Get Creative With Evernote: 10 Unique Uses You Haven't Thought Of

by Nancy Messieh

Evernote is one of the ultimate tools in productivity, and with a wide variety of multiplatform apps, there's no limit to the way that you can use the service. We're big fans of Evernote here at MakeUseOf, for lots of reasons, so we've written a list of 10 unique ways how to use Evernote - with some tips and tricks you might not have thought of.

Whether it's taking advantage of Evernote's checklist feature, or the fact that you can save photos in the app on the go, using the mobile app, don't be afraid to get creative with your Evernote use. And while you're at it, don't forget to download our Evernote Manual for free.

Save Classified Listings Before They Expire

How many times have you bookmarked a Craigslist listing only to find that the post has expired next time you go to check it out? With Evernote, you can save the entire listing, with all of the information, contact information and photos by using Evernote's Web Clipper. This feature can come in handy on sites like eBay, Craigslist, or just about any online classified site you can think of.

Take Notes While Reading a Book

If you've already made the switch to eBooks, making digital notes while you're reading is nothing new, but if you're still attached to reading books, and don't want to put your notes in the margin, why not use Evernote? Create an individual notebook for each book, take photos of the page you want to jot a note down about with your phone, and type in the note with the image.

By using Evernote, you have a digitized and easy to search database of your notes - just make sure to include the page number in your typed up notes.

Keep Measurements, Sizes, etc. Handy When Shopping

Whether it's measurements for your furniture, clothes sizes or even your printer's ink type, you can take that kind of information with you everywhere you go. That way, next time you're at the store, you'll always have that information handy if you happen to find something that you want to buy.

Create Lists Of Everything From Goals To Groceries

Because Evernote allows you to create checklists, there's no end to the kinds of lists you can create using the app. Whether it's for day-to-day tasks like groceries, to life-long goals that are on your bucket list, or even just a list of movies you want to watch, you can take your checklists with you everywhere using the mobile Evernote app.

Record Your Prescriptions

If you have a lot of prescriptions, you can keep them organized using Evernote. Take photos of the doctor's prescription, of the pill box or bottle, and even how each individual pill looks. Keep track of how often you take them, and how often you need to refill the prescription.

Save Photos Of Your Takeout Menus

Rather than keep a drawerful of messy takeout menus, why not take photos of the menus and save them to Evernote. Create one notebook for all of your takeout menus, and use one note per restaurant. While the images aren't searchable, you can at least put in relevant tags making it easy to look up all the menus for certain types of cuisine, or better yet, searching for specific restaurants by name.

Save Your Favorite Meals At Restaurants

While it does require an additional Evernote app, in this case Evernote Food, you can keep track of your favorite meals, drinks and more while you're out and about. Recently updated to add an awesome set of features and iPad support, Evernote Food can be the ultimate alternative to Instagramming your food.

Rather than share it with others, using Evernote Food is all about making it easy to remember which restaurant serves your favorite salad and where to go to get the best cup of coffee.

Save Important Documents: Warranties, Contracts, Birth Certificates, etc.

Any kind of important document that you want to keep track of, you can simply save in Evernote. Whether it's an important contract, your birth or marriage certificate, or any other important papers, take photos of them, or save them as PDFs and save them to Evernote. That way you have important information handy with you no matter where you go.

Create a Virtual Library Of Your DVD, Video Game Collections, etc.

If you have a large collection of DVDs, video games, books, or anything else, you can take photos of each item, add notes about them, and even make a note of when you lend them out and who you've lent them to, and you can keep track of your personal belongings. Nothing is more annoying than lending a book to a friend and forgetting who you gave it to, so why not let Evernote help you remember?

Use Evernote As a Rolodex

While there are a lot of great apps that make it easy to exchange contact information simply by touching phones, the traditional business card is far from dead. Rather than keep a messy box of business cards, take photos of the individual business cards and save the note with the contact's name.

Are you looking for more ways to get the most out of Evernote? Check out 3 more ideas here.

Do You Need More Evernote Use Ideas? Here Are 3 Ways I Use It

• June 5, 2012
• By Jessica Cam Wong

Evernote is, without a doubt, a multi-faceted tool that can help you accomplish a lot, but when you have that kind of breadth in options and input channels, there’s a chance you could get overwhelmed. Fear not though, for we have many articles describing how you can use it in ways you may not have thought of yet.

Having used Evernote for a few years now and despite an initial fall-out when I didn’t know what I could use it for, I consider myself an enthusiastic user of the service now. Here I present a few of the ways that I use Evernote which go beyond jotting down article ideas for MakeUseOf and shopping list items.

Receipts

Not long ago, I discovered TheBirdy, an email and SMS-based financial tracking tool, which has worked great for me due to its virtually non-existent learning curve. I email or send a SMS message to TheBirdy containing my expenses and it creates pretty charts that tell me I go out too much to eat, I really need to find a cheaper place to live, etc.

To keep track of my expenses though, I also try to take a picture of the receipts for future reference and store it in Evernote using the Android widget. Evernote’s ability to OCR the image for keyword text is definitely handy when it comes to searching for items that I want to compare in price for another store, attempt to remember if I had already bought an item recently, etc.

Inspiring Design Album

I don’t know about you but I am highly interested in creating little designs for fun. I’m mainly inspired by the number of great pieces of digital art out there made with free, open-source tools, like GIMP and Inkscape. Thus, whenever I see a website with a gorgeous look or icons that look amazing, I go a little nuts in love with the design and create a screenshot of the magnificent piece with the hope that I’ll eventually be able to create something remotelysimilar with my amateur GIMP skills.

As you can see in the following screenshot, I even have a dedicated Evernote notebook for my collection of favorite gorgeous-looking websites, buttons, icons, etc.

Cooking Journal

In case you’re on a journey to perfecting your home-cooking strategies and recipes, here is another use for Evernote as a repository of not only recipes, but also a journal of your cooking experiences. I tend to watch quite a few cooking videos on YouTube, which of course make me really want to shop for items and try new things. As I learn new shortcuts and ways that recipes could have been improved, I jot these tidbits down on a note in Evernote, along with a picture of the item I recently cooked.

If I ever feel the need to share the recipe with my sister or my close friends, I can easily email and share the recipe as well from within Evernote.

Can you recommend additional uses for Evernote? Let us know why you love (or not) Evernote (or any of its other products) in the comments section below!