process.st https://www.process.st/2015/10/writing-workflow/

Kate Brandall

How to Use Evernote to Optimize Your Writing Workflow

Life before Evernote

When my husband told me I should use Evernote (for the millionth time), I stubbornly refused and argued that it’sconfusing and wouldn’t help one bit.

Why would it? How can doing extra tasks improve my writing workflow?

And, to be fair – English isn’t my first language, nor is tech talk. I was scared I wouldn’t understand what it tells me todo, I would probably end up breaking the internet and using Word again.

The last push was joining Process Street. Compared to my fast, techy co-workers I was the slowest. So, once again, Iwas advised to give Evernote a try. Who am I to argue? … Right?

Gathering Research in Word

Here’s my research process before Evernote: with 15 tabs opened on Chrome I was waiting for Word to open so I cancopy in the links and info and make some sense of all the information I’d gathered. It looked something like this:

Then I would save the file (we all know what happens when Microsoft intrusively updates your laptop to “improve yourwork”) to look at it once I start the project. Then I’d open every single link and copy the relevant paragraphs (again, inthe same Word document) and use it to write the article / template I’m working on.

What could ever be wrong with this system? All the info is in one place and if I save it constantly I can be sure all theinfo will be in one place. That’s what I used to think, anyway.

Screenshots in Paint

As we know, all good media material comes with images to engage the reader. Just like any other enthusiasticblogger, I have always been a big fan of nice images and screenshots to show my readers how things run.

Downloading images was easy. Screenshots, however… I had to follow this formula:

FN+PRTSC, go to the desktop, right click -> Bitmap Image, right click that -> open with… -> Paint (wait for it to open), CTRL+V, move it to the right corner, crop it, File -> save as -> JPEG (on my desktop), go to the desktop, find it->image(17) and put it in the right folder (New Folder (3))

Smooth sailing. And next time I need it all I have to do is go through the folders, find the right Image(17) and ‘simply’add it to where it needs to be.

My Awful Folder Structure

I already mentioned the folder system I had in place (New Folder, New Folder (1), New Folder (2) etc), andsomewhere in there I might have saved New Rich Text Document with all the links to support my research.

If I, being the smart, modern, laptop-using woman who I am, saved the documents and pictures for the same article inthe same place all I had to do was put it together for the template I’m working on. If, however, some of the imageshad been saved in Downloads and some of the text in New Folder (215) I would begin a frantic search through theentire computer whilst quietly sobbing.

Most of the times I would end up just downloading the same picture again, named Image (18) and using that as drag-and-drop from the Chrome downloads bar. What a time-saver!

Learning Evernote

By now you must realize how having this perfectly worked out system in place I would be reluctant to use a nonsenseapp to do exactly the same thing. I guess it was peer-pressure (or the fact I wanted to keep my job) that silenced thelittle voice in my head saying – you don’t need this, your system is great!

So I decided to put my worries and suspicion aside and get myself one of those Evernote things. That was way easierthan I thought it would be. All I had to do was Google “download Evernote”, click the first result and it did the work forme. The rest of the downloading process was pretty self-explanatory and, to my surprise, didn’t involve me askinghow it’s done.

Once I had signed up it was time to see what secrets I will find in this green Pandora’s box with an elephant picture onit.

Notebooks

Evernote has a user-friendly onboarding system where it gives you a step-by-step guide with tick-able optionsintroducing you to its features. I will not get into details, but you can read more about it in this blog post about theiruser onboarding process.

What I will tell you about is how I organize my notebooks. First of all, I can create a fresh one for each project I amworking on. Yes, I had the same opportunity with New Folders but to be fair, I never looked at them, they were justsomewhere on my desktop (and I never had to admit to myself what mess I had created).

When working with Evernote it’s right there, you see all of your notes and having the messy, unorganized sidebar justcompels you to sort it out. A great Evernote feature is Notebook stacks. That means I can organize content accordingto projects and progress status.

Having this system in place means I can easily jump between project without losing material. I know that the next timeI need to work on a project all the images, content and research will be there. No more frantic searching — no moresobbing.

