UNTETHERED WITH EVERNOTE

BY
STACEY HARMON
AND KRISTI WILLIS
© Copyright 2014 Stacey Harmon and Kristi Willis. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of any part of this work by any means without
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Reproduction or translation of any part of this work by any means without

permission of the publishers is unlawful.
EVERNOTE, the Evernote Elephant logo and REMEMBER
EVERYTHING are trademarks of Evernote Corporation and are used under
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This work is not written by or endorsed by Evernote Corporation or any
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Copyright, Disclaimer and Terms of Use Agreement
The authors and publishers of this work and any accompanying materials
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Version 20140501
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why Get Untethered?
Meet Stacey
Meet Kristi
How the Book Is Organized
Chapter 1: Building Your Toolkit
Installing Evernote
Outfitting the Rest of Your Toolbox
Untethered Toolkit
Chapter 2: Organizing Your Evernote System
Evernote Organization Basics
Creating an Evernote Inbox
A GTD Approach to Organizing in Evernote
The Fewer, Bigger Buckets Approach to Organizing in Evernote
Untethered Toolkit
Chapter 3: Mastering the Fundamentals of Evernote
Moving, Copying and Merging Notes
Searching
Shortcuts vs. Reminders
Note Linking
Sharing
Keyboard Shortcuts
Chapter 4: Smooth Operations
Business Planning
 Reconciling Receipts and Expenses
Lead Management
Task Management
Untethered Toolkit
Chapter 5: Effortless Teamwork
Key Collaboration Tools
Creating Team Synergy
Untethered Toolkit
Chapter 6: Happy Customers
Organizing Client Work Internally
Sharing with Non-Evernote Users
Creating a Collaborative Workspace
Curating Content
Chapter 7: Prioritizing the Personal
Tracking Personal Goals
Keeping Tabs on Your Health
Planning Your Next Great Escape
The Inspired Foodie
Making a Smooth Move
More Ideas for Prioritizing Your Personal Life
Untethered Toolkit
Chapter 8: Starting Your Untethered Journey
Key Questions as You Build Your System
Appendix A: Backing Up Your Evernote Data
Appendix B: Implementing Workflows
Workflows Covered in the Book
 Creating Your Own Workflows
Appendix C: Recommended Applications and Tools
Evernote Companion Applications
Third-Party Applications
Third-Party Hardware
Gratitude
Special thanks from Stacey
Special thanks from Kristi
About the Authors
Stacey Harmon
Kristi Willis
Introduction: Why Get Untethered?
The work world today doesn’t bear much resemblance to that of our
parents. More and more of us are striking out on our own – self-employed,
entrepreneurs, freelancers, micropreneurs – whatever label you want to put
on it. We are leaving corporate jobs with regular paychecks because we
want the freedom to pursue our purpose, making a difference for our
customers and ourselves.
We work from home offices, co-working spaces, airports, coffee shops and
park benches. We are as likely to use our tablet or phone as our computers
and we want everything we need at our fingertips. We don’t have many
employees or a big infrastructure and we need tools that are reliable,
flexible and easy to use. We are, so to speak, untethered from a traditional
workspace.
In his book The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau calls this new workforce
“unexpected entrepreneurs.” We, the authors, became unexpected
entrepreneurs several years ago, and, if you are reading this book, you
probably are too. Like us, you may struggle with getting products or
services to customers in a timely manner while also keeping up with the
deluge of receipts, paperwork and details that go along with owning your
own business, especially when it’s a one person shop.
The challenge is that something as simple as trying to find a receipt or
pulling up your medical history at the doctor’s office can derail your day,
taking you down the rabbit hole of digging through stacks of paper or
scrambling to find what you need. And, we don’t have time for that.
We turned to the same tool as a cornerstone of our system for keeping up
with all the odds and ends, managing projects, sharing work with clients
and, in turn, being more productive – Evernote. We rely on it for everything
from tracking receipts to documenting client needs to making our grocery
lists.
Evernote is a cloud-based software that lets you store information of many
different formats in a centralized database. It is available on most computer
and smartphone platforms and synchronizes the web-based copy of your
data with your local device so that you always have what you need at your
fingertips. Evernote also integrates seamlessly with a number of other tools
that we use, making it the backbone of our systems. It doesn’t hurt that the
software is free at the Basic level and is only a small fee for the more
advanced Premium service.
In this book, we describe how we use Evernote to run our businesses. As
you read our workflows, you may quickly identify areas that eliminate
hurdles for you or identify tools to solve a different type of challenge. For
example:

Do you have a place to centralize your business planning for the

year?
Are you drowning in receipts or stacks of paper?
Where do you organize and manage your business leads?
Is your task management system written on a scratch piece of
paper or a legal pad?
Do you struggle to get your team on the same page?
Are your projects scattered in multiple locations?
Are you bombarding your clients with email to keep them
updated on your progress?
Do you find yourself in meetings needing something that is
back at your desk?
Do you need to get untethered?

Our goal is to give you a kick-start to digitize your business with Evernote
so that you can worry less about where you put something, invest more
energy in delivering brilliant work and have peace of mind that everything
is handled. Here’s a little bit more about who we are and what we do to help
you better understand how and why we approach work the way we do.

Meet Stacey
Organizing makes me happy. In my baby book, my Mom wrote, “At four
and a half, Stacey loved to put blocks all out on floor and try different ways
to reorganize them back into the box. She spent hours doing that instead of
building with them.” Clearly, the desire to organize is part of my nature.
I also have a history of embracing technologies early on that blossom into
mainstream acceptance. I’ve combined these two abilities into a career as
an independent consultant, advising business owners on how to capture
value from digital transformation, and also as a speaker, teaching digital
marketing strategy and productivity with Evernote at events across the
country.
Harmon Enterprises (HE) consists of me, a part-time assistant and a team of
independent contractors who help support my clients and business
development. I travel often for work and the tools and systems that I use
support the ability for me to work from wherever I am, on any device
available to me (usually my MacBook Air or iPhone).
My avid adoption of Evernote began when I read Getting Things Done
(GTD) by David Allen. The philosophy in the book resonated deeply with
my organized nature and a light bulb went off for me. I realized I could
deploy a digital GTD system in Evernote to manage the nearly paralyzing
amount of competing to-dos I was attempting to manage in my business and
life. My productivity changed from that day forward.
I created an Evernote notebook and task management structure that serves
as my trusted life management system. I constantly work my Evernote GTD
system – actively moving around notes and next actions as my priorities
ebb and flow. I rarely use tags, relying instead on my defined notebook
structure and the robust search features of Evernote to locate what I’m
looking for.
Everything, and I mean everything, that I can digitize goes into Evernote –
both professional and personal. This centralization allows me the freedom
to work from wherever I want, and the flexibility to deliver for my clients
from any location. Most meaningful to me is the sanity and focus that my
Evernote GTD system gives me as I navigate the often overwhelming
demands of entrepreneurship and life.
My office is now with me wherever I go; all I need is the Internet to work. I
love the freedom of not being tethered to a desk and knowing I can always
deliver for my clients.
Meet Kristi
A friend recently described me as a “Jane of all trades.” I have a
background in technology, learning and development and as a writer. I am
passionate about technology, and am equally zealous about food. You might
catch me leading a team facilitation workshop, helping a client design their
Learning Management System, interviewing a chef or farmer for a food
magazine or teaching other writers how to use Evernote. I have an intense
curiosity and a thirst for constant learning, and the realms of tech and food
feed both.
At my company, KW Solutions Group (KWSG), my part-time assistant and
I are constantly changing hats, which can be a little hectic. I travel often and
am as likely to work from a client site, coffee shop or my coworking space
as my desk at home. I love the flexibility of being my own boss, but
certainly wasn’t prepared for the administrative load that came with striking
out on my own.
Fortunately, I’d been an Evernote user for about a year before I took the
leap to entrepreneur. I initially used Evernote for personal items, organizing
my recipes and workouts so that I had them with me wherever I traveled. At
work, I used Evernote for taking notes in meetings and at conferences, but I
didn’t maximize the true power of Evernote until I started my own
company.
Evernote serves as my virtual notebook and file cabinet no matter where I
am and it works on all five of my devices (MacBook Pro, iMac, Lenovo
laptop, iPad and iPhone). I use Evernote to organize my projects, collect my
research, share with clients and colleagues and store all of my reference
material. In combination with my email and calendar, it has become part of
my technology toolkit that I can’t live without.
I’ve integrated Evernote into my workday in a variety of ways, combining
my paper and digital worlds. Not only do I have it installed on each device,
but I also carry an Evernote Moleskine notebook, from which I can snap
photos of the handwritten pages and transfer them as searchable text to
Evernote. I also frequently use the Evernote Post-it Notes when I
storyboard or facilitate work sessions.
Moving to a more digital system has not been an overnight process for me,
but I have found it to be a powerful tool worth the investment of time. I
loathe filing and paperwork; that type of administrative work makes me feel
like I have on a straightjacket. Having a tool where I can put things and
search to find them easily has freed up my time so that I can work on the
things that stoke my creative fire.

How the Book Is Organized

While we have much in common – small business owners who value
flexible, easy to use systems and Evernote devotees – we also have our own
styles and work habits. We don’t believe there is only one way to organize
your work.
Stacey relies heavily on a structured system while Kristi prefers to have
fewer places to look for things. Our hope is that by writing this together
you’ll find a style that appeals to you, or something in the middle, and
apply that to how you work best. This book isn’t a prescription, but a
framework for how you can use Evernote and a solid set of cloud-based
tools to make it easier to focus on the work you love as an independent
entrepreneur and spend less time on the tedious administrative tasks.
The first three chapters help you install Evernote, pick your complementary
tools and navigate the essential features of the program. We then guide you
through how you can use Evernote to manage your day-to-day business
operations, collaborate with your team, work effortlessly with clients and
organize your personal life.
We’ll explore how to use Evernote for:

Business planning
Organizing your receipts and expenses
Lead management
Task management
Organizing team meetings
Documenting team processes and procedures
Managing internal projects
 Sharing information with clients
Building a collaborative workspace
Curating content for clients
An array of personal uses that help simplify life

We have included the personal life section because we have found that if
you don’t have a good strategy for organizing your personal information, it
can interrupt and disrupt your business life. And, if you are newer to
Evernote or aren’t an entrepreneur, some of the personal examples may feel
more accessible than the business cases.
Each workflow spells out different considerations and Evernote features
that help you solve that challenge. Where one of us has a different style, we
present an alternate approach. Our hope is that you can apply our
techniques directly to your work or extrapolate how you might use the tools
in a different fashion to tackle a similar situation.
At the core of each process is a list of questions we ask each time we have a
new process to implement, problem to solve or new client to onboard. We
point to these items as we guide you through each example, but these
considerations are not unique to these solutions. You can use this list of
questions to address any challenge you may encounter, as you get
untethered.

How is the information organized or stored now?

What type of searches do you need to perform often?
What types of information are you collecting (PDFs, pictures,
audio files, etc.) and is it physical or digital?
What works well with the current process?
What bottlenecks or inefficiencies, if any, currently occur with
this process? Where are the holes?
How many notes do you expect to create for this topic or
process? A lot or a few?
Is the work transactional or functional? For example, a real
estate agent has a large number of clients who they deal with for
 a finite period of time (transactional) where as a marketing
consultant might have fewer clients for a longer period of time
for ongoing maintenance (functional).
Do you need to share the information with others? If so, who?
Are they internal or external? Are they Evernote users?
When and where do you need to be able to access the
information? Only in the office? On the road? Using a mobile
device?
How sensitive is your data?

With each workflow we have included basic instruction on how to perform

the technical steps and, since technology changes quickly, a hyperlink to the
Evernote Knowledge Base article on that topic at the end of each chapter. If
the steps in the book don’t seem to match up with what you see on your
screen, please use the link to find the latest steps.
The book does not represent an exhaustive description of all of the features
in Evernote, and we admit, it’s stilted towards the Mac version, which
typically receives new features first. The software is robust and we
encourage you to explore all that it has to offer. Our intent is to present the
tools we feel are most important to our work, knowing that you will adapt
your own style as you work with Evernote.
One more quick disclaimer: we don’t work for Evernote. We are unpaid
Ambassadors, or passionate power users with a title, who receive a few
perks throughout the year, but Evernote does not directly compensate us.
Now let’s go get untethered!
Chapter 1: Building Your Toolkit
Before diving into how we use Evernote, we want to make sure you have
everything you need setup and ready to go. In this chapter, we help you
setup Evernote and build your untethered toolkit, the cloud-based apps that
we recommend so that you can work seamlessly from anywhere.
If you are new to Evernote, you need to create an account and install the
software before jumping into the next sections. If you are already an
Evernote user, make sure you have all of the essential tools to use the
extensive power of Evernote and to take full advantage of our workflows.
Use this list to help you navigate to the sections you need to implement.
Click on the link after each item to skip to that section.

