A LOT of Ways Preachers Can Use Evernote

If you read our blog often at all, you know I love Evernote. The more I use this online tool, the more I like it. Evernote has become a way of life for me.

If you don’t know what Evernote is, here’s a quick rundown. If you want to remember something in the online world, Evernote is your tool. What can you save? Here’s a partial list: typed notes, web clips, pictures, emails, tweets, scans, audio notes, and far more. Everything you put into Evernote then becomes fully searchable (by title, by tags, and by text), and you can retrieve this information anywhere you can be online. There is the genius of Evernote: put something in one on computer, and you can retrieve it anywhere. Take 5 minutes and this this article about Evernote from Lifehacker.

How much does this cost? There are two levels. There is a free level (which I use for now) that will do nearly everything described in this post. There is also a paid level tha only costs $45 a year.

For the Wednesday list this week, I asked several preachers to share ways they use Evernote. I got several responses and wanted to share everything they passed along. Hopefully, their ideas  will help you see that this is a tool you can use to help you as you preach or work in other areas for the Lord. All but one of those who respond use the free version. I think, as you see this, you’ll be amazed at how “far” the free version can take you. I want to thank Michael Hite, Dale Jenkins, Josh Ketchum, David Brumley, and Scott McCown for sending me ways they use Evernote, and I added the ways I use the program to this list.

(Please note that some of these “uses” may overlap a bit. I tried to divide them up as best as possible to give you some idea of the power of this program.)

Enjoy and then download and use (link at the end of this post)!

1. Listmania. By far, the most mentioned use for Evernote by those I asked was for lists. The major advantage of keeping lists in Evernote is that they can be add to or removed from anywhere you are online. Anytime you think of a change to your list, just change it. You don’t have to try to remember which piece of paper it was on, or how you saved that file on your computer. Just log in to Evernote, search for any part of the list, make your change, and save. That’s it. Here are the lists that the preachers mentioned.

• Baptisms
• Babies birthdays and information
• Upcoming preachers’ meeting topics
• Attendees to meetings
• Blog posts (I use it for the Thursday Hymn Roundup list)
• Public responses
• Those who place membership and dates of that
• Information from guest speaking engagements (miles driven and enumeration)
• Packing lists
• Books to read
• Book reviews

2. Peruse, Plan and Prepare. The next most common use mentioned by the preachers was the ability to use the “web clipping” feature to prepare sermons and get ideas. Anyone who uses more than one computer (or smartphone) will find this feature helpful. If you simply highlight text and/or pictures online, you can then save them into your Evernote account, where they are then searchable from any computer. Our contributors found this helpful for sermon preparation.

• Scott McCown wrote in his response, “I use it to cut and paste articles, blogs, webclips, etc.  I use EN as a way to go between computers for research and lesson building.”
• Personally, I use it also to clip things from online that I’m not sure I’ll ever use again. By doing this, I am not taking up space in filing cabinets for things I’m not sure I’ll ever use.
• Josh Ketchum mentioned saving blog posts, web clips and other articles that he might wish to use for sermon illustrations. (Remember, once they are in Evernote, they are fully searchable.)

This is where I first started using Evernote. I thought this was all it really could do, and I still use it for web clipping, but, as you are starting to see, it does far more.

3. Sharing Stuff with Significants. Once things are in Evernote, you don’t have to keep them to yourself. You can make a folder public, or share it with certain people. This helps make Evernote a collaborative help.

• Dale Jenkins and I share a folder on iPreach and we can both edit the upcoming schedule or make a note of an idea for an upcoming show. That way, it is archived for both of us.
• Dale also mentioned that some folks at Spring Meadows share a folder that contains announcements. That way, it is always updated.
• As a teacher, Mike Hite mentioned that he shares his syllabus with his classes via Evernote! He also stores class outlines and other materials that can be found there.

4. Is That Kinda Like a Geo Metro? When I first heard of “geo-tagging,” I had no idea what it was. It sounded very sci-fi. Admittedly, I don’t use this feature in Evernote all that much, but I have used it, and it was mentioned a couple of times by those who responded. Basically, what “geo-tagging” means is that, when you put a note in Evernote, the program automatically knows where that note was taken, then you can see it on a map. How is that helpful? Here are a couple of uses.

