Master Evernote: The Unofficial Guide to Organizing Your Life with Evernote (Plus 75 Ideas for Getting Started)

You need something to capture ideas whenever and wherever they pop into your head. Whatever you use, it should not require any thoughts, attention or multiple steps to write it down. It can be a notebook, a napkin, an app on your phone or iPad. These notes are not meant to be stored permanently. They will be deleted or chucked soon anyway. They onl

• Capture the ideas and insights that spark your interest. A sticky note, a voice memo, or an app like Notion—whatever works.


• Organize them so you can find them later. Categories, tags, or even a simple “Projects” list will do.


• Distill your notes into their essential meaning. Ask: What’s the big takeaway here?


• Express your ideas by using them in you

And lastly, this part’s key – you have to forget everything you think about how to organize your notes. Folders are fine for tax documents, but they’re a dumb way to organize ideas. Your job isn't to arrange everything into neat categories—it's to create meaningful contexts.

Capturing notes without an effective way to organize and retrieve them only leads to more overwhelm.

The best way to organize your notes is to organize for action, according to the active projects you are working on right now. Consider new information in terms of its utility, asking, “How is this going to help me move forward one of my current projects?”