I am an Evernote fan boy. There, I said it.
I’ve written about Evernote many times in the past. You can see those posts here. As I change the way I process information and as I lead more and more, I’ve adjusted how I organize just about everything I do. Right now, here are five Evernote notebooks that I’m using more and more. They’re a great start for any young leader that needs some organizing …
Inbox
My Evernote inbox is my holder of all things that I don’t immediately have a place for. When I email something to my Evernote, it goes here. When I send something from somewhere else or make a clip for the web, it goes here first. I sort this out about once a week or whenever I think about it and have a few free minutes. Things rarely stay in here past that week’s time.
Tip: Begin your inbox name with a ! or . in front to keep it at the top of your notebook list.
Action
These are things that don’t go straight to my inbox and need my action on them rather quickly. These aren’t to-do’s (those go to ToDoList), these are documents, clips or anything else that needs my attention soon. Many times, these things are deleted within a few days of being put there.
Clips
I have several notebooks for clips. I clip things that I want to file away for reference later. Sometimes these are facts that interested me that may be of use later, sometimes they’re resources, other times they’re just interesting reads that I think I may want to pass along later. You can see a photo of my Clips notebooks here.
Encouragement
Any leader has those down moments. I have a notebook of encouraging letters, emails or cards that people send me. Sometimes it’s a screenshot of a text, sometimes it’s a photo of a thank you card, other times it’s an email I forward along. When someone takes the time to send me a thank you, it means a lot to me. I keep those for those times when I can use the encouragement.
Quotes
I love one-liners. Those quotes that say a lot without saying much. I have a notebook just for those. I have a recipe in IFTTT that sends my favorite tweets here for saving as well. Sometimes I tweet these later (giving proper credit of course), other times I just keep them for reference later. I think it’s important that we capture those things that speak to us.
Tip: use tags to keep quote topics separate.
