where I remember not everything

Evernote is only an everything bucket if you use it as an everything bucket. Seriously. Stop blaming the software for how you use it. If you don’t want to blame yourself, blame their “remember everything” marketing. You don’t have to put literally everything here. Honestly.

My story of understanding this.

I signed up for Evernote on April 07, 2009. I guess I discovered it on habrahabr.ru (largest Russian tech community website). I was excited about automatic OCR for photo notes (search even in handwriting! yay!) so I signed up. I had a cheap Motorola phone then, so I used their email-to-Evernote service to send photos. I also started making web clips instead of bookmarking on Del.icio.us. I was using Linux, so I even tried to start developing an open source client. But the Windows version was usable through Wine. So, I liked Evernote. Devices changed, operating systems changed, I still used Evernote. On a Windows Mobile smartphone I had, I used it even for to-do lists.

Then there was an article called “The Case Against Everything Buckets”. I wasn’t taking much photo notes when I read it, so I moved my text notes into Simplenote. I liked the iPhone client because it was faster than Evernote.

Then I thought, “oh! The file system is awesome! I want to keep files on my computer offline!” And I started using Dropbox and PlainText. But I realized I can’t edit this from any random device connected to the internet (even though I never actually needed that!). I also was bored, I wanted to try doing something useful in Ruby and I was excited by the idea of a personal wiki (like the Tomboy app), so I created Wikibox as a 24-hour weekend hack. Never really used it much. Some people liked it though

Later I started using Pinboard for bookmarking web pages. For to-dos, I tried a lot of apps, including Remember The Milk and Things. And then I needed to search in photos and scanned documents. So why not go back Evernote for this and saving ideas and whatnot?

My current workflow

• I store bookmarks in Pinboard. If a website is gone, it’s probably in Google’s cache, and if it’s not, forget about it. Yes, Pinboard has archiving accounts. No, I don’t need that.
• I write blog posts in iA Writer for OS X and iOS which syncs through iCloud.
• I use Clear for personal to-dos. For client work, there’s a Russian-only web app :-)
• I store various stuff in Evernote. Ideas, serial numbers of devices, opening and closing times of stores, banks and other places, etc.

See, it’s not an everything bucket. Now, because I really wanted to write a longer post…

Apps (iOS)

Use:

• Drafts. Launches very quickly, you can just start typing whatever’s on your mind. And then decide to keep it there for some time or move to Evernote, iA Writer or somewhere else.
• JotNot Scanner Pro. If you can hold your iPhone steady, it becomes the best scanner with this app.
• TextGrabber. This one is for OCR. Take a photo, it recognizes the text. Now you can save it to Evernote.

Maybe use:

• FastEver Snap. I prefer taking photos with the built-in camera app (that works without sliding to unlock) and then adding to Evernote.
• SoftSign, Evernote Food, EverCalendar if you need them.

Don’t use:

• Egretlist. To-do lists in Evernote? Well, it didn’t work for me, so I don’t recommend it.
• Evernote Hello. If I meet someone, I don’t want them to use their phone to write down that we met. (If you really want this, do this after you come home :D) And the contacts functionality? It’s just complicating your workflow. Duplicating contacts in your Contacts/Address Book/iCloud.