Have you created an Evernote account? If not, create an

account.
Have you reviewed what type of account you are using and that
it meets your needs? If not, review the account types.
Have you installed the Evernote desktop software? If not, install
the desktop program now.
Have you installed the Evernote Web Clipper? If not, install the
Evernote Web Clipper for each browser you use regularly.
Have you installed the Evernote app on your mobile device(s)?
If not, download and install the mobile app for your phone and
tablet.
Have you installed the companion applications or third-party
tools on your desktop and mobile devices? Review our
recommendations and install the tools that help you the most in
 your business. If the tool is available for the desktop and mobile
devices, consider installing it on both.

Installing Evernote
To get the most out of Evernote, create an account and install three different
components: the desktop software, the web clipper for your internet
browser and the app on each of your mobile devices.
Picking the right type of account
When you create an Evernote account, you receive the free or Basic
version. You may want to upgrade to one of the paid versions of the
application depending on your needs. Following is a description of each
version and an overview of its features.
Evernote Basic is the free version and it is sufficient for a large number of
users. If you are using Evernote primarily for personal note taking, storing
ideas and to digitize your paper, then Evernote Basic should meet your
needs. You can upload 60 MB of data each month and create individual
notes up to 25 MB in size.
The Premium account ($5/month or $45/year) gives you more advanced
features for sharing and collaboration. These accounts have higher limits (1
GB of uploaded data per month and a maximum note size of 100 MB),
increased security with the Passcode Lock feature and the ability to make
notebooks available offline on mobile devices. Premium users can also
share and collaborate on notes and notebooks with other premium users,
search PDF files stored in notes and use the Presentation Mode feature to
share ideas in a meeting.
If you have documents, notebooks and intellectual property that you share
with employees and contractors, you may want to consider an Evernote
Business account ($10/month/user). With Evernote Business, you create
notes and notebooks that are stored in your company’s Evernote database. If
an employee leaves the company, their Business notes stay behind.
Each user can upload 2 GB of data into their personal notebooks, as well as
their business notebooks, each month. Evernote Business also has an
administrator interface for managing notebooks, user permissions and user
accounts.
We both used the free version of Evernote for several years before
transitioning to a paid account. If you have an assistant or contractors that
you work with regularly, we highly recommend that you, at a minimum,
upgrade to a Premium account in order to be able to easily collaborate.
We have both recently transitioned to Evernote Business to ensure that our
company-related notes aren’t scattered across multiple accounts as we work
with different people. If you are a one or two person shop, Evernote
Premium is your best bet and you can transition to a Business account as
your company grows or you develop a need to maintain data ownership
over your business notes.
Evernote Evernote Evernote
Basic Premium Business

$5 per month or
Cost Free $10 per user per month
$45 per year

2 GB of data each month separately in

60 MB of
1 GB of data each personal and business notebooks; entire
Data upload limits data each
month collection is limited to 40 GB of data upload
month
monthly

Note and
attachment size 25 MB 100 MB 100 MB
limit

Number of notes 100,000 notes 100,000 notes 500,000 notes per account

Number of
250 250 250 personal + 5,000 business
notebooks

Offline notebooks No Yes Yes

Others can modify Yes (if they also

in shared No have a Premium Yes (if they also have a Premium account)
notebooks account)

Presentation mode No Yes Yes

Create an account
The first step is to create an Evernote account. If you aren’t sure which
account type to sign up for, start with the free one and you can upgrade
later.

1. Go to http://www.evernote.com.
2. Click the Sign Up button.
3. Select your account type.
4. Follow the prompts to complete the registration.

When you create a new account, Evernote starts a download for the desktop
software. You can use the web-based version of the application without the
desktop version, but the web version does not have as many features and
shortcuts. To get the most out of Evernote, install the program on your
desktop. Follow the prompts in your web browser or skip ahead to the
instructions on installing the desktop version for more help.
With your Evernote account, you receive a unique email address that you
can use to email notes into your database. Add this email address to your
contact list to make it simple to forward emails to Evernote.
To find your Evernote email address, on the Mac choose Evernote>Account
Info from the menu. On a Windows PC, choose Tools>Account Info. Your
email address appears in the Account Info dialog box.

Dedicated Evernote email address appears in the Account Info dialog box
Install the desktop program
Install the desktop version of Evernote on each of the computers that you
use. For example, Kristi has a MacBook Pro, iMac and a Windows laptop.
She has the desktop version of Evernote installed on each computer.
To install the desktop version of Evernote:

1. Go to http://www.evernote.com.
2. Click on the Products menu and click on the Download button
next to the Evernote option.
3. Follow the instructions to complete the download and installation.

When you install the desktop version of Evernote on your computer, the
program stores a local copy of your note database on the hard drive.
Periodically, Evernote synchronizes the local copy of your database with
your web-based database on their servers. The local copy is particularly
helpful when you want to work offline.

Install the Evernote Web Clipper

One of our favorite features in Evernote is the ability to clip the contents of
web pages to a note using the Evernote Web Clipper. If you regularly use
more than one Internet browser, download the Evernote Web Clipper for
each browser you use.
To download the Evernote Web Clipper:

1. Go to http://www.evernote.com.
2. Click on the Products menu and choose Evernote Web Clipper.
3. Follow the instructions for installing the Web Clipper for that
browser.
4. Repeat the process as needed in each browser that you use
regularly.

Install the app on your mobile devices

One of the most powerful things about Evernote is the ability to take notes
on the go. To take full advantage of this feature, install Evernote on each of
your mobile devices, following the instructions for the app store on your
device to download the Evernote app.
Other Evernote tools
Evernote authors a number of companion applications that we reference
throughout the book and you may want to download depending on your
needs.

Skitch: Capture and mark up screen snaps, images and PDF

files with basic drawing tools.
Penultimate: Digital handwriting app.
Evernote Food: Search and store recipes, explore restaurants
and capture meals.
Evernote Clearly: Create a distraction-free screen in your web
browser for easier reading.

There is a plethora of third-party apps designed to integrate with Evernote.

We refer to several of them during the course of the book and we
recommend that you explore the Evernote App Center for software that
could be helpful to you.
Outfitting the Rest of Your Toolbox
While Evernote is a primary tool for both of us, an independent
entrepreneur can’t live by Evernote alone. To complete our digital
toolboxes, we look for tools that are cloud-based, meaning that we can
access the information anywhere, from any device and, when possible,
integrate with Evernote.
We both use Google Apps for our email, calendar and document
management and Google Chrome as our primary browser. The Google tools
are affordable (again free and paid versions are available) and have
Evernote specific shortcuts.

Following are a few other tools that we find helpful and work well with
Evernote. We cannot stress enough the importance of having a scanner,
particularly one that inputs directly to Evernote.
Function Stacey’s Tool Kristi’s Tool

Fujitsu ScanSnap
Scanner Canon P215
s1100

Screen captures SnagIt Skitch

HelloSign & HelloSign &

Digital signature
HelloFax HelloFax

Social media management HootSuite HootSuite

Digital retrievers (software that aggregates and sends

FileThis IFTTT
information to Evernote)

Expense management Expensify

You can download the most current version of the toolkit from the
Resources page at GetUntethered.com/resources.

Summary
To get a solid start on the road to being untethered, make a list of the types
of software you need and look for cloud-based solutions that integrate with
Evernote. Having Evernote as the main repository for your work gives you
freedom from little scraps of paper and peace of mind that everything is in
one place.
Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Create an Evernote account.

Add your Evernote email address to your contacts.
Install the desktop software on each of your computers.
Install the Evernote Web Clipper for each browser that you use
frequently.
Install the mobile app.
Install the Evernote companion apps.
Install or purchase any necessary third-party tools. If you don’t
have a scanner, order one now!

Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about
them by clicking the links below:

Evernote desktop application

Evernote Web Clipper
Evernote mobile and companion apps
Third-party tools that integrate with Evernote
Chapter 2: Organizing Your Evernote
System
Evernote stores your information digitally like you might store paper in a
file cabinet or on a bookshelf. You add information in individual notes.
Those notes can be stored in different notebooks and the notebooks can be
grouped together in stacks. You can add keywords to notes through tags or
use naming conventions to group notes together. Most importantly, because
it is digital, you can quickly search your notes to find what you need.
In this chapter, we take you through the essential tools in Evernote for
creating and organizing your notes. In particular, we demonstrate how to:

Create notes, notebooks and stacks.

Use tags or naming conventions to add keywords to notes.
Quickly access notes using shortcuts and reminders.
Navigate between notes using note links and table of contents
notes.
Copy and move notes.
Search your notes.
Use keyboard shortcuts to work more quickly with your notes.

As we guide you through these tools, we show you examples of how we

have organized our Evernote systems. Organizational styles are very
personal and you should create a structure that feels comfortable for you.
You might like a very structured notebook system like Stacey, prefer to
have fewer notebooks and rely more on tags like Kristi or want something
in between.

Evernote Organization Basics

Using Evernote, you can create notes that contain text, audio, graphics and
attachments. Each note is stored in a notebook. By default, your Evernote
account contains one notebook. Evernote considers this your “default”
notebook. You can change your default notebook in the program
preferences.
Use one of the following techniques to create a note:

Click or tap the New Note button.

On the desktop version, choose File>New Note from the menu.
On the Mac, press Command+N.
On Windows, press Ctrl+N.

Note creation options

For each new note, you do the following:

Designate the notebook where you want to store it.

Add a meaningful title.
Create contents in the note body.
 Note components on desktop application

For more details on how to create a note from email or using the Evernote
Web Clipper, visit the Resources page at GetUntethered.com/resources.

New note on iOS

You can add text, pictures, audio and file attachments to a note. You can
format your notes with bullets, numbering or check lists, add tables and use
mark up to annotate the note.

How many notes you can add, or upload, each month is determined by the
type of account you have. See Chapter One for more details on the monthly
upload limits for each account type. There is no overall storage limit for
your Evernote account, just a limit on the monthly upload capacity.
When you want to organize similar notes together, you can create additional
notebooks. You may also want to create a notebook to share a group of
notes with others or to make a set of notes available offline (when you don’t
have internet access) from your mobile device. For example, if you are
going to be on a plane with no WiFi, you may want to set a notebook to be
available offline so that you can work on it while you are in the air.
To create a notebook:

1. Click on the Notebook List icon.

2. Click the New Notebook button.
3. Add a name for the notebook and press Enter.
You can organize notebooks into notebook stacks, like putting similar
notebooks together on one shelf. For example, we both have our finances
and client projects organized into their own stacks. You don’t store
individual notes in a notebook stack; it’s just a way to group notebooks.

Kristi’s stacks

To create a Stack:

1. Click on the Notebook List icon.

2. Drag one of the notebooks you want to add to the stack on top of
one of the other notebooks you want to include in the stack.
3. The stack is automatically named for the destination notebook (the
one you dropped the other notebook on top of). To rename the
 stack, right- or Control-click on the stack and choose Rename
Stack from the pop-up menu.
4. Enter a new name and press Enter.

Tags allow you to add keywords to a note that may not appear in the text of
the note. Tags can be applied to any note and allow you to associate that
keyword across notes in different notebooks. For example, Kristi adds an
expense category tag that corresponds with her chart of accounts to all of
her receipt notes. If she searches for one of the expense tags, she can see all
of the notes for that category, regardless of the year of the purchase.

Tag in a note

You can create a tag by typing the name of the new tag in the Tag section of
the note or by clicking on the Tags list and clicking the New Tag button.

Creating a new tag from the Tags list

Establishing a naming convention for your notes is another helpful way to

keep them organized. For example, as we were drafting the workflows for
this book, we added the author’s initials to the end of the note title to clarify
the items written by a particular person.
 Sample note naming convention

You can also use naming conventions to force a particular sort order on
notes, notebooks or stacks. Adding a period or other symbol to the
beginning of the name sorts that item to the top. Stacey uses a numbering
system to sort her notebooks and stacks in the desired order.

