Going Paperless:Using Quick Notes in the New Evernote App for iOS 7

Last week, in preparation for the release of iOS 7, Evernote released a beautiful new app for iPhone and iPads. The new app is packed with nice little features, but today, I wanted to focus on what I thought was the best feature of all: the ability to create notes quickly. Previous versions of the Evernote app made it a little difficult to create notes quickly. So much so that, for a time, I reverted to paper as a quicker means of jotting down notes. Thanks to the thought put into the new app, I no longer need to do that. If you haven’t yet seen the new app, here is what the home screen looks like on my iPhone:

Note the Quick Note section at the bottom of the screen? There are 6 ways to create a note quickly from the home screen. I’ll run through several of them briefly to show how it is done.

1. Creating a text note

Need to jot down someone’s name, the title of a book or movie, or perhaps the idea for the perfect ending to the novel you have been working on? Open up the Evernote app and tap in the section that says “Type a quick note.” This will jump you to a blank note screen where you can just start typing:

You can change other properties of the note, like the note title, notebook or tags, but you don’t have to. For quick text notes, I rarely do. The note simply goes into my default notebook (my “Inbox” notebook) with the current date/time and it is easy to find when I review the notes later in the day.

2. Take a quick reminder note

Sometimes, I’ll jot down a note to which I need to attach a reminder to take action later. The new Evernote app has made this very easy to do. In the Quick Note section, tap the Reminder icon:

This will open up a reminder note. Type your note:

When you are finished typing your note, click the Notify Me button to set up a reminder for the note you just created:

Select a date/time to be reminded and save your note. It is quick and simple and the note will appear in your reminder list as well.

3. Take a quick photo note

Suppose you have a document that you want to quickly capture in Evernote. With the new app, it is easy to do using the document camera and a quick note.

From the Camera note, swipe to the left to get the document camera:

Snap a photo (or photos) of your document and then save the note. The resulting note will look something like this:

4. Quickly create list notes

Have a list that you need to create quickly? Whether it is a bulleted list, or a checklist, it is easy to do using the Quick Note feature in Evernote. You start with either the “bulleted list” or “checklist” quick note buttons:

For bulleted lists:

Tapping the bulleted list button will take you to a blank note that is pre-configured for bulleted lists. All you have to do is start typing to add items to your list:

For checklists:

Tapping the checklist button will take you to a blank note that is pre-configured for checklists. All you have to do is start typing to add items to your list:

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I have been using the new Evernote app for almost a week and have already used the quick notes dozens of times. It is great to have a way to quickly create a variety of note types right from within the app. And they are quick. It takes just a few seconds for each one.

There are many more new features of the new Evernote app for iOS, but so far, the quick notes are by far my favorite, and the most useful for how I work.

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Did you know that this week is Evernote’s big annual conference, EC3. It looks to be a great one and loaded with some fantastic guest speakers. If you are interested, you should go check it out. I really wanted to go this year, but my schedule just wouldn’t allow it.

If you have a suggestion for a future Going Paperless post, let know me. Send it to me at feedback [at] jamietoddrubin.com. As always, this post and all of my Going Paperless posts is also available on Pinterest.

Last week’s post: 7 Ways I Use Reminders In Evernote to Avoid Embarrassing Myself.