certain percentage of clients will want to upgrade to a trust or other paid services.

Evernote does not pressure users to upgrade. They provide upgrade links in their desktop, web, and mobile apps, but users are reminded to upgrade only when they try to use a paid feature or go beyond their free monthly usage limit.

There’s something attractive about a company that doesn’t push you. They give you value, lets you know there’s more available, and leave it up to you to come to them. Contrast that to what many companies do: they push, they chase, they sell.

I don’t know about you but when I’m chased, I usually run the opposite way.

Evernote provides value through their service and also through their blog and newsletter. Their blog provides tips and uses for making Evernote more useful and it’s fun to read.

Marketing consultant Jim Connolly wrote today about Evernote’s newsletter, contrasting it with other newsletters that do little more than sell. He says Evernote’s newsletter gets it right for three reasons:

  1. Their newsletter actually contains news
  2. Their newsletter makes Evernote more valuable
  3. Their newsletter doesn’t push

Connolly and I agree that providing valuable content that enhances the user experience with the product is effective in making the case for upgrading without ever asking users to do so. Their approach attracts us, instead of pushing us away with sales pitches and an abundance of links.

Attorneys deal with issues that don’t always allow for such a laid back approach. If it’s in the client’s best interests to push them to take action, a little push is not a bad thing. Nevertheless, I think we can all learn from Evernote how to be more attractive and let people sell themselves on hiring us.

People like to buy. They don’t like to be sold.

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