For that past few weeks I’ve been using Evernote to keep a running journal both at work and at home. As a former user of Microsoft OneNote, I’m delighted to see how well this relative newcomer holds up in the domain of note taking applications. It impressed me so much that I decided to toss them $45 for a year of premium user status. That said, Evernote has room to improve.
Note taking programs help me be more efficient at juggling multiple projects. I work at a trading desk where I develop software, do research with coworkers, and execute trades in the market. Organization doesn’t come to me naturally, so I use note taking software to store a running journal of thoughts, to-dos, issues, and solutions. I like the ability to insert primary sources such as emails, webpages, screen captures, documents, or pictures into the journal. Then I can use tags, timestamps or text search to retrieve it all later.
On the whole, Microsoft OneNote is a great piece of software. My primary complaint is that it’s a Windows-only application. It also isn’t free. My desktop at work runs Windows XP, but my laptop is a MacBook Pro. As a result, I only use OneNote when I’m at my desk. Unfortunately, I find that my most critical note-inducing events happen when I’m on the go. I tend to have my best thoughts when I’m on the move, and people frequently ask me to do things when we’re away from the desk.
On the other hand, Evernote is free and platform agnostic. I have Evernote installed on my laptop, desktop, and iPhone. I can also use it from the web. Evernote keeps all of these clients sychronized. I’ve never had a problem with conflicts, altough I’ve never tested modifying the same note from two different computers. The search is speedy and the interface is clean.
I prefer Evernote’s continuous scrolling log as opposed to OneNote’s folders and pages. In OneNote I wasted too much time fretting over whether I had properly categorized a note. I also fiddled too much with the placement of notes on a OneNote page (they can be placed anywhere on the screen, whereas Evernote doesn’t have that capability).
One annoyance in Evernote is how it assigns the title for a new note in the Windows client. The default title is the first setence of the note’s body, which is redudant. I’d prefer something more clever, like the first few key words. Either that, or I’d prefer a different entry flow. The OS X client has an entry flow similar to composing an email. When you create a new note you start entering the title and tags before entering the content area.
Also, the Evernote Windows client always has a new empty note sitting at the bottom of the journal, which I find a bit confusing. It’s like always having a new, blank email message open in your mail client. In general, the OS X client is superior to the Windows client.
Although Evernote supports synchronization at its core, it doesn’t have collaboration cababilities. It allows you to publish notebooks to the web, but that doesn’t interest me. I want to collaborate on a shared notebook with other Evernote users. Essentially, I want synchronization between Evernote users. I suppose I could give other people access to my Evernote account, but that’s clearly flawed. Also, when collaborating with other users, synchronization would need to be nearly realtime instead of on demand or every 30 minutes or so.
Lastly, I’d like to see Evernote support tasks a little better. You can insert checkboxes into your notes, but I’d like to be able to highlight a sentence and explicitly tag it as a todo task. Then I’d like to be able to add metadata such as who it’s assigned to and when it’s due.
Overall, I have a great first impression of Evernote. I’m curious to see how it scales up to many notes and to see how it changes over time.