Using naming conventions to force a sort order on notebooks

You can use all or some of these techniques in your system. For example,
Stacey uses a detailed notebook and stack system, relies heavily on naming
conventions, but doesn’t use tags often. Kristi also uses notebooks and
stacks and integrates tags as needed.

Creating an Evernote Inbox

There are a number of ways to send or clip notes to your Evernote system.
Some of those methods let you designate a destination notebook, and others
add the note to your default notebook. We recommend using your default
notebook like a wire basket inbox, collecting notes that you later process to
the proper notebook.
We renamed our default notebook “.Inbox,” using the period at the
beginning of the notebook name to force it to the top of the notebook list for
faster access. You can see an example of this naming technique in the
picture in the previous section on naming conventions.
While we both use a notebook as an inbox, our approach to how we use it is
different. Stacey only collects in her inbox, centralizing everything in one
place and processing from that inbox throughout the day, making decisions
about where to best file notes, and logging any action items related to notes.
If something needs to be retained, whether it is an idea she captured in a
photo or an email that has come in, she puts it in the inbox and then moves
it to the appropriate notebook. Stacey enjoys this type of active, organized
filing and it plays an integral role in her productivity and project
management.
Kristi on the other hand, clips or emails things directly to notebooks when
she can, and uses the inbox as a catch-all for tools that don’t let her pick a
notebook. For example, when clipping an event to post on her blog calendar
using the Evernote Web Clipper, she stores those directly to her “Events to
Post” notebook. However, if she is emailing a note and can’t remember the
exact notebook name, she sends the notes in the inbox to be sorted later.
Stacey processes her inbox multiple times each day. Kristi processes her
inbox once a day. We have different approaches, but yield similar results.
How we handle our respective inboxes gives you a peek into how our
organizational styles vary. Stacey prefers a very structured notebook system
built around the methodology of the book Getting Things Done (GTD) by
David Allen. Kristi, on the other hand, uses what she calls the “fewer,
bigger buckets” strategy, creating notebooks sparingly for major content
areas, when needed for sharing purposes or to have those notebooks
available offline.
You may find that one style appeals to you more than the other, that you
like a mixture of the two or that you have your own method that works best.
In the next two sections, we present our structures as a way to help support
the other examples in the book and to give you ideas of how you might best
setup your system.

A GTD Approach to Organizing in Evernote

Inspired by the GTD methodology, Stacey created stacks and notebooks
using a numbering convention so that her projects and project reference
appear at the top of her notebook list (1), notes supporting her day-to-day
work appear in the middle (2-4) and her reference notebooks are at the
bottom of the list (7).

Stacey’s Tickler stack

Because Evernote allows for any form of digital media to be associated

with a note, she has scanned or photographed many of her paper files and
converted them into digital Evernote notebooks that are grouped in a stack
named “7 Reference Material.” She stores items like her insurance
information, inactive or past client files and car repair history in a
corresponding notebook in the “Reference Material” stack.
 Stacey’s expanded reference stack

If she only has one or two notes related to a topic that she wants to archive
or file away, she stores that note in a more generic reference notebook, such
as “Personal” or “Misc.”
The reference notebooks are not often part of her active day-to-day
operations, but they are available to her when she needs them and save her
time when she is not physically in the office, but needs something that
historically she kept in her filling cabinet. For example, when she went to
get her new Texas driver’s license, she was able to pull up a bill and print it
out to verify her current address for the clerk.
Using this system, she has reduced her physical storage needs from ten to
four small drawers. She is in the process of continuing to digitize her
physical storage and hopes to be down to one filing drawer in the year to
come. The cabinet holds things that can’t be digitized, like her passport and
printed marketing materials.
Even though she has a very strong structure for her “Reference” stack, she
still relies heavily on the search feature of Evernote. She enjoys the hybrid
of being able to find things using a notebook structure that supports how
she thinks, but also using the search parameters should her filing system fail
her, or a note’s content spans topics qualifying it to be stored in more than
one notebook – like a note about a client project.

The Fewer, Bigger Buckets Approach to

Organizing in Evernote
Unlike Stacey, Kristi does not enjoy filing and prefers a structure that lets
her spend as little time doing that sort of work as possible. She finds it
easier to have fewer larger notebooks than many smaller notebooks.
Because of this, she use tags to group notes together on major topics,
particularly when that topic may span across multiple notebooks.
Kristi has created a notebook for each client, magazine or blog with whom
she works, a set of working notebooks for the day-to-day business of her
company, a library for reference articles and a set of personal notebooks.
 Example of Kristi’s notebooks

Beyond this structure, Kristi only creates new notebooks when she:

has accumulated many notes on a subject that now deserves its

own notebook, like creating a notebook for a new magazine she
is writing for.
wants to share the notebook with someone else, like one of her
learning and development clients.
needs the notebook to be available offline on her mobile
device.

Kristi does not create a notebook for every project unless she needs to share
information about that project, not the rest of the client notes, with someone
else. Instead, if she is starting a new client project, she stores the notes in
the main client notebook and creates a tag for that project so that she can
quickly find the related notes using search.
For example, when she writes a story for a new magazine, she might not
immediately create a notebook for them. She typically waits until she’s
written several stories and knows that the work with that outlet will
continue before she creates a notebook. In the meantime, she stores the
notes in a notebook called “Other Writing Outlets” and tags the notes with
the name of the magazine.
 Example of notes using a tag for an infrequent client

Kristi has grouped her notebooks into stacks to make it easy for her to find
what she needs. All of her money management notebooks are in a
“Finances” stack, personal notebooks are in a “Kristi” stack, general
business in a “KWSG” stack, current clients in one stack and past clients in
an archive. The notebooks and stacks give her enough structure that she can
find things manually if she needs to, but not so many notebooks that she
feels overwhelmed digging through them.

Kristi’s stacks

Which organizational style is right? Both. The right style is the one that
feels comfortable for you and allows you to find what you need quickly. For
example, if you have a car, you might, like Stacey, create a notebook for the
documents about your vehicle. Or, like Kristi, you might store those
documents in a personal notebook with other items and use an “automotive”
tag.
Summary
There is no “right” way to set up your Evernote structure. You want a
system that feels comfortable to you and supports your needs, without
feeling cumbersome. Take a few minutes to consider what type of
organization system feels most comfortable to you. Jot down your list of
clients or subject areas that you need to track (notebooks) and then group
those into major topic areas (stacks). Decide how you might want to use
tags or a naming convention to add keywords to your notes.
Be flexible. Over time, you may need to tweak and refine your system.
Luckily, Evernote makes that painless to do.

Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Create your notebooks:

Notebooks for each business function (admin, finance,
marketing)
Notebooks for each major client or customer
Personal notebooks
Create your stacks and organize the notebooks in the
appropriate stacks.
Create tags, if needed, to group notes across or within
notebooks.

Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about
the details of how to use them by clicking the links below:

Creating a note (Mac, Windows)

Creating notebooks, stacks and tags (Mac, Windows)
Chapter 3: Mastering the
Fundamentals of Evernote
In addition to planning out your organizational system, it is helpful to
master some of the fundamental tools in Evernote. This primer introduces
you to these key features that are illustrated in practice through Stacey and
Kristi’s workflows in the following chapters. Note that your version of
Evernote (free, premium or business) and operating system (Mac or
Windows) may impact your ability to use some of the features.
Evernote regularly adds new functionality to the software. Be sure to visit
their Support page for the latest features and how-to guides.

Moving, Copying and Merging Notes

Periodically, you may need to move a note to a different notebook or
duplicate the content in a new note so that you can reuse it, like for a
grocery list or packing checklist.
Moving notes
There are a variety of ways to move notes in the desktop Evernote
application. First, when you have a note open on the screen, you can select
a new notebook name from the Notebook drop-down list.

Moving a note by changing the notebook name

You can also drag a note from the note list to the name of the desired
notebook in the sidebar if you are viewing your Notebook list.
(View>Sidebar Options>Show Notebook List)

Moving a note by dragging it

You can also move a note using the Move to Notebook command. Right- or
Control-click on the note, then choose Move to Notebook on the Mac or
Move Note on Windows from the pop-up menu.

Moving a note using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts

You can move several notes at once by highlighting the notes you want to
move and using the Move to Notebook button that appears on the multi-
note selection screen.
 Moving multiple notes with Move to Notebook

You can copy an entire note to a new note. This feature is particularly useful
when you create templates for notes that you use frequently, like a contact
lead or meeting agenda template.
Copying notes
Similar to moving a note, right- or Control-click on the note you want to
copy and choose Copy to Notebook on the Mac or Copy Note on Windows
from the pop-up menu.

Copying a note

Merging notes
Sometimes you have several related notes that you might want to merge
into one note. When you merge notes, Evernote creates a new note, and
then copies the contents of all the selected notes into that new note. The
original, pre-merge notes are moved to the trash and the new, merged note
remains.
To merge notes:

1. Select the notes you want to merge. You can use the CTRL- or
Control-click method to select non-contiguous notes.
2. Click the Merge button on the multi-note selection pane that
appears on the right-hand side of the Evernote window.
Caution: There is no un-merge feature. If you accidentally merge multiple
notes and want to unmerge them, you either need to: 1) restore the pre-
merge notes that are located in the trash, or 2) copy or cut out the individual
note contents from t`he merged note and create new Evernote notes that you
paste that content into.

Searching
Once you create a note, you want to be able to find it easily, and the
Evernote search is fast and powerful. Evernote indexes the contents of your
notes in order to allow rapid search and retrieval of your information.
The text, images and PDF files stored in a note are all indexed. If you
include a photo that contains text in a note, Evernote indexes that text and
includes it in your search results.

Search finds text in an image

One of Evernote’s most jaw-dropping features is the ability to index
pictures of handwriting. You can take a picture of something that was
handwritten, perform a search for that text and Evernote finds it, assuming
the handwriting is legible!

Search finds handwritten text in an image

To perform a search:

1. Click in the Search Notes text box.

2. Enter the text you want to find.
3. Click on the context for where you want to search. You can choose
to search everything or individual notebooks.
4. You can choose from a list of suggestions or recent searches.
5. The notes that match your search string appear to the left in the
notes list.
 Search context

Evernote offers several advanced search features that are very useful as
your note count grows. Here are a few tips that you might find helpful:

Add quotation marks around the search phrase to find an exact

match.
Restrict your search to only finding matches with the word in
the title of the note by adding “intitle:” to the beginning of your
search criteria.
Add search options like tags or date created by clicking on the
Add Search Option button.
Save frequently used searches so that you don’t have to recreate
them. On the Mac, perform the search, then choose
Edit>Find>Save Search from the menu. On Windows, perform
your search, and then click the Save Search icon.
Search by location using the Atlas map search. If you have
location services activated on your devices, Evernote can track
the location of where you created a note. You can then search
your notes by map. This type of search is handy when you can
remember where you were when you had an idea, but can’t
seem to remember the exact phrasing you may have logged in
the note. You can simply navigate to the Atlas map, locate the
spot you generated the note and click through to the note.
Evernote Premium and Business users have added search power. For these
account types, Evernote indexes any Microsoft Office and other attached
files contained in a note. For Evernote Business users, Evernote also
displays a notification if your search term appears in any shared notes
located in the business notebooks.

Search features available to Premium and Business accounts

Changing the sort order of your notes is also helpful in finding what you are
looking for. For example, Stacey has 68 notes that contain the phrase
“Facebook pages” and she finds it helpful to view the search results by date,
with the most recently updated notes at the top.
To change the sort order:

1. Click the View Options icon at the top of the notes list.
2. Choose the Sort by: option to change the sort order.

Changing the sort order

To learn more about how you can customize your view in Evernote, visit
the Resources page at GetUntethered.com/resources.
Shortcuts vs. Reminders
For items that you use often, Evernote offers two ways to quickly access the
notes: shortcuts and reminders.
Shortcuts are similar to web browser bookmarks and give you one click
access to notes, notebooks, stacks, searches or tags. You might create a
shortcut to a procedural note that you reference often or a notebook that you
work in frequently.
 Shortcuts List

Shortcuts view on the iPhone

To create a shortcut using the desktop version of Evernote, click on the item
you want to create the shortcut for and drag and drop it to wherever you
want it to appear in the Shortcuts list.
If you don’t see the shortcuts list on your desktop, you can turn them on by
choosing View>Sidebar Options>Shortcuts from the menu.

