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A digital black hole - until you need it!
December 21, 2018

A digital black hole - until you need it!

Paul Weber | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Evernote

Evernote is something I use to manage y personal knowledge system. Anything text based that needs to be kept for long term reference is added to Evernote, where it stays universally accessible and searchable. In some limited cases I also create documents for one way sharing (but not collaboration), including things like lists for employees that I manage to reference.
  • Evernote does a great job integrating with other platforms. I use the Outlook, Chrome, and Slack connections, as well as using direct App links from tasks in Todoist.
  • Evernote does a good job of making search work - even inside scanned documents. That saves me time needing to label, tag, and rename files and lets me just store them and move on knowing I'll be able to find them again later.
  • Evernote works well (but not identically) across platforms. Mac and PC are almost identical, but the way it is laid out and offers text formatting and photo capture on a mobile is great for that platform.
  • Evernote really made me question my use when they changed their payment model a couple years ago. Admittedly, I had never paid for it and this change would move me to being a paid user - but I was happy enough with the system (and it has continued to improve) that I now pay happily for their base subscription level.
  • Evernote can be annoying with asking you to pay (or increase your subscription) incessantly. Every time I attach a Word doc it reminds me that I can search inside these with the next level of payment - just take no for an answer rather than harassing me to pay 5x a day!
  • Changes aren't always clearly communicated and getting started can be difficult. I had an account that sat gathering dust for years until I bit the bullet and took a course - now I'm happy I did, but not everyone is willing to invest that much time and money just to try something.
  • Evernote lets me store things but not spend time organizing them, which saves me a ton of time
  • It lets me access anything anytime, so I can keep things forever but not have them in my way until I need them. Keep a receipt in case my fridge dies in 9 years - no reason not to!
  • It lets me keep "living" documents and control who has access - to view or to collaborate.
As hard as it was to get Evernote set up to my liking until I took a course, I felt like OneNote allowed too much freedom. It aspired to be a true digital notebook, letting you place text and images wherever you want on a page. I prefer more structure, so Evernote felt right to me.
Evernote is great as the digital equivalent of sweeping things under the rug. It's not gone, but not in your face. It's much easier to find later - which makes me feel like I'm cheating at being organized. Evernote is great for plain text or basic text, but formatting and robust documents feel clunky and cause issues - so I usually avoid those types of projects or simply attach a Word document.

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