![]() I had no idea that I’d ever need one of these United Healthcare statements. ![]() One afternoon this past summer, while I was driving in the middle of nowhere (literally … somewhere in northern Maine), my sister called from Phoenix and said, “Dad and I are at his cardiologist’s office and we need to know what prescriptions he’s on.” Since United Healthcare mails me a monthly summary of his prescriptions (on paper), and since I scan this and everything else into Evernote, and since Evernote syncs my second brain across all of my devices, the only thing I had to do was pull off the road, search the “dad” Notebook for the newest document containing the word “prescriptions,” and then email it to my sister. ![]() It’s not always obvious in this ongoing data tsunami what’s important and what’s not, so I save it all … in one giant folder (what Evernote calls a Notebook) using my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner (a critical companion to Evernote). Every month, I get piles of paper (not to mention email) from every entity involved in his world. Sadly, my dad is now in a memory care facility so I’m managing his affairs. Here’s an example of the immense power of feeling organized. Yes, it’s a giant time saver on both ends.Īs Evernote says on its homepage, you’ll “feel organized without the effort.” Consider for a moment the serious implications of “feeling organized …” versus “being organized …”. If you achieve that, you’ll discover that you can save information far faster and retrieve it more reliably. The key to making Evernote hum is to abandon all (or at least most) organization and instead become a search ninja. Warning! If you use Evernote by parroting the way you organize information today (meaning hierarchical organization of your files, notes, tasks, ideas, etc.), you’ll fail. The fact that Microsoft has copied Evernote tells you how important it is. Today, Excel is the world’s second most popular application (after Word, another copied product). Remember VisiCalc? When Microsoft saw VisiCalc, they recognized that the world had changed, so they copied it … and in time made it even better. Microsoft is not a very innovative company, but they are perhaps the world’s best “fast follower.” They didn’t invent spreadsheets. I’m talking about Evernote (or OneNote, Microsoft’s very, very, very good copy). If you embrace it, you’ll be twice as productive. By Dave Nelsen, Contributing Writer, this is my 70th TEQ column and I’ve never told you about my favorite app, what I call my second brain.
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