Adding the shortcut list to the sidebar

An alternate way to draw attention to a note is to add a Reminder.

Reminders act like pins that display an individual note at the top of the
notes list.
 Reminder in a note

When you add a reminder, you can choose to add a date, and then view the
reminders in date order.
You can subscribe to email notifications for dated reminders and Evernote
sends a daily email prompt of any items due that day.
To sign up for reminder email notifications:

1. View the Reminders section at the top of your note list.

2. Click the gear icon.
3. Choose Subscription Settings from the menu.
4. Check any of the notebooks for which you want to receive
reminders.
You can change the view of the reminders using the Reminder settings. You
can choose to sort by due date or manually change the order by dragging
and dropping the notes into the desired order.

Changing the Reminder list settings

If you set a reminder in a shared notebook, everyone with access to the

notebook sees the reminder and has the option to subscribe to updates about
the reminder.

Note Linking
You may find it helpful to reference one note from another note. Each note
contains a unique link that you can paste into another note as a hyperlink.
When you click the link, Evernote takes you to the designated note.

Example of note linking

You can add note links manually by copying them or create a master note
that links to several other notes using the Table of Contents feature.
To copy a note link:

1. Highlight the note to which you want to link.

2. Choose Copy>Note Link from the menu, or right- or Control-click
on the note and choose Copy Note Link from the pop-up menu.
3. Move to the note where you want to add the link and choose Edit,
Paste, or right- or Control-click and choose Paste from the pop-up
menu.
You can quickly create a note that contains several note links at once by
creating a Table of Contents note.

To create a Table of Contents note:

1. Highlight the notes that you want to appear together in the Table
of Contents. You can highlight several notes in a contiguous list
by clicking on the first note, holding down the Shift key on the
keyboard and clicking on the last note. If the notes are scattered in
the list, click on the first note, then hold down the Control key on
the keyboard as you click on the remaining notes.
2. Click the Create Table of Contents Note button in the Preview
area.
Sharing
Central to the power of Evernote is the ability to share notes and notebooks
with others. You can post an entire notebook publicly on the web for the
world to see, share a notebook with a limited set of people or email a single
note to anyone who has an email address. You can even share your notes
over social media to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can share with
other Evernote users, and with non-Evernote users alike.
Sharing notes
You can share any individual note, regardless of whether the notebook is
shared.
To share a note publicly:

1. Click on the Share icon.

2. Choose whether you want to share the note publicly or privately:
Choose the Copy Share URL option to copy the URL to
the clipboard. You can then paste the URL in a location
others can see. Anyone with the URL and a web browser
can access the note. They don’t even need to be an
Evernote user.
Choose the Open URL in Browser to create a public URL
that opens the shared note in a web page view.
Choose Post Share Link To option and select the desired
outlet to share the note on social media.
 Sharing a note publicly

To share a note privately:

1. Click on the Share icon in the note.

2. Choose Email Note from the menu.
3. Enter the email address(es) of the recipient(s).
4. Add a subject and message to the email.
5. Click the Send button. Note that the recipient does not need to be an
Evernote user to view the note as the contents are embedded in the
email.

Sharing a note by email

Sharing notebooks
When you have many notes to share, you can place them in a notebook and
share the entire notebook publicly or privately.
To share a notebook privately:

1. Click on the Notebook List icon.

2. Hover over the notebook name that you want to share.
3. Click the Share icon.
4. Click the Share with Individuals button.
5. Enter the email address(es) for the person you want to share with, set
the permissions and a note for the email notification, if desired.
6. Click the Share button, and then click Dismiss to close the dialog
box.
To share a notebook publicly:

1. Click on the Notebook List icon.

2. Hover over the name of the notebook you want to share.
3. Click the Share icon.
4. Click the Create a Public Link button.
5. Highlight and copy the public link URL, then paste in whatever tool
you are using to share the address.
6. Click the Dismiss button to close the dialog box.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Do you love shortcuts? Evernote offers an array of keyboard shortcuts to
increase speed when using Evernote from your computer. We’ve referenced
a few of our favorites keyboard combinations in their respective sections
but there are a slew of other commands. Visit the Evernote website for a
complete list of the keyboard shortcuts for your operating system. (Mac,
Windows)

Summary
You don’t have to be an Evernote master just yet, but with this chapter you
start to glimpse the power of Evernote. Understanding the tools that are
available helps you maximize how you use the software and create more
meaningful workflows.
Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Share any notes you need to with others.

Add notes you use frequently to the shortcuts list.
Add reminders to notes you want to pin at the top of your notes
list. Add dates to the reminders if they are time sensitive notes.
Create note links for any notes you want to navigate to from
within another note.
Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about the details of how to use
them by clicking the links below:

Searching (Mac, Windows)

Creating shortcuts (Mac, Windows)
Working with reminders (Mac, Windows)
Create note links
Using keyboard shortcuts (Mac, Windows)
Sharing notes and notebooks (Mac, Windows)
Chapter 4: Smooth Operations
Workflows for running the day-to-day business
Setting up a strong set of workflows for managing your administrative tasks
means that you have more time to focus on the creative work that you love
and don’t have to worry about things falling through the cracks.
As independent entrepreneurs, we find ourselves dealing with the following
challenges and have solved them by creating Evernote-centric solutions.
Consider how you handle the following:

Where do you store your goals for the year? Can you easily
revisit them on a monthly basis to build a solid plan for your
company?
Do you have a file drawer of folders stuffed with expense
receipts?
Do you waste time digging for that bill you paid three months
ago?
Is there a stack of business cards teetering on the edge or your
desk?
When was the last time you reached out to that interested
prospect you met at a conference?
Do you have a place to organize your tasks?

The backbone of your company systems should include seamless processes

for managing things like receipts and finances, organizing projects and
managing tasks. Evernote can help you not only consolidate everything in
one place, but also ensure that you have access to it no matter where you
are.
In this chapter, we walk you through how to use Evernote to:

Create and execute your business plan for the year

Store and reconcile receipts and expenses
Manage leads
Manage tasks

Business Planning
If you don’t have a plan, you’re like the boat without a rudder, aimlessly
drifting with the current. While that can be interesting at times, a little
annual planning can go a long way.
We use Evernote to help us create and execute our plans throughout the
year. In the Fall of each year, we begin brainstorming with our respective
teams on ideas for the next year – areas in which we want to grow, big ideas
that we have been tossing around, partners we want to work with.
Evernote Post-it Notes are very helpful in brainstorming sessions; letting
you sketch and mind map on paper, but still capture and search in your
notes.

A “rough” first draft for KW Solutions Group 2014 planning

After the session, you can photograph each note using the Post-it Note
photo setting in Evernote. You can either add each Post-it Note as a separate
note or snapshot several Post-it Notes into the same note, capturing the
session as a whole. Evernote saves the photos as a searchable digital image
in the note. If you frequently use the same color Post-it Notes for certain
types of notes, you can assign a notebook or tag to that color and Evernote
stores it in the proper location.
We then reach out to our various friends, coaches and mentors to help us
winnow out which ideas seem like the best direction for growth of the
company. We add their feedback to the brainstorming notes then regroup
with our teams to build a solid plan for the year.
Kristi keeps her plan in Evernote, breaking down an overarching goal or
theme for the month. She and her assistant can both see the note and use it
as they build out their plans in their weekly meeting. They create project
notes as needed to support the year’s goals. Stacey migrates her final plan to
an Excel spreadsheet.

The planning note that the messy brainstorming session transformed into

We both use these plans to create a few metrics that we track throughout the
year to measure success and review the metrics on a monthly and quarterly
basis. If something isn’t working, we course correct, update the plans and
move forward from there.
If a mentor is supporting you in a targeted project for the year, consider
creating a shared notebook to easily be able to track that work together and
create accountability with the person who is coaching you.
To share a notebook:

1. Go to the Notebooks list.

2. Hover over the notebook name that you want to share.
3. Click the Share icon.
4. Click the Share with Individuals button.

5. Enter the email address(es) for the person you want to share with,
set the permissions and a note for the email notification, if desired.
 6. Click the Share button, then click Dismiss to close the dialog box.

Finally, if you need visual inspiration, consider creating a vision board to

represent your annual goals and storing it in Evernote. Add a reminder to it
with January 1st of that year as the due date so that it appears at the top of
your reminders list all year long – easy to get to when you need to motivate
yourself and reorient to your goals.

Stacey’s vision board note

Reconciling Receipts and Expenses
Oh, the little pieces of paper! The scraps and receipts pile up quickly and
this is an area in which you can feel the fast relief of going paperless.
Digitizing your finances means that you don’t have shoeboxes of receipts in
your closet and can easily search for information by dates, vendors or
amounts. A smartphone camera, a scanner and third-party tools like
FileThis help you get everything into Evernote painlessly.
Before you create your system for tracking expenditures, consider a few
key questions.

Are you tracking personal or business expenses? Or both? We

track both in Evernote.
Do you track reimbursable expenses? We both do.
How much detail do you desire? As you can guess, Stacey likes
a high level of detail and Kristi prefers less.
What third-party software are you using? Stacey uses
Freshbooks for invoicing and Quickbooks for expense tracking
and budgeting. Kristi uses Freshbooks for everything.
Are you outsourcing your data entry to a bookkeeper? Do you
have a CPA? Stacey uses both and Kristi uses neither.

Once you figure out these details, you can use Evernote to organize the
receipts and make sure you have reconciled your expenses in your
accounting software. A digital system also gives you the flexibility to use a
bookkeeper located anywhere as you can simply share access to your data
regardless of location.
Since Stacey has the more elaborate system that involves an outside
bookkeeper, we’ll start with her workflow as an example. Stacey organizes
her finances in a stack called “HE Bookkeeping.”

Stacey’s financial stack

Here’s an overview of the process from start to finish.

Who its shared
Notebook Purpose
with

Contains information on her data entry rules, chart of

Assistant and
.Key & Questions accounts, and anything that is needed to keep the system
Bookkeeper
working.

Holds all new receipts, deposit slips, and paid bills, with
.Raw Scans Assistant
each receipt/transaction stored in its own note.

Business - Incoming
yyyy and Personal - All receipt notes related to either her personal or business
Incoming yyyy Assistant and
expenses are stored in one of these two notebooks. All
Bookkeeper
(where yyyy is the notes follow a naming convention on the title.
current year)

Business - Processed
yyyy and Personal - These notebooks are the storage repository for all
Processed yyyy receipts/statements that have been logged into QuickBooks Bookkeeper
(where yyyy is the and act as the digital record of all expenses.
current year)
 Who its shared
Notebook Purpose
with

Contains all outstanding bills to pay. Stacey creates some

xBills to Pay notes manually and others are added by the service FileThis
which integrates with Evernote.

1. Stacey adds bills to pay to the “xBills to Pay” notebook both

manually and using FileThis, a third-party tool that digitally
retrieves information from designated websites. Once Stacey pays
the bill, she moves it to the “.Raw Scans” notebook.
2. When Stacey gets a receipt, she takes a picture, scans it or emails
into the “.Raw Scans” notebook.
3. Her assistant reviews the “.Raw Scans” notebook, changes the
titles of the notes to match their agreed upon naming convention
and tags the notes with either the business or personal tag.
4. If her assistant has any questions, they address it in the body of the
note and add the word QUESTION to the note title.
5. Once a week, Stacey reviews all of the notes in the “.Raw Scans”
notebook. She addresses any questions and changes the title to
ANSWERED. She then searches for all of the notes in the
notebook with the tag “business” and moves them into the
“Business -Incoming” notebook. She repeats the process for the
notes tagged personal.
6. The bookkeeper adds the expenses in the “–Incoming” notebooks
to Quickbooks and inserts the word DONE at the beginning of the
note title to indicate the data entry is complete. Stacey and the
bookkeeper use the same QUESTION and ANSWERED naming
convention to address any issues that arise during data entry.
7. Weekly, Stacey moves any notes with DONE in the title from the
“–Incoming” notebook to the “–Processed” notebook.

Come tax time, Stacey adds a notebook to the “HE Bookkeeping” stack
called “yyyy Tax Documents” and scans her 1099s and any other
documents that her accountant needs. Once her taxes are paid, she moves
all the notebooks for that year to a “Tax Archive” stack.

An alternate approach to organizing receipts

Kristi has a streamlined version of the receipt process since she only works
with her assistant on reconciling, not a bookkeeper or accountant.

