Web Apps - Evernote

I'm a huge technology buff, especially web and desktop applications. I'm particularly interested in different web applications and the value that they bring to me, either personally or professionally.


I wanted to do a highlight of one of many web apps I use almost daily - Evernote. Evernote has often been called "your second brain". It is an extremely powerful note taking application that saves all your notes, organizes them in folders and allows you to tag notes for quick ways of slicing and dicing notes.

I have a moleskine notebook that I use for when I'm on a bus or feeling particularly inspired to write but more often than note, I'm in front of the computer. Whenever I think that an article is particularly interesting or something that I might want to refer to later, I clip it to Evernote using the handy bookmarklet that they provide.

What kind of things can you clip and save to notebooks or tag? Here are some of the things that I store in my Evernote notebook in no particular order:

• Recipes that you want to try later
• Books that you want to read or purchase
• Receipts (I haven't done it myself but you can snap pictures of your receipts and Evernote will read the text on the receipt when you upload the image - pretty nifty way of tracking your expenses)
• Articles that you may want to refer to later
• Sheet music for songs you'd like to play
• Ideas (anything about speeches, humor, stories)
• Everything related to the job search, including resumes, cover letters and job postings (sometimes the job postings get taken down and if you have several interviews, you'll want to refer back to your job posting to figure out how to prepare for the interview)
• Diary - (almost) daily entries of my thoughts and feelings
• Skills that I'd like to refer back to later
• Gift ideas for friends (sometimes friends refer to things they need or want and it's hard remembering what it is a few months later)
• Dreams

What are some other things that you can clip or save to notebooks?

• Research - if you're writing papers, you can organize different articles you find on the internet (or by taking pictures of magazine articles or textbook pages) into notebooks. If you also take down where you found the article, you'll never have any trouble with giving credit to the right people.
• You can save your floor dimensions in a note. This really only works if you have a smart phone with web browsing but the next time you go shopping for furniture, you never have to worry about whether you have enough space for it in your room; just refer to the note and double check the dimensions.
• Although I haven't tried out this functionality, you can also share notes with other Evernote users or even share whole notebooks. Perhaps you and your friends like to share different recipes with each other (did you see the shared notebook I have for the recipes that I'd like to try?)
  

You can see that the uses for Evernote are limited only by your imagination (and sometimes by a lack of a smartphone heh)

There have also been many articles about how to use Evernote as a way of getting things done. 

Personally, I don't use it as a way of getting things done. I use my e-mail inbox for that, but that's another post. Evernote does help me organize many of the things I do need to do though.


Basically, if you're looking for an easy, secure way of taking down notes, sharing notes with others, always be a search away from that interesting article you read and generally keep track of anything and everything you want, Evernote is definitely a good way to go.

Do you use a note taking application? If so, which ones and how do you use them in your life?

Review and Preview of the Year that follows

Last week was my birthday. Every time it rolls around, I take the time to reflect on all the things I have done and then think about what I want to accomplish in the coming year. I can't remember where I learned about this (I know that it was during my university life though), but I remember someone telling me that writing down goals makes you more likely to achieve them. It was an exercise of sorts, we were to write down a goal that we wanted to accomplish that year and then evaluate at the end of the year whether we reached the goal. If not, we would then have to analyze why we didn't. Was the goal still attainable? How can what we have learned be applied to new goals?

For that very reason, I'd like to take an opportunity to review some of the things that I have done this year and then list some of the goals that I will strive for in the coming year. I can do this privately, but when my close friends read my goals, I will feel more accountable to accomplish them.


Review: (or a list of my goals from last year)

1. Get a job

It's hard to believe that the same time last year, I had just finished up working on Imagine for the summer and was starting to document all my knowledge down for the next coordinator as well as transition out of the job.

When I finally finished in October, I realized I had landed smack dab in the middle of the recession. For those of you who have gone through this or is going through looking for gainful employment, I sympathize. You can't imagine how many nights I went through worrying; what kind of resources I had to dig through; what kind of jobs I had to take in the mean time in order to keep myself sane. I am extremely grateful that I found the job I have now during the time I did. Many companies are now going through hiring freezes and there's no clear sign of when everyone will recover from the recession (which I believe is officially over though that doesn't mean the effects will be gone any time soon).

