As a business owner, you have a lot of information to keep up with, and you need to stay organized. 

With so many different software options available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and wind up spending hours or days researching and testing out each one.

When it comes to note-taking, Evernote is one of our favorites, and that’s why we wrote the following Evernote review.

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a cloud-based note-taking software that allows you to organize your notes into different notebooks. It’s the online equivalent of a paper-based system that relies on multiple notebooks (like the composition notebooks you used in school) for organizing information.

Keep reading to find out why we recommend Evernote for Service Providers, the best way to use it, and what the pros and cons are.

What’s the Best Way to Use Evernote?

As a business owner, you have a lot of information to keep up with, and you need to stay organized. 

With so many different software options available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and wind up spending hours or days researching and testing out each one.

When it comes to note-taking, Evernote is one of our favorites, and that’s why we wrote the following Evernote review.

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a cloud-based note-taking software that allows you to organize your notes into different notebooks. It’s the online equivalent of a paper-based system that relies on multiple notebooks (like the composition notebooks you used in school) for organizing information.

Keep reading to find out why we recommend Evernote for Service Providers, the best way to use it, and what the pros and cons are.

What’s the Best Way to Use Evernote?

Business owners across the world are using Evernote to do more than just take notes.

Some of the ways they’re using Evernote to help them stay organized is:

• Content Management: to keep track of their blog posts, content ideas, and posting schedule.
• Conversation Tracking: to copy and paste their conversations with coworkers and clients into notes to be referenced later.
• Expense Tracking: to upload and log receipts for business purchases.
• Project Management: to store project notes, timelines, and tasks.
• Team Collaboration: to share with team members information they need to see by giving them access to specific notebooks or notes. 
• Checklists: creating shopping lists or to-do lists.
• Note-Taking: keeping track of notes from webinars, workshops, books, podcasts, or other sources.
• Brain Dumps: storing and organizing ideas so they can be processed and prioritized later.

While all of this is possible with Evernote, at its core, it is a note-taking software, so keep in mind that it might not be the best choice for certain tasks — such as project management, conversation tracking, or expense tracking.

When you’re managing a larger team or more complex projects, you will do better using software such as Trello or ClickUp for project management.

Trello and ClickUp both allow you to create and assign tasks, as well as collaborate with your team.

When it comes to tracking conversations and managing client information, HubSpot has a free CRM that integrates with their inbound marketing software that’s better suited for those purposes.

For expense tracking, I highly recommend you use accounting and bookkeeping software like QuickBooks or FreshBooks instead.

So, what’s the best way to use Evernote?

I recommend you use it for note-taking and writing because that’s what it’s designed for. Evernote is an excellent tool for content management, brain dumps, creating checklists, and taking notes. 

Let’s dive into how it works so you can discover if it’s the right note-taking tool for your service-based business.

Getting Started With Evernote

To get started with Evernote, navigate to their website, and click on “SIGN UP FOR FREE” to create your new account.

On the next screen, you’ll be prompted to choose a plan. Click “SIGN UP FOR FREE” to proceed with a free account.

The free account is reasonably comprehensive, so it's likely you won’t ever need to upgrade.

Type in your email address and password, or click “Continue with Google” to sign in with your Google account.

After you’ve created your account, you’ll be taken to the Evernote Dashboard and presented with a quick walkthrough. 

Click on “Get Started,” choose “Work” for why you’re using Evernote, select all the options for where you’re going to use Evernote (web browser, desktop app, tablet, and/or phone), and choose how you’re going to use Evernote (meeting notes, project planning, and/or to-do lists).

Now you can choose to create a blank note or use one of Evernote’s templates.

Click on “Blank Note” for now and skip the tutorial so you will be taken to the Dashboard screen. Now you can create notebooks to organize your notes in.

Create Your First Notebook With Notes

By default, Evernote automatically creates a notebook for you. To access and rename this notebook, click on the “Notebooks” tab on the left-hand menu.

Click the three dots under “Actions” and select “Rename Notebook.”

For this demonstration, I’m going to show you how to use Evernote in the ways I mentioned at the beginning of this article, so we’ll start with blog posts. Name your first notebook, “My Business Blog” or something similar.

To create the rest of the notebooks you need, click on “New Notebook” in the top right corner of the screen and create notebooks for the following:

• Social Media Management
• Newsletter Campaigns
• Content Calendar
• My Notes
• Brain Dumps
• Things to Do

Content Management With Evernote

Now that you’ve created all your notebooks let’s add some notes so you can start managing your content.

Blog Posts to Write

Click on the “My Business Blog” notebook and title your first note, “Blog Posts to Write.” This note is where you’re going to keep track of all the blog post ideas that need to turn into published posts someday.

Click “Template” and search for “list” to find the “Party Planning Checklist” that you’re going to use.

Change the information under “About this template” to say “Blog posts to be written.”

Rename “TASK” to “Title,” “Date Completed” to “Notes,” and rename all the headings in grey to the category names your blog posts are organized into.

You can put whatever you want into the notes section. I like to include the buyer persona, keyword, URL structure, search intent, resources, and any additional notes I might need to add for myself or the person writing the article.

Here’s what mine looks like:

When you’re ready to write your first blog post inside of Evernote, just add a new note by clicking on the green plus symbol in the left-hand menu, type the title of your blog post in the title area, and start writing.

If you don’t already have an outline or format that you follow, I recommend using the “Blog Post Worksheet” template to get you started. 