1. All incoming receipts (scanned, photographed or emailed) are

stored in the “.Receipts to reconcile” notebook that she shares
with her assistant.
2. Her assistant compares the receipts to the expenses in Freshbooks,
entering expenses that weren’t automatically loaded from the
business checking account and categorizing all expenses.
3. Her assistant then tags the note in Evernote with the proper
expense category and moves it to the notebook for that year’s
receipts (i.e. 2014). Tagging the expense with the category helps
them effortlessly double-check the receipts at tax time and make
sure everything adds up.

Lead Management
How do you manage your business cards and information for potential
clients? While there are some great lead management tools on the market
like SalesForce, which integrates with Evernote Business, Zoho or
Insightly, not everyone needs that level of detail to track their leads. Using
Evernote, you can create a workflow to track your business development
leads during each stage of the lifecycle and grow your business.
First, create a notebook to store your Leads. Then, create a template using
the table feature located in the formatting bar for the type of information
you want to capture for each lead. Adding an undated reminder to the
template note pins it at the top of your lead notebook so that it is easy to
find and duplicate when you receive a new lead.

Stacey’s lead management template

When you have a new lead, you can use the Copy to Notebook feature to
duplicate the lead template to the same notebook and change the title. Or, if
you have created the lead from a web clip or email, you can copy and paste
the template information to the top of your lead note.
To copy a note:

1. Select the note you want to copy in the notes list.

2. Choose Note>Copy to Notebook from the menu on a Mac or
Note>Copy from the menu in Windows. You can also use the
shortcut pop-up menu and right- or Control-click on the note and
choose Copy to Notebook or Copy Note, depending on your
operating system.
3. Select the notebook where you want the copy to appear.

If you have a business card, you can scan or photograph the card and then
add that image to the lead note for that person. Stacey also recommends
doing a quick Google search to add information beyond their basic contact
details. She adds screenshots and hyperlinks to the note so that all of the
lead’s information is in one place.
Consider using a naming convention for the note title or adding tags to track
where the lead is in its lifecycle.
Lead All new leads.

Active Any lead you are in active conversation with or might be submitting a bid to.

Idle Leads you have pursued, but the conversation has lulled.

Dead Leads who have declined doing business with you.

In the note title, you can add the date the lead came in as an additional way
to identify the lead. If you add the year first, followed by the month, then
the date, you can sort the leads by title to see what order they came in.

Stacey’s lead naming convention

Weekly, review the leads notebook to determine which category they

belong in and rename or change the tags as appropriate.
As you engage in ongoing communication with leads, make a call log to
track the conversation and contact with the lead.
 Sample lead note for a real estate client

When an active lead accepts a bid or proposal, move that lead note to a new
project notebook, giving you a head start on the project plan. Don’t forget
to rename the note or remove the tag so that it doesn’t get mixed in when
you search for active leads. You can move a note by choosing Note>Move
to Notebook from the menu.

Task Management
Keeping up with the daily to-do list and not letting things drop through the
cracks can be a significant hurdle for anyone, but having your own
company definitely adds a layer of complexity. If you find yourself with
tasks written on notepads and pieces of scratch paper or missing deadlines,
you may want to invest time in creating a better system for organizing your
to-do list. We highly recommend the organization methodologies of Getting
Things Done (Stacey) or Effective Edge (Kristi) for developing best
practices for how you approach and manage your work.
While Evernote was not specifically created to manage tasks, you can use
its tools to create a system for tracking your outstanding to-dos. Whether
you create a note with a simple checklist, create task notes with reminders
or implement a full GTD system, Evernote is an option for organizing what
you need to do next.
A simple checklist
You can turn any note into a to-do list using the checklist feature.
To add a checkbox:

1. Click in the body of the note.

2. Click the checkbox.
When you complete the item, you can click on the box to add a check.

Reminders for tracking due dates

You can assign a due date to notes using the reminder feature. You can view
your note reminders by date to see what you need to do next and you can
have Evernote email you with the notes that are due that day.
To assign a dated reminder to a note:

1. Click the Reminder icon.

2. Click the Add a Date option.
3. Select the desired date from the pop-up calendar.

To view your notes with reminders by date:

1. View the Reminders section at the top of your note list.

2. Click the gear icon.
3. Choose Sort Reminders by Date from the menu. We also
recommend turning off the Show Recently Completed Reminders
option.
To mark a reminder complete:

1. View the note and click the Reminder icon.

2. Choose the Mark as Done option from the menu.
To sign up for reminder email notifications:

1. View the Reminders section at the top of your note list.

2. Click the gear icon.
3. Choose Subscription Settings from the menu.
4. Check any of the notebooks for which you want to receive
reminders.

Stacey’s GTD task management system

As described in her introduction, Stacey subscribes to the GTD
methodology and, as a result, created a digital “Tickler” system in Evernote
inspired by the folder system that David Allen suggests in his book. Stacey
uses it to manage her daily task list and, when she has a window of time
without a calendared item, she refers to her daily tickler note for items to
tackle that day.
She tracks any time specific tasks or meetings on her calendar, not in
Evernote. Her Tickler system is only for actions that must be done on a
certain day, but it doesn’t matter at what time that item gets done (such as
“pay property taxes” or “book flight for San Francisco”).
Overview of the system
Stacey’s GTD tickler system is structured around a notebook for each
month and 31 daily notes that rotate from the current month to the next
month as each date passes. Each daily note contains the actions that are due
that day. Any to-dos that don’t have a specific due date are added to the
“Next Actions” stack and are tackled as time allows.

Stacey’s tickler stack/notebook system

Setting up the system

The naming conventions are important for keeping the notebooks in order
and clearly identifying which notes to move between notebooks in the
system.
Create your stack of monthly notebooks:

1. Create twelve notebooks, one for each month.

2. Create a stack called “Ticklers” by dragging one of the monthly
notebooks onto another. Continue that process until all of the
notebooks are in one stack. Right- or Control-click on the stack to
rename it.
3. For the current month, and following month, change the name of
the notebook to be proceeded by “.Current Month” and “.Next
 Month.” The period at the beginning of the notebook name sorts it
to the top of the stack.
4. In each monthly notebook, create a single note that is titled
“Tickler: <Month> Planning.” Pin the note to the top of the
notebook by clicking on the Reminder icon. You do not need to
add a date to the reminder.

Create your daily notes:

1. In the “.Current Month (<month>)” notebook, create 31 blank

notes, one for each day of the month and name each note with the
date of the month as follows:
.1st
.2nd
.3rd
.4th
.5th
.6th
.7th
.8th
.9th
10th
etc.
Create all 31 notes (1st - 31st) even if there are only 30 days in the
current month. Start the note title for notes 1st - 9th with a period
(.), so that the notes sort in order to the top of the notebook.

2. Split the notes for each day of the month between the “Current
Month” and “Next Month” notebooks, depending what day of the
month it is currently. For example, if it is currently December 4th,
move the notes .1st, .2nd and .3rd that you created to the “.Next
Month (January)” notebook. You can move notes by dragging and
dropping them, using the Note>Move to Notebook command from
the menu or, on the Mac, the keyboard shortcut
Control+Command+M .
 3. If the current month only has 30 days, move the note for the 31st
to the next month notebook as well. In this example, December
has 31 days, so you would leave the note for the 31st in the
“.Current Month (December)” notebook.

Your setup is complete. You now have a note to manage your active task list
for each day.
Managing the system day-to-day
Using the checklist feature to make a list in your daily note, document to-
dos that must get done on a specific day and check them off as you
complete them. You can add links to other notes that you need to use to
complete those tasks.
To copy a note link:

1. Highlight the note that you want to link to.

2. Choose Copy> Note Link from the menu, or right or Control click
on the note and choose Copy Note Link from the pop-up menu.
3. Move to the note where you want to add the link and choose
Edit>Paste, or right or Control Click and choose Paste from the
pop-up menu.

Stacey breaks her daily tickler note into two sections, Personal and
Business, with corresponding checklists under each.
 A sample daily note

During the day, as tasks arise for future days, Stacey opens those notes and
adds the item to the list. If a task comes up for a future month, she adds that
item to “Tickler: <Month> Planning” note in the appropriate month
notebook. At the beginning of that month, she moves the to-do to the
appropriate note for the day on which it is due.
For example, if December is the current month, but she comes across
something that she needs to take care of in April, like make an appointment
with her accountant to review her taxes, she opens the “April” notebook and
logs the to-do in the “Tickler: April Planning” note.
At the end of each day, Stacey reviews her tickler note for that day and does
the following:

1. Deletes any completed tasks.

2. Moves any incomplete tasks to a new note - either to the tickler
note for a future day or month, or to the “Next Actions” stack if it
is no longer imperative that it gets done on a specific day.
3. Once the note is cleared, Stacey moves the tickler note for that
day into the “.Next Month (<month>)” notebook.

Monthly system maintenance

At the end of the month, Stacey performs some basic maintenance to get
her system ready for the next month. She has already moved the daily notes
from the current month to the next month’s notebook as part of her daily
process. The only note remaining note in the “.Current Month” notebook is
the “<Month> Planning” note. Reset the reminder on this note for the
month you just completed in order to pin it to the top of the notebook for
quick access in the All Notes view.
The final steps in the process are to rename the monthly notebooks and
break out the to-dos for the month into the daily notes.
Rename the notebook of the new current month and next month. For
example, January would be named, “.Current Month (January)” and the
following month renamed to “.Next Month (February).”
If the current month does not have 31 days, move the extra daily notes to
the next appropriate month when they will be used. For example, if the
current month is February, you would move the notes for the 29th, 30th and
31st to March.
Move (cut and paste) any to-dos in the “<Month> Planning” note to their
specific daily note for that month. For example, if you have two tasks on
the “January Planning” note, move them the relevant daily notes in the
“January” notebook.

Sample monthly note

Once the monthly planning note for the new month (in this example
January) is blank, clear the reminder is on the “<Month> Planning” note so
that it does not appear at the top of the daily note list when sorted
alphabetically.
A non-Evernote approach to task management
As much as Kristi loves Evernote, she has chosen not to use it for her task
management system and instead uses software specially designed for
organizing a to-do list. One of her clients is a company called Effective
Edge and she follows their methodology for managing work. The EDGE
system shares many of the same core concepts of GTD, but differs in a few
key areas.
One of those is that instead of using a Tickler system, work is organized
around a calendar and task list that can be viewed and managed side-by-
side. All outstanding work goes on the calendar if it is time specific or the
task list if it has a due by date or no due date.
A number of software programs support this type of dashboard view
including email tools like Outlook, Lotus Notes and Google Calendar;
Kristi uses Google. There are also a number of apps that manage tasks like
Things and Any.Do. Kristi turns to Evernote to organize projects (see the
next section for more on that), but uses Google for daily task and calendar
management.

Kristi’s calendar and task dashboard

Summary
Whether you are solving how you manage receipts, organizing projects or
tracking leads, Evernote can help you centralize your business operations
and minimize some of the mundane administrative work. Knowing that
everything is in Evernote, synchronized to all of your devices and available
at your fingertips gives you confidence that you can find what you need
when you need it, and relief that you don’t have to worry about it.
What administrative hurdle are you facing? Sketch out a plan of how you
can use Evernote to make that process easier or more reliable. After you
have that challenge solved, you’ll be ready to fine-tune another workflow
and streamline it using Evernote.

Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Do you need a home base for executing your plans for the year?
Create a business plan note to organize the targeted areas of focus
for each month.
Drowning in receipts? Create a workflow of your expenses and
scan your receipts to Evernote. Remember key considerations like
who needs access to the information if you are sharing with a
bookkeeper or accountant.
How are you handling that stack of business cards? Consider
adding them to Evernote and creating a system for proactive lead
management.
Do you need a place to organize your tasks? Create checklists,
add reminders or create a GTD style system like Stacey’s to keep
your work organized.

Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about
the details of how to use them by clicking the links below:

Setting a reminder (Mac, Windows)

Using Post-it Notes with Evernote
Sharing a notebook and using note links (Mac, Windows)
Using the Evernote Web Clipper
Chapter 5: Effortless Teamwork
Workflows for managing a productive team
You may have employees, work with contractors or coordinate with
vendors, but in some way you are turning to others to help get work done
faster and better - you have a team. As an independent entrepreneur, that
team probably isn’t centralized in one office and could be scattered across
the country, or even around the world. You need a way to coordinate and
collaborate to make the most of the time you work together.
For example:

How do you keep up with items that you need to talk to your
team members about in between meetings? Are you constantly
scribbling down meeting agenda items on scraps of paper, only
finding them after the meeting happens?
Where do you organize projects so that everyone involved can
see their assignments and follow through in a timely manner?
How do you know when someone has completed something?