Screenshots/Annotations

Another feature which has saved my precious time is screenshots and annotations. If I find a perfect screenshotopportunity, I won’t miss it because of the laborious process of saving it or bookmark it to find it later (read: neveropen it again). All I have to do is hit the hotkey and it’s saved in my notes.

When working on a project it will save it in the project folder that’s open. However, if I find a good image for a differentproject I simply go in notes, it will show as the newest note and all I have to do is drag and drop it in the folder I needit in. Simple as that!

Work Chat

Spending a big chunk of my day proofing templates and blog posts I was trying to find ways to speed up the processof communication. My first thought (of course!) was to write notes in a Word document and attach it to an email. Thenext step was Skype chat, which is not a bad one, but is not the most efficient way of doing it, since Skype savesscreenshots in some weird Skype download folder and please, do not make me find it, because I won’t.

The last logical step (before Evernote) was Slack. Oh, Slack, you with your wonderful Giphy integration. I am notentirely sure why I thought communicating serious proofreading via Slack would be a good idea in the first place.Don’t get me wrong, I love Slack, but I am too weak!

Evernote offers you the dry version of a simple chat platform. It’s very plain, has no distractions and all you need toknow is the other person’s email address. On top of that, you can send an entire folder (e.g. Content to Proof) including screenshots, notes with comments, even attached information grabbed from themagical Internet, highlighted and ready to be used.

Life After Evernote: My Brand New Writing Workflow

I’m going to be honest here – for an app to increase productivity it really does keep you away from real work duties forgood thirty minutes as soon as you learn how to use it.

All the features it offers for screen-shots and the variety of nasty remarks I can make on a single picture with agrammar mistake are endless. But once I got over it my the efficiency levels increased by over 9000% (this statisticmay or may not have been made up, I refuse to comment).

Let me give you a short run-down of life after Evernote.

Keeping Track of Research

As I mentioned already, I don’t have to search through folders to find the saved information. I go to the right folder andget to work.

All the material is easily accessible and based on the folder content Evernote offers related articles found onthe Internet. If I ever get stuck and feel like my work needs more research I can rely that Evernote will help with it.

It’s also helpful to keep track of images I have. I don’t have to go through folders looking for the right images andchecking if I have it saved. I just skim through the folder, without saving my work twenty times just to be sure itwon’t disappear in case of a dreaded Windows update.

With the Evernote Web Clipper‘s bookmarking function I don’t have to guess or wait for the link to open to find outwhat it will be about. Evernote saves links with short summaries, so instead of going through all of them to find theone I need, I just check for the most relevant one before opening it.

Efficient Proofing

Proofing work becomes much more efficient using work chat. I can make notes, screenshots and comments, addmore information and add research, without having to use 3 different platforms to do it.

I can also chat about the blog post I’m reviewing with the author of the post and see what material they have put in.

I can track the progress of each new blog post in Notebooks. That way, if I know that a blog post about, let’s saythe client onboarding process is currently being written, I can add information or images that I think are useful.Instead of sending information to the person’s email, Skype, Slack (and a printed out version over the mail) I justscreenshot it and *zap*, saved.

Writing Notes

I overlooked text notes at first because it’s not as fun as putting stamps on images or sending snide remarks overwork chat.

The first thing that I love about it is that I don’t need to save anything. It saves it for me. I can jump from note to note,from notebook to notebook and return to the same content with not a single word missing.

Another benefit is never needing to switch between the document, Chrome or folders. It’s similar to keeping track ofresearch – it’s all in one place, only this feature also means that with two quick clicks I can get the information I needand be back to writing without any interruptions (read: Microsoft’s feature-length splash screens).

And with all the efficiency it offers, it still has the same features a Word document would, including differentfonts, alignments and letter colors (awesome for vicious proofreading, just paint it all red and put three questionmarks next to the sentence, like in University).

Conclusion

Writing this blog post would probably take me 2-3 times longer without using Evernote. Jumping from a Worddocument to a folder, accidentally opening the wrong folder containing games (it happens!) and distracting myselfwith unrelated things would have gotten the better of me.

Evernote offers the distraction free, organized environment any writer needs — for university, a blog post or in-depthresearch of any number of topics. It has improved my writing workflow on group tasks, and proven to be the best wayto store information for later use (that actually gets opened!).