Go ahead and add some of the blog posts you want to write and publish for your business, then move on to the next step — setting up your “Social Media Management” notebook.

Social Media Posts to Write

Once you’re in the “Social Media Management” notebook, create a new note.

Title your note “Social Media Posts to Write” and use the same template you used for blog posts.

Change out the information under “About this template” like we did before. Rename “TASK” to “Title” and “Date Completed” to “Notes.”

Instead of the categories for your blog posts, rename the grey headings to be the different social media channels you’re using.

Your finished product should look something like this:

When you’re ready to write your first social media post, you can either create a new note for each post like you did for blog posts, or you can just create the post using the built-in scheduling tools for each channel, or third-party scheduling tools, like Hootsuite.

Newsletter Campaigns

Now that you have your notebooks and notes created for blog posts and social media posts let’s set up your note pages for newsletter campaigns.

Navigate to the “Newsletter Campaigns” notebook and create your first note. Use the “Yearly Goal Tracking Template” and make the following changes:

• Update “About this template” to say “About this Campaign” and add the details for your campaign.
• Add notes for what the goal of your newsletter campaign will be.
• Rename “Motivation” to “Buyer Persona.”
• Remove the “Publish Date” column.
• Remove the “Actions” column.
• Rename “Rewards” to “Number in Series.”
• Delete the remaining template items and use that space to write your emails.

When you’re finished, it should look something like this:

Content Calendar

The last element to your content management strategy in Evernote is to create your content calendar.

Navigate to your “Content Calendar” notebook, create a new note titled “Content Calendar,” and choose the “Social Media Calendar” template.

Add the month & year and change “Key: Goals/Message” to say “Post Types.” Use this space to keep track of types of posts you can create — like memes, quotes, blog post announcements, etc.

Add a new column for blog posts and for any of the social media channels you have that aren’t listed.

Now your calendar is ready for use so you can get busy filling it with posts to publish.

Things to Do

Creating and assigning project tasks is much simpler and smoother when using project management software, but you can easily manage your tasks in Evernote.

Create a new note for your to-do list and give it a title. You can use the same “Party Planning Checklist” template we used earlier, or if you want a more uncomplicated checklist, you can use the “Dorm Checklist” template instead.

Add the tasks you need to do and check them off as you complete them.

Note-Taking

Evernote provides some nifty templates you can use for taking notes. My favorite template to use when watching webinars or eCourses is the “Meeting Notes” template.

You can use whatever template you prefer, or you can just wing it and not use a template at all. Do whatever works best for you.

Organize your notes by the name of the webinar, the topic, the date, or anything that makes the most sense to you and makes it easy to find the notes you’re looking for later.

Brain Dumps

I like to use Evernote as a way to process and organize my thoughts. 

You might have heard of the term “Brain Dumping” tossed around lately with the increase in popularity of creating “Brain Dump Journals.”

You can get creative with it if you want to, but I prefer the much simpler method of regurgitating my thoughts into Evernote vs. an artistic display in a fancy notebook.

Now, don’t get wrong, people with artistic talent may love creating their stunningly beautiful Brain Dump Journals, but for those of us who lack artistic capabilities, something we can just write in and go is a much better choice.

You can organize your Brain Dump notes by date, topic, or any other category type you want to use.

Pricing for Evernote

One of the best things about Evernote is that the free version will do everything I showed you how to do in this article.

They do offer paid versions if you want to upgrade, but I don’t recommend doing so unless the extra features are going to be worth it for you.

Some of the reasons you might consider going with a paid plan are:

• You’ll get a larger monthly upload limit for attaching files to your notes.
• You can use more than two devices with your account.
• You’ll be able to access your account offline on desktop and mobile devices.
• You’ll get access to their email and live chat support.
• You’ll be able to use more of their features like scanning and digitizing business cards or annotating PDF documents.

Upgrading to the Evernote Premium plan will cost you $7.99/month, or you can upgrade to the Evernote Business plan for $14.99/month.

Pros and Cons of Evernote

Evernote is an excellent cloud-based, note-taking software, but it’s not right for everyone. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons so you can get a better idea if it’s the right fit for you.

Pros

• Intuitive interface with the ability to organize your notes into different notebooks.
• The software is cloud-based, so you can easily access your notes from a desktop or mobile device.
• Numerous templates make it easy to get organized and take notes without having to create all your documents from a blank page.
• The free version is robust enough for most users, so it’s likely you won’t need to upgrade.

Cons

• The free version limits you on the number of devices you can use to 2. This means you can choose to use your desktop and smartphone, but not your tablet, for example.
• Your file upload storage space is limited with the free version, so if you want to attach several large files to your notes, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid account.

Quick Recap

Is Evernote the right note-taking software for your service-based business?

Evernote is great for tasks such as note-taking, content management, and brain dumps, but you shouldn’t use it for more complicated functions like project management or expense tracking.

The free version is perfect for most users, but depending on how you use it, you might want to consider upgrading to a paid version.

Let us help you decide if Evernote is the right choice for you.

Get Free Advice Now

Don’t waste your valuable time and resources doing hours and hours of research and testing to find the right note-taking software — let us help. 

Schedule your free discovery call with our experts and get the advice you need in minutes instead of days. There are no high-pressure sales tactics involved, just honest advice. 

We have over 14 years of experience helping businesses just like yours leverage software solutions to decrease overhead, increase productivity and revenue, and gain a competitive advantage in their market. 

So schedule your call today.