Evernote can serve as your command center for team communication and
coordination. Shared notebooks provide an easy way for you to keep each
other updated without bombarding each other in email.
To use Evernote’s sharing capabilities most effectively as a team, everyone
should have an Evernote account and, ideally, at the Premium or Business
level so that you can edit notes in shared notebooks. The $45 per year fee
for the Premium account is a small price to pay for the gains in productivity.
In this chapter, we give you an overview of some key tools for collaboration
and present examples of how you can use Evernote to effortlessly work
with your team. In particular, we introduce how to:

Effectively manage collaboration using the activity feed, note

history, note information and conflicting changes features.
 Plan agendas for action-oriented meetings.
Organize team projects.

Key Collaboration Tools

Evernote includes several features that are particularly helpful when you are
collaborating with others. Activity Feed, Note History and Note Info help
you keep track of who made what changes to notes and when they made
them. “Conflicting Changes” notebooks help you track notes that have
gotten out of sync because more than one person was working on them at a
time.
Before you start setting up the team workflows, let’s review how these
features work.
Activity feed
Evernote’s activity feed (visible on the desktop version of Evernote)
displays a list of notifications of changes that have been made in shared
notebooks. Clicking on the notification displays the note.

Activity feed

Note history
Premium and business users can access note history to review when others
have made changes to a note. You can use note history to retrieve a prior
version of a note. The restored note is imported into a separate notebook
created by Evernote.
To review note history:

1. Select the note in the notes list and choose Note> Note History
from the menu.
2. In the Note History window, click on a version of the note to see
the contents.
3. To restore a version of the note, click the Import option to the
right of the note date and time stamp.
 Note history

Note info
Each note in Evernote contains basic pieces of information that you can
review at any time like the date it was last updated, who last edited the note
or the location where it was created. Premium users can also access the full
note history from this window.
To view the Note Info window, click the Information icon at the top of the
note on the desktop client or web interface.

Note info

Note conflicts
If you use Evernote frequently from multiple devices, like your phone and
computer, or share notebooks with others, it is possible for the notes to get
out of sync. When a conflict occurs, Evernote places the conflicting note in
a notebook titled “Conflicting Changes.”
For example, if you update a note on your computer, forget to sync, then
change the note on your phone, the next time you sync on your computer,
the note will be in conflict.
You should manually review the note in the conflicting changes notebook
and your original note to determine which copy is correct. You can
manually move or add any data to the main note and then delete the
conflicting note, as well as the conflicting changes notebook if no longer
needed.
Note conflicts can be frustrating and following are a few best practices to
avoid them.

Change your default auto-sync time frame to every 5 minutes in

the program preferences. And, while you are here, confirm that
your “Sync shortcuts” box is checked to make your shortcuts
available on all devices.

Default synchronization settings

Force a note to synchronize using the sync button after you

make changes to a note (similar to saving a document as you
work in it.) The sync button is available on every client of
Evernote.
When in doubt, sync. If you have been making changes in
Evernote, always hit the sync button before you walk away
from your computer or put down your mobile device. Same
with shutting down Evernote – always sync before doing so.
When sharing notes, be clear about who is modifying certain
notes by asking “are you modifying that note?” before you
make changes. This is particularly helpful when working with
meeting agendas and other notes that you might be reviewing as
part of a meeting.
Attaching and working with documents
Evernote allows you to attach files to any note, a particularly helpful feature
when you are centralizing information for a client or project. As with any
storage tool used in collaboration, consider how you can ensure that the
document stored in Evernote is the most current version.
When you attach a file in Evernote, you have the option to preview it or
download the file.

Attaching a file

When you preview the file, Evernote gives you the option to open the
document with the program in which it was created. From the originating
program, you can make changes, save the file and the update is saved in
Evernote. Don’t forget to sync after completing work in the file to ensure
that the updates are available on all devices and to anyone with access to
the note.

Opening a document from an attached file

You can also make changes to the attached file by downloading a copy of it,
but the changes are not be automatically reflected in Evernote. In order to
store the changes in Evernote, re-attach the file to Evernote. This technique
can be confusing in collaborative workflows.
Alternatively, rather than embedding a file in a note with Evernote’s attach
feature, you can insert hyperlinks in your notes to the stored files on
services like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. When you want to edit
the document, you click on the link to open it. The drawback to this method
is that it does not load the content of the file in Evernote and therefore is not
indexed by Evernote for searches, a benefit of Premium and Business
accounts.

Adding a hyperlink to a note

Creating Team Synergy

Once you have defined how you want to use the collaboration tools, it’s
time to consider what workflows you need for your team. Key questions to
consider in designing your solutions include:

Do you need a place to organize team meetings?

Where do team members look to find their assignments from a
meeting?
How are your projects organized? Can everyone on the team see
what he or she needs to do next? How do you know when they
have finished a task?

Using Evernote shared notes and notebooks can help you coordinate the
work you need to do without dropping the ball or having to micromanage
your team.
Productive Team Meetings
Having productive team discussions, whether those team members are full-
time, part-time or contract, is key to doing great work. Using Evernote, you
can create agendas for the items to cover in your next meeting and have a
running list that you can add to at any time. The next time ideas for a client
meeting pop into your head during a run or while you are out shopping, just
add it to your Evernote agenda.
Stacey created a notebook called “Agendas” and creates a note for each
person in her work (and personal) life that she has items to follow-up on or
address. She names each note “Agenda: <person’s name>” and uses the
checklist feature to log the items to discuss.

Stacey’s agenda note

As she meets with them, she works through the list, taking notes and
checking off the items as they are covered. She also links to any supporting
notes so that the agenda acts as a table of contents to related and supporting
items. This makes the call or meeting with the person organized and as
efficient as possible.
After the meeting, she organizes the line items that were discussed into their
proper location in her GTD system and starts listing items for their next
discussion at the top of the same note.
Kristi uses a similar approach, but prefers to have each meeting separated
into its own note. For example, she and her assistant have a weekly meeting
at which they discuss the plan for the next week and assign work as needed.
They keep the agenda in a shared notebook with the date of the next
meeting in the title of the note and a note reminder set for the day of the
meeting so that they can easily access the note in the reminder list.
 Kristi’s team meeting agenda note

During the week, they each add items to the agenda portion of the note. As
they assign work in the meeting, they add a checklist for the appropriate
person at the bottom of the note. As one of them finishes their work during
the week, they check the item off in the note to indicate that the work is
done.
Managing Team Projects
Evernote is an ideal tool for managing projects, helping you organize
research and working notes in one place and share them with your team.
Whether you are hiring a new team member or updating your website,
managing it from Evernote makes your life simpler.
Hiring a contractor
Stacey creates a notebook for each new project. For example, when hiring a
new contractor, she created a notebook called Hiring and used it to draft the
job ad, track resumes and document interview notes. Here’s a quick
overview of what that workflow looks like.
When posting the job notice online, Stacey clipped the posting to Evernote
using the Evernote Web Clipper in order to retain a copy of her job ad as it
appeared on each site.
 Saving the ad with the Evernote Web Clipper

As she received résumés, she emailed them to Evernote and stored them in
the “Hiring” notebook.
Her assistant reviewed each resume using a template and wrote a summary
of the candidate with his opinion on whether they should be interviewed or
not.
Stacey added a prefix to the note title to indicate whether or not to schedule
an interview and to provide a visual grouping of the candidates when the
notes were sorted by title.

INTERVIEW (Set an interview.)

MAYBE (Candidates to consider and give a closer look
to. Maybe offer them an interview if people who went straight
to Interview status didn’t work out.)
NO (Rejected candidates.)

Stacey created a template note listing questions to ask during the phone
interview. This note was pinned to the top of the notebook with a non-dated
reminder and the contents of the note were copied and pasted into the note
of the interview candidates.
 Stacey’s interview template

During the interview process, she took notes directly in the candidate’s note
that already contained their resume and the interview questions.
At the end of the interview, Stacey logged her notes about her impressions
of the candidate and the interview. If she wasn’t interested in the candidate
after the interview, she retitled the title with a NO and made a note as to
why the person wasn’t a good fit.
Stacey also keeps supporting documents such as links to personality tests
and other evaluation tools in the hiring notebook.
Giving the blog a face lift
For projects, Kristi creates a master note for the project plan and adds a
reminder, with a due date if there is one, to pin the note to the top of
notebook for that area of work. Recently, she and her assistant used
Evernote to plan an upgrade to the theme and some of the plug-ins for their
WordPress blog, Kristi’s Farm to Table.
First, Kristi created the project plan note, stored it in the “Kristi’s Farm to
Table” notebook and assigned a reminder with the due date by which they
wanted to finish the upgrade. She assigned a tag, “KF2T3.0”, to the note.
As they worked on the project, they used Evernote in a variety of ways to
do the planning:

Conducted a brainstorming session with Post-it Notes that she

then photographed into Evernote.
 Clipped examples of theme templates and calendar plug-ins
they were interested in.
Created a project plan for each item that needed to be updated
or changed with a timeframe and an owner.

Each note was added to the “Kristi’s Farm to Table” notebook and used the
“KF2T3.0” tag to designate the notes as part of the project.
When they selected a particular element for the new design, they added a
link to that note in the project plan so that they could easily navigate back to
the note containing their final selection.
As one of them completed work on a phase of the project, they updated the
project note so the other could see the progress.

Sample internal project plan note

Summary
Evernote is an ideal tool for coordinating with your team. Whether you are
planning your next meeting or collaborating on a project, shared notes and
notebooks can keep everyone on the same page.
What work do you need to coordinate with your team? How should team
members add items to meeting agendas? Do they know where to find their
next task on a project or the current status of the work? Evernote can help
you solve these challenges, and more.
Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Do you have a place to organize your meeting agendas? Create

a note for your next team meeting in a shared notebook or email
the agenda to the team before the meeting and share it again
afterwards with the decisions and commitments.
Where are your projects organized? Create a team project in
Evernote giving everyone easy access to the next steps and
progress updates.
Download copies of Stacey’s and Kristi’s project and meeting
note templates from the Resources page at
GetUntethered.com/resources.

Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about the details of how to use
them by clicking the links below:

Note history
Handling conflicting notes
Working with file attachments
Chapter 6: Happy Customers
Workflows for meaningful engagement with clients
At its core, business is all about keeping the customers happy with excellent
service and outstanding products. When your business operations are
running smoothly, you have more time to focus on meaningful work with
your clients and customers and, to do that effectively, you need a place
where you can organize that client work and share ideas.
You may face, like we did, the following dilemmas:

Where do you currently organize client projects? Is the

information scattered between several applications or
documents?
How do you update your clients on project progress?
Do you need a place to collaborate and share information that
doesn’t involve bombarding each other with email?
How can new people on the client team see what was
accomplished previously?

Evernote can help centralize your client work making it easier to share and
collaborate. Whether you are organizing client projects, creating a shared
workspace or curating content for their consumption, Evernote can serve as
your home base for managing your client projects and developing
outstanding products.
In this chapter, we guide you through four different examples of how to use
Evernote to serve your clients:

Organizing client work internally.

Sharing work with non-Evernote users.
Using shared notebooks to create a collaborative workspace
with clients.
 Curating content for clients using a notebook shared with a
public link.

A few factors help you determine how to setup your client projects:

Who needs access to the information in Evernote? Are you

using the notebook to organize client work for yourself or do
you need to share information with your client?
What level of access do other people need to the information?
Do they only need to review it or do they need to be able to
make changes?
Does your client use Evernote?

We recommend creating a notebook for each client where you can store
meeting notes, draft work, research and other items related to your work
together. This main notebook serves as your primary reference place for that
client. You can share individual notes from this main notebook or, if you
have quite a few items to share, you can create a separate notebook for
items both you and your client can see.
Remember that you can share any note or notebook, but in order for the
other person to be able to edit the notes, you must both have Evernote
Premium or Business accounts.