2. Improve my Public Speaking

Back in 2005, I remember doing coop with PMC - Sierra in Burnaby. Some coworkers suggested that I try out this club during lunch time called Toastmasters. Since then, I've been a part of Toastmasters on and off in total for about 2 years - a part of me wishes that I had continuously gone but then again, it's hard to figure out whether I'm just being hard on myself or whether I would have actually benefited from continuously going.

Cut to May. As a part of my transition to Edmonton, I decided to join a Toastmaster club. Basically I went on to google, searched Toastmasters in Edmonton and then looked through the sites until I found one that matched my schedule. The one I go to is early in the morning and there are times where I think it's way too early but the fact is, I am getting a lot out of Toastmasters in terms of both public speaking, thinking on my feet and networking and leadership.

3. Be Healthy

For the most part, I've been fairly healthy. I limit my intake of junk food, candy and such but I certainly drink from Starbucks or have some cake for special occasions once in a while. I never eat too much though and I always make sure that I'm exercising regularly. Since living on my own, I've been heading to the gym in order to get rid of all the excess fat that I have and while I haven't been 100% successful, I'm making an effort and that's what counts. (technically, I also won't see results until 6 months in either).

4. Learn about different careers and figure out what I want to do exactly

This one was a bit tougher. When I first started my job search, I had a particular role in mind but as I started doing more searches, I realized that that's not really what I want to do all day for the rest of my life. I am a very ambitious fellow and I'm generally not happy with a career that isn't challenging and doesn't have a lot of growth. I dislike being stagnant; I like getting things done quickly and I like getting things done now.

I'm not very good at networking but I am developing some of these skills through some of the mentors I've been talking to at Toastmasters. There is a guy I know who is an insane networker and I have been slowly absorbing as much knowledge as I can about networking from him. Although it seems very early in my career, I figure I might as well get a head start on things if I want to get to where I want to be in a few years.


Preview: (or a list of my goals for the coming future)

1. Absorb more knowledge

University taught me some very important things; one of those things is I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. It isn't just any knowledge though, it's usually on fairly unusual things as my interests are fairly eclectic but lately my interests have been piqued by programming and learning new programming languages, books on the brain, specifically on things like learning, knowledge, memory, etc. and I am trying my best to improve my cantonese and I would also like to improve my mandarin and french (as well as learn some new languages as well - I'm eyeing japanese and korean now).

2. Stand-up Comedy?

I put a question mark next to this goal because I don't think I have it in me to do standup comedy. I think that I could be a very funny guy but I just haven't got the knack of figuring out how to come up with all this good material to talk about - until then, I'll just be writing funny speeches and such once in a while. I find it interesting that many people have suggested to me that I'd be great at standup comedy.

3. Slam Poetry

Many of my friends don't know this about me (and that's really because they've never asked) but I have written (and continue to write) many short stories and poems. Slam poetry is something that I've looked into but have never had the guts to pursue. I love that it combines some of the skills that I already have (public speaking, writing poems) into one - it's such a different beast from speeches but then again, there are a lot of similarities. Who knows, maybe I'll have some success and maybe I'll fail but at least along the way, I'll learn something.

4. Learn to Cook Better

Cooking all started with my strange obsession with fried rice. The first dish that I ever made was fried rice - I know some of you are laughing because it is an easy dish to make but you'd be surprised at what you need to know to make it an extremely good dish (controlling heat, knowing what to cook and at what time in order to fully cook everything, seasoning, etc.). Ever since learning to make fried rice, I've been watching my mom and basically copying some of the dishes she has made.

Now that I'm living on my own, I do a lot of experimentation. I'm a fairly healthy eater but I'm also efficient (read: lazy) and from time to time, I experiment by adding fruits into some of the dishes I make. For example, the other day I added halved red grapes into my stir fry - the consistency of the grapes is a lot like red onions actually and I quite enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, my kitchen is fairly old and I don't have a lot of different techniques to draw upon, but I try to mix different ingredients together to obtain new combinations all the time.


Anyway, if you see me, hold me accountable to these goals - ask me about it, make me feel guilty! =)

What about you? What kind of goals do you have and what kind of things have you done to achieve them? Are there different techniques or strategies you use to accomplish your goals?