Many of you asked why I don’t like Evernote…
I was one of the early adopters of Evernote when it came out in 2008. There may have been other note-taking apps like it, but honestly, there was nothing like it.
Evernote was founded on a radical idea: take notes anywhere from your smartphone. Not only could you take notes, but you could take photos, audio, video, and even clip things from the internet. Even today, I still can think of no better app that served a writer’s creativity than the earliest versions of the app.
And then, overtime, the company’s leaders and developers lost their way. It started sometime around 2011-2012 when they started buying up little start-up companies and incorporating them into the app. And then they were trying to chase other markets, like Evernote for Business (which makes no sense). The result was that the user interface suffered, the app became slower, and it just wasn’t a pleasurable experience anymore. Even worse, the premium plan stopped being a good deal. I was an early Evernote Premium subscriber. It was awesome. And then it wasn’t.
Honestly, I’m surprised that Evernote is still around. If you took a time machine back to 2010ish, every influencer who was mega at the time was promoting Evernote, and this was before affiliate sales were hot. (Michael Hyatt was one of them). Now, you can’t find a single influencer who will touch the brand (and be taken seriously). You just don’t hear people talk about it anymore.
As I booted up the app on my computer, I was reminded of just how terrible it is. It runs slow, the organization of notebooks, tags, and stacks is clunkier than it ever was. Yet, there’s still a lot to like. But, I can’t disconnect the good times from the current times.
I’ll always remember Evernote for helping spur my creativity—I have many, many, notes taken while standing in line at the coffee shop, daydreaming on the couch, or photos snapped on a whim when I saw something beautiful out in the world. But I’ve moved on, even though I still haven’t found a note taking app that rivals the early Evernote, aside from maybe Google Keep (the original). Google Keep was pretty cool. But Evernote was better.
ANYWAY
Eulogies aside…I bought an estate planning binder today from a senior living facility. LOL
I wanted to put myself in the mindset of a senior citizen planning for end of life. That binder helped me do that and gave me some great ideas. There wasn’t anything earth shattering in it, but I was able to absorb how a senior living specialist thinks about this problem. Sometimes, understanding how someone thinks is much more valuable than the content itself. This is true of many things in life.
In other news, I went through my old Evernote notes and consolidated them. I had a lot of fun revisiting old ideas.
My notebooks are now all organized and good to go.
My next project is to go through my Kindle and organize my books. It’s not an estate management thing by any means, but my collections are a mess. It’ll be nice to clean that up.
After that, I need to do some cleanup and maintenance on my websites, but my “clean up” project is almost done. Then I can start truly planning my estate because I’ll know what I have and know that everything is organized.
Have a good night.