Organizing Client Work Internally

Kristi writes for several different media outlets and creates a notebook for
each client, adding it to her “KWSG-Clients” stack. She doesn’t share these
notebooks with her clients (the magazines), but rather uses them to organize
research and interviews for articles.
 Kristi’s client notebooks

Kristi regularly clips ideas to these notebooks for stories she’d like to write
in the future. She adds a “story ideas” tag to each piece of research and then
reviews those tagged notes monthly, picking a few to develop into pitches
to the editors.
When the editor assigns the story, Kristi replaces the “story ideas” tag with
a new tag for that issue of the magazine. For example, for an upcoming
Edible Austin issue, she created the tag “EA outdoor 2014.” She also adds a
reminder with a due date to pin the note at the top of her notes list.

Project planning note

That note now serves as the project plan for organizing the story. Kristi
might add notes from the editor on the word count and story points, as well
as people to interview.
As she researches the story, she clips additional information to the
magazine’s notebook, using the issue tag to group the notes together. Kristi
records her interviews in Evernote using the audio note feature and, again,
assigns the appropriate tag. For longer interviews, her assistant transcribes
the interviews into a separate note.

Audio note

When it’s time to draft the story, Kristi searches for the assigned tag and all
of the research appears together. She then writes a rough draft in Evernote,
before transferring it to a word processor to finish the piece.

Kristi uses the issue tag to pull the research together

Sharing with Non-Evernote Users

Kristi’s corporate clients are not always Evernote users, but she often wants
to share information, like the project status, with them during the life of the
project. Again, she creates a notebook for the client, using it as the
organizing place for all of the client project work.
When Kristi starts a new project with that client, she creates a master note
for the project plan, adding a reminder with a due date, if there is one, and a
tag that she uses for any notes for that project. In the project plan, she
creates a timeline using the table feature and a list of key assets used with
the project.

Client project plan

Periodically during the life of the project, she emails that note out to the
clients as an update of where they are in the timeline and what steps are
next.

Emailing a note

Kristi also stores meeting agendas and notes for that client in their
notebook. She sets a reminder with the date of the meeting to pin the note to
the top of the notes list and emails the note to the client before the meeting
to share the agenda. She documents actions and discussion items in the note
during the meeting and sends a second copy to the client after the meeting
to ensure that everyone has the same information.
 Client meeting note

If she is working with a client frequently, Kristi uses LiveMinutes, a third-

party application that creates a workspace where you can add notes from
Evernote or other documents and both parties can see the edits live.
LiveMinutes allows you to share information in a conference or video call
without having to share your screen, and the workspace is available for
commenting and additional work after the call is over.

LiveMinutes workspace

LiveMinutes is a great solution for sharing notes and documents when you
want an ongoing workspace beyond the online meeting or need to share
editable notes with multiple people who many not be Evernote Premium
users. You can store multiple Evernote notes and documents in each
workspace and call, video or chat with the other workspace members. As
members make changes or add documents, the list shows the changes along
with any new messages.
For more information on working with LiveMinutes, visit the Resources
page at GetUntethered.com/resources.
Another great example of sharing notes with non-Evernote users comes
from Stacey’s work with real estate agents on how to they can use Evernote
to elevate their business. Agents are constantly working from their mobile
devices and need to provide visual, highly detailed information to their
clients in a timely manner. Evernote is an outstanding solution to address all
of these needs.
Consider the example of a property walkthrough with a buyer. An agent
equipped with Evernote on tablet or phone can better prepare and represent
their client in contract negotiations in the following ways:

Create a new note for the walkthrough that includes the address,
for example: “Home Walkthrough – 123 Madison.”
Ask the client’s permission to record their thoughts and
concerns about the house using the audio feature, giving you a
full detailed account of your conversation that you can review
or transcribe later.
Add notes or create a to-do checklist of follow-up items.
Use the camera feature to snap photos of items that there are
questions about – a water stain on the ceiling or a hole in the
wall. You can also document items that require clarification
about their inclusion in the deal. Photos can be annotated from
your mobile device using Skitch, drawing arrows and adding
text to minimize communication errors with your clients and
other parties in the transaction.
Share the note with your client via email, or a public note, so
that they can verify that all of their key points of interest are
documented in the final offer.
 Sample walkthrough note marked up on the iPhone

You don’t have to be a real estate agent to see the power in using the mobile
device to capture text, audio and pictures in the same note. Do you need to
inspect a product or do a walkthrough of a venue for an upcoming event?
Or, do you need to capture whiteboard or flipchart notes from a meeting?
Not only does Evernote make it easy to capture that information, but you
can also quickly annotate it and share it with your clients.

Creating a Collaborative Workspace

As part of Stacey’s work, she designs social marketing strategies that
require creating content, art and tracking many details through collaboration
with numerous parties. This type of work calls for more than one notebook
to keep everything organized and shared with the right people.
When she works on a marketing project, she sets up several notebooks
based on the complexity of the required collaboration. In the case of her
client Island Sole, she used five Evernote notebooks to manage the project.
She also created similar shared folders on Dropbox for storing of media
assets.
Client - Island Sole: This primary notebook contains Stacey’s personal
notes and thoughts related to the project. She also stores important emails
from the client and inspiration documents that might impact the strategy. It
is not shared with anyone, but instead is her personal workspace for the
client.
HE Client - Island Sole: This notebook is part of the Harmon Enterprises
Business Library and Stacey’s assistant also has access to it. All internal
team collaboration for the client takes place here. For example, during the
weekly marketing meeting call with the client and the copywriter, Stacey’s
assistant takes meeting notes in this notebook and then shares the note with
the client via email.
They also use this notebook as a place to store screen captures of items
related to configuring the client’s social media accounts, documenting the
work they’ve done for the client and for keeping to-do lists for team
members.

Client - Island Sole: Content: As they receive assets, like copy, ideas and
images, that are part of the content plan, they store them in the client’s
“Content” notebook. They can collaborate on those items and limit the
number of emails. Stacey, her assistant and the copywriter have access to
this notebook.

Client - Island Sole: Design: All directions, brand guidelines, specifications

and items related to the design needs of the client are added to this
notebook for use by Stacey, her assistant and her designer. For example, a
URL list of all the brand’s current social sites is added so that the designer
can get a feel for what is already out there in terms of brand design.
As the designer finishes the composites, she stores them in the design
notebook and shares the note with Stacey by email, to alert her the work is
finished.

Island Sole FI Collaboration: This final notebook is shared with everyone

on the project, including the client, and provides a central repository for
items related to managing the account. For example, this client captures
email addresses weekly at the cash register, adds them to Evernote and the
team enters them to MailChimp.

Curating Content
Stacey and Kristi both give speeches and do training as part of their work.
They use public notes and notebooks as a way to share the “how to”
information with the attendees in a location that is regularly updated. Any
updates made to the source note(s) are reflected in the public link URL.
Anyone with the URL can access a public note or notebook.
Kristi also uses public notebooks when facilitating large group sessions.
She recently facilitated the kick-off planning session for a new nonprofit.
She needed a way to store and share pre-workshop materials, the
presentation and brainstorming notes with people attending the workshop in
person and virtually. She also did not know what software people would
have available and needed a solution that would work for everyone –
clearly Evernote was the answer.
Kristi created an Evernote notebook for the organization and added a note
for each section of the workshop, as well as the pre-work. She created a
Table of Contents note to organize the agenda and make the materials easy
to access for participants.

Table of Contents note

To create a Table of Contents note:

1. Highlight the notes that you want to appear together in the Table
of Contents. You can highlight several notes in a contiguous list
by clicking on the first note, holding down the SHIFT key on the
keyboard and clicking on the last note. If the notes are scattered in
the list, click on the first note, then hold down the Control key on
the keyboard as you click on the remaining notes.
2. Click the Create Table of Contents Note button in the Preview
area.
Before the meeting, Kristi shared the notebook with a public link and sent
the URL to the organizer to distribute to all attendees.
To share a notebook with a public link:

1. Click on the Notebooks section.

2. Hover over the name of the notebook you want to share.
3. Click the Share icon.
4. Click the Create a Public Link button.

During the meeting she used the Table of Contents note and Presentation
mode to share notes with participants. Presentation Mode allows you to
present notes in a full screen mode much like PowerPoint or Keystone, but
without having to create a separate document. When you project a
presentation, you can edit the note you are presenting to show real-time
changes to your audience.
 Presentation mode

For brainstorming sessions, participants used Post-it Notes to capture ideas

and Kristi added pictures of the notes to the notebook using Evernote’s
Post-it Note camera mode. The photos of the Post-it Notes capture the
information from the session in a readable format that is also searchable,
allowing people who participated virtually or who couldn’t attend the
meeting to have a good record of the ideas generated. Being able to take
photos of the notes saved Kristi about two hours of work each day because
she did not have to type up the material on each brainstorming board.

Post-it Note stored in Evernote

After the meeting, Kristi shared the notebook with several of the
organization’s officers so they could modify notes, and the group still uses
it today as a place to share ideas around their organizing principles.

Summary
Whether you are organizing client work for yourself or looking for ways to
collaborate more effectively together, Evernote gives you a variety of tools
that can help you deliver work that keeps your clients happy and coming
back for more.
Reflect on the client work you need to organize. Do you need to share
notebooks to collaborate or just organize your thoughts internally? How can
you harness the power of Evernote to better serve your clients, while
keeping you untethered?
Start by creating a main notebook for that client and then expand with other
tools as your work together grows. Being able to find what you need for
them quickly will impress them and make your life easier.
Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Create notes and notebooks as needed to organize your current

client projects.
Create notes for your upcoming client meeting agendas.
Share notebooks with your clients, publicly or privately, as
appropriate.

Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about the details of how to use
them by clicking the links below:

Recording audio notes (Mac, Windows)

Searching with tags (Mac, Windows)
Emailing a note
Working with Skitch to annotate a note (Mac, Windows)
Creating a Table of Contents note and using Presentation Mode
(Mac)
Sharing a public notebook link
Chapter 7: Prioritizing the Personal
Solutions for creating a full and meaningful home life
It is easy for entrepreneurs to give their personal life short shrift and let
their business take over. We both place a high value on making our personal
lives as rich and meaningful as the work we enjoy, and we use Evernote to
keep us on track with our personal goals as well as manage our daily chores
with grace.
What personal items would you like to centralize and organize?

Is your business growing, but your personal growth has stalled?

Can you easily access your health care information when you
need it?
How do you plan your vacations and getaways? Do you have a
bucket list of places you want to visit?
Are your recipes shoved in binders or boxes, difficult to find
when you want to make that special dish?
Are you tired of playing the “I don’t know, where do you want
to eat?” game?
Do you have your grocery list scratched on the back of an
envelope?
Where do you keep up with gift ideas for that someone special?
Do you need a centralized place to track homework and
activities for your kids?

Evernote can help you organize and prioritize these personal areas of your
life so that you can enjoy your time away from work more and worry less.
In this chapter, we guide you through several examples of how we use
Evernote to simplify our personal lives by:

Tracking progress toward personal goals.

Documenting health care history.
 Planning a vacation.
Collecting recipes and making a grocery list.
Creating a list of restaurants you want to try and capturing your
meals with Evernote Food.
Organizing a move.

The possibilities are endless for putting Evernote to work at home. Let’s
explore!

Tracking Personal Goals

Business goals are important, but we want to make sure that we are growing
personally as well. At the beginning of each year, Kristi sets a few personal
goals, she’d like to achieve – not resolutions, but actual, tangible goals –
and she works on those weekly or monthly depending on the goal.
Kristi creates a master note for her goal and uses it to create a plan for what
she wants to accomplish. She sets a reminder to pin it to the top of her notes
list and refers to the note weekly to determine if she needs to add anything
to her to-do list or add new details to her plan.

Personal goal note

At the end of the year, she reviews her notes to see her progress. Sometimes
she has accomplished everything she wanted, and other times she still has
work to do, in which case she might carry the note over to the next year.
The important thing is that she’s made progress toward her goals and
Evernote has helped her get there.