• Mike Hite likes photography. He likes to use his own photography in some of his PowerPoint presentations or in other ways. However, he doesn’t always have time to take a lot of pictures. So, he simply snaps one picture and saves it in Evernote. Then, he can look at the map (since Evernote knows where he was when he took the picture) and can go back to take more photos later.
• I use this feature to take pictures when traveling. Just Monday, I took a picture of a menu at a restaurant we enjoyed eating at. It is in Lexington, Kentucky, so we probably won’t be eating there again anytime soon. However, if we are ever in Lexington again, I can just call up that note, look at the map, and get directions right back to the front door!

5. Personal Bible Study. Not surprisingly, some mentioned that they use Evernote for both sermon preperation and their own personal study. One idea that was mentioned was by David Brumley. He said that he uses the audio recorder to record himself when he thinks of a sermon idea, devotional thought, or anything else, but can’t type it up (presumably while driving). When he has time, then, he listens to those notes and fleshes them out. Others mentioned that they like to take notes from classes and and seminars in Evernote, so they can be transferred to anything else as needed.

6. Scan and Search. Papers. Business Cards. Receipts. All this paper stuff just mounds up on us, if we don’t have control of it. But processing all those things is a headache. Here is a great use of Evernote, especially if you use a Premium account ($45/year). Scan things into Evernote. Mike Hite mentioned that he uses the Fujitsu Scansnap, which is one sweet scanner, and will scan things directly into Evernote (bypassing your computer’s hard drive). I also scan some documents in. Here’s the beauty of it for Evernote premium users. If you scan a document in, Evernote Premium lets you search within the document! So, if you scan longer documents in, you can search for anything in them. This also makes it a great use for business cards and receipts.

7. Tweet Quotes. If you like Twitter, you probably see a quote every so often that you’d like to remember. If you will simply follow @myen on Twitter, you can then retweet that quote and will will automatically save it to Evernote, again, making it fully searchable.

8. Personal Usage. Of course, Evernote is used for both work and for personal items. Having all that stuff in one location is great!

• Josh Ketchum mentioned that he and his wife share a folder and will contantly put items in there (ideas for birthday parties, decorating ideas, etc.). They can also share articles and blog posts with each other this way.
• I forward emails to my Evenote account that have pictures of my family in them. This is just another way to back up those pictures.
• I store passwords to accounts on Evernote. You can make notes password protected, so this one is. Someone would have to know the password to my Evernote account AND to that note to get to those numbers.
• Others mentioned saving things like phone numbers, car repair locations, and other persona information there. Remember, if it’s in Evernote, it is fully searchable, which makes it a great place for this.
• I take pictures of business cards and store them here. That way, they are searchable by any part of the card. Evernote is able to read the text found in pictures.
• Leah (as well as Josh’s wife) also like to save recipes in Evernote.

9. Other. These overlap with some previous areas, but I put them here as a “catch-all” category, just to show you more ways to use this great program.

• Some use it to prepare for meetings. I keep a list for upcomind elders’ meetings, so I can add to it whenever I think of something that needs to be discussed.
• Josh Ketchum mentioned that he uses Evernote in conjunction with his reading. He makes notes on things to remember from the book, along with the title and page number, then stores it in a folder for books. That’s a great way to make those notes searchable!
• Mike Hite creates documents in Evernote! They can then be saved there, or transferred over to a word processing document. Since they are in Evernote, though, they can be edited on any computer.
• He also forwards emails to his Evernote account when he orders something online. That way, the shipping information and the order number are archived.
• As a premium user, brother Hite is also able to store Word and PowerPoint documents in Evernote, making them available anywhere he is.
• In his own words: ”  use a very modified form of the old Baker Topical Index by creating folders and using subject tags to store topical information for ministry. Now all those files are with me wherever I go rather than stuck in a file cabinet back at my office. I can also store the same note in multiple topics just by assigning more than one tag.”
• Keeping notes from nearly any conversation that might need to be archived for safety reasons. This could include notes from counseling sessions or personal conversations, or could be the transcript from a Facebook chat or email.

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Put all that together. If you use more than one computer or smartphone to be online, Evernote is a free program you should consider. I am currently thinking of going to a Premium account, because I am using it more and more. In fact, I used Evernote to store the emails these guys sent to me for this post!

Check it out at www.evernote.com and let this program help you in your ministry.