Keeping Tabs on Your Health

Staying healthy and fit is always a priority and keeping up with medical
paperwork can be a real hassle. Stacey uses Evernote to manage the details
of her health history and to have it at her fingertips.
On a recent out-of-state trip, Stacey fell ill and had to visit an urgent care
center. She didn’t have her insurance cards with her, but was able to show
the admission desk a picture of her cards in Evernote, simplifying the
billing process and getting Stacey the care she needed faster. If you have a
family to add to the mix, having everyone’s information in one place
becomes even more important.
Stacey created a Health notebook and she stores all of her insurance details
and health history in it. Since this information is very sensitive, she uses
Evernote’s encryption feature, requiring a password to view the data.
To encrypt a note:

1. Select the text you want to encrypt.

2. Choose Edit> Encrypt Selected Text (Mac) or Format> Encrypt
Selected Text (Windows) from the menu.
3. Enter the encryption paraphrase you want to use and confirm in
the second text box.
4. Click OK.
Following are a few of the things Stacey stores in her “Health” notebook:

Insurance cards: She photographs both sides of the card, types

out the number of her policy (so that she can copy/paste it into
web forms when requested) and adds a few key details about the
policy, including the URL link to her plan. She also includes a
snapshot of the Benefits at a Glance for the policy so that she
doesn’t have to search online for it when she needs it.
“Insurance history” note: Showing continuous coverage can be
an important detail when you switch insurance carriers or apply
for new coverage. This note helps remind her of the dates and
companies associated with her health insurance coverage.
“Medical history” note: This note keeps track of relevant
medical history that doctors request at intake. It includes
sections for medication history, which she encrypts. She has
created a table in which she tracks the medicines she has taken
so she can answer any doctor’s questions about previous
medications.
 Scans of all Estimation of Benefits
Scans or photographs of the policy details
Copies of blood work and other test results.

Keep in mind that you cannot encrypt images, only text, so if you are
concerned about privacy, you may want to limit how much data you scan
into Evernote regarding your health history. Stacey finds that the benefit of
having the information centralized and accessible when she needs it
outweighs the risk of having the data digitized in Evernote.

Planning Your Next Great Escape

Everyone needs time to kick back and relax and Evernote is ideal for
organizing vacations, particularly when you are traveling with a group and
trying to track everyone’s travel arrangements and priorities.
Kristi has several notebooks that she uses to plan vacations, some of which
are shared with friends. First, she captures information about places she
wants to visit in her “Trip Ideas” notebook. She keeps a note titled “Travel
Bucket List” that is organized by region and adds new cities or countries to
the list as she discovers them. When she’s ready to plan a vacation, she
peruses the list and notes she has saved to narrow her choices.

Kristi’s travel bucket list

She also uses shared notebooks to plan trips with friends. She travels to
New Orleans annually with a group and each of them add notes to their
shared “NOLA” notebook all year long. Before the trip, they review all of
the notes and come up with a plan for their visit.
 The shared NOLA notebook

Their list of recommendations has gained some notoriety and they often
share it with others who are headed to the Big Easy with the request that the
recipients share any new great finds with the group.
For a weeklong trip to Puerto Rico, Kristi and her traveling companion also
created a shared notebook. They both clipped articles of interest, stored
their flight details and information about the condo they rented. Both of
them had all of the information they needed about the trip and they didn’t
have to dig through their email to find it.

The Inspired Foodie

Even before she started writing about food, Kristi’s been a “foodie,”
devouring food magazines, attending cooking classes and experimenting in
the kitchen. She originally started using Evernote to organize her unwieldy
recipe collection stored in five, three-ring binders. Trying to find anything
was a nightmare and she didn’t have access to the recipes unless she was at
her house. Now, she uses Evernote and Evernote Food (iOS and Android
only), a companion app focused on recipes and dining out, to manage her
culinary world.
Can you quickly find that recipe you saved last month? How do you keep
up with your shopping list? Are you stuck in a rut of eating at the same
places and want to branch out to new restaurants? Do you want to
remember your favorite dishes at that new spot? If you are a foodie,
Evernote can help you plan your next great meal whether you are doing the
cooking or dining out.
Collecting recipes
Kristi reads a large pile of food magazines and a long list of blogs regularly.
She aggregates the blogs she follows in Feedly, an RSS reader that
integrates with Evernote, reviewing articles daily for things she wants to
save. As she finds recipes she wants to try, she either clips or scans the
recipes into a notebook called “Recipes from Others.”

Feedly RSS Reader

To learn more about how to use Feedly with Evernote, visit the Resources
page at GetUntethered.com/resources.
Kristi also adds to the notebook using the Explore Recipes feature on
Evernote Food. With the app, she can search a collection of recipe websites
and blogs and save recipes she likes to her notebook.

Recipe search on Evernote Food

Grocery shopping
Despite loving food, Kristi does not love grocery shopping and likes to
make the trips to the store fast and efficient. She created a note with her
standard grocery list in order by the aisles at her local store. When she plans
a trip to the store, she copies the note to a new note and adds and deletes
items, as needed.

Kristi’s grocery template and shortcut

When she’s shopping, Kristi keeps Evernote open on her phone and checks
items off as she moves from aisle to aisle.
Dining 0ut
Evernote Food also helps Kristi keep up with restaurants she wants to try.
She uses the Saved tab in the Restaurants section to keep a running list of
places she wants to eat. When she hears that a new place has opened, she
looks it up on the Explore tab, and then clips it to the Saved list.
 Saved restaurant list in Evernote Food

The next time she and her friends are trying to pick a spot to eat, she flips
through the Saved list to find a new place to try.
Capturing meals
Kristi also uses Evernote Food to keep up with the dishes she eats at
different restaurants and festivals. Sometimes there is quite a gap between
when she eats somewhere and when she writes about it and the Meal feature
in Evernote Food helps her keep the photos and notes from her meals
organized.

Meals in Evernote Food

If you don’t have the ability to use, or interest in using Evernote Food, you
can create restaurant lists and capture meals directly in Evernote. The steps
may not be as automated, but the results are the same – you have your
places to try and favorite meals at your fingertips.
For example, Stacey, who is less of a foodie than Kristi, takes a different
approach. She keeps a “Restaurants to Try in Austin” checklist note that she
has added to her shortcuts list. She often references this note on her phone
while planning meals with friends. Stacey likes to use Evernote food to
remember special meals – such as multi-course meals at renowned
restaurants.

Making a Smooth Move

Moving is never fun – there are so many small details and things that have
to be taken care of even before you pack the first box. When Stacey decided
to move from Southern California to Austin she turned to Evernote to
organize everything from selling things she wasn’t taking to getting bids
from movers.
First, she created an “Austin Move” notebook where she kept all the notes
related to her move, such as moving estimates, design inspiration ideas for
her new place, forms that she’d have to fill out at the DMV, packing
checklists, etc.
To make sure she wasn’t moving things she didn’t need, she sold a number
of items on Craig’s List. In her “Austin Move” notebook, she created a note
called “Craig’s List Links” where she centralized the URLs for all of the
postings she made.
 Stacey’s Craig’s List links

In each of the Craig’s List ads, she mentioned that she had other items for
sale to speed up the process of selling all her older stuff. When she received
inquiries about the additional items, she was able to just copy and paste the
URLs from the furniture section of the “Craig’s List Links” note and send it
off to the person interested in buying.
For the smaller stuff that is harder to sell on Craig’s List, Stacey had an
“indoor garage sale.” She used Skitch to annotate a picture with the prices
of the items she was selling, and used those images in the ad. She was then
able to share the link on Facebook.

The indoor garage sale photo marked up with Skitch

To coordinate with the movers, Stacey created a public note with photos of
her condo and the bulky items that she was moving. She shared it with
moving companies to get competitive bids. This allowed her to get an
accurate quote without having the sales people come to the house to
physically see the property and her things, saving time and effort for
everyone. Once she chose a mover, Stacey kept the agreed upon estimate in
Evernote.

Stacey’s note to collect bids from moving companies

Stacey saved money on moving supplies by tracking the prices in a table in

her Evernote account. She bolded the cheapest price for the items she
needed to buy and then purchased them from the cheapest place, or
compared prices from her phone when she was at the store.
A lot of the forms, bids, receipts and other documents Stacey needed to
keep track of throughout the moving process came through her email inbox.
In order to easily find it all later without digging around in her inbox,
Stacey bcc’d her Evernote email account on every email related to her
move. Each email created a new note in her Evernote account.

Forwarding an email to Evernote

More Ideas for Prioritizing Your Personal Life
Create a “Read/Review” notebook for any articles or stories of
interest to read when you have free time.
Feathering the nest? Store photos, clips and articles of your
interior design favorites in Evernote and review them when you
are ready to make a purchase.
Coordinate the family with a shared notebook for documents
related to family affairs.
Save your favorite workouts with photos of how to perform
each exercise to a “Fitness” notebook and you’ll be able to get
in a good burn no matter where you are.
Make a packing list checklist to make sure you can pack that
bag quickly without leaving anything behind.
Capture gift ideas in Evernote. Add the URL or a photo of the
item to make it easy to shop when birthdays and holidays roll
around.
Clip your favorite restaurant to-go menus in Evernote.
Catalog your favorite beers or wines, taking a photo of the label
and making notes about its qualities.
Organize your coupons in Evernote. It’s the perfect place to
track discount codes and expiration dates.
Keep your happy memories in Evernote, scanning handwritten
notes or taking pictures of greeting cards you receive. Glance
back through the notes whenever you need a smile!
 A few of our favorite ways to use Evernote

Check out more ideas on how to organize your life with Evernote on the
Evernote blog.

Summary
Whether you are stretching for a personal milestone, redecorating the living
room or just headed to the store, Evernote can help you organize the details
and serve as a place of inspiration. Prioritizing your personal life helps you
refuel your passion for your work and be an even more successful
entrepreneur.
Identify a spot in your personal world that Evernote can help make your life
better. Being untethered isn’t just for work; extend that freedom to your
personal life as well.

Untethered Toolkit
Get Going

Create notes to track your personal goals for the year.

Digitize information like your health care records, recipes or
other items that take up space in your filing cabinet or on your
bookshelves.
Use shared notes or notebooks to coordinate with others
whether you are planning a trip or a move.
Dig Deep
In this chapter, we introduced the following tools. You can read more about the details of how to use
them by clicking the links below:

Encrypting a note
Evernote Food
Emailing a note to Evernote
Chapter 8: Starting Your Untethered
Journey
Through the course of the book, we’ve shown you how you can use the
power of Evernote to support you in achieving your business and personal
goals. You’ve seen workflows for some of our key focus areas, and you can
use those ideas as a starting point to retrofit for your needs.
As you build your system, remember to tackle one challenge at a time.
Don’t try to change everything at once, but instead pick something that’s a
hassle for you, like managing receipts or organizing meeting agendas, and
solve for how Evernote can help you make that easier. You might start with
one of our examples, and then tweak it to apply to your work and
organization structure. Once you feel like you are over that hurdle, then
tackle the next challenge. After all, the way to eat an elephant is one bite at
a time.
As a recap, following are some of the key considerations as you select your
tools and setup the structure for your untethered system.

Key Questions as You Build Your System

What type of Evernote account do you need to do the things you
need to do – Basic, Premium or Business?
What other hardware or software do you need? Do you have a
scanner? Do you need special software from the Evernote App
Center to automate anything?
What structure do you want to use for your notebooks and
stacks? Are you going to use naming conventions or tags to add
keywords to notes?
What internal business processes could Evernote help you
digitize or automate?
How can you use Evernote to work more collaboratively with
your team and customers?
 Are there any areas of your personal life that you could organize
in Evernote?

The goal with all of this is to create a set of tools and workflows that
support you in being nimble and flexible, not tethered to your desk or file
cabinet. Being an independent entrepreneur should offer a sense of freedom
in some regards, and Evernote can help you achieve that.
We hope you will join us on our journey as we continue to explore the ways
in which we can use Evernote to support us in achieving our dreams and
being our best. We are constantly discovering new ways to use this evolving
tool and the third-party applications being developed for it. And, we’d love
to hear your ideas and solutions. How are you using Evernote to get
untethered?
You can follow us on our Get Untethered blog, with the Twitter hash tag
#untethered, and join our Get Untethered Facebook group. And, don’t
forget to check out the Resources page at GetUntethered.com/resources for
updates.
Enjoy the untethered life!
Appendix A: Backing Up Your
Evernote Data
If you are going to digitize your world, don’t forget to back it up. Even
though cloud-based tools keep a master copy of the data online, you don’t
want to be dependent on that if something goes wrong.
First, backup the local copy of your database as your part of your regular
backup for your computer (and, if you don’t have a regular backup, start
one now). Your Evernote database is stored in the following locations:

Windows: C:\Users\
[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Evernote\Evernote\Databases
Mac: /Users/[Your Username]/Library/Application
Support/Evernote

You can also manually export any note or set of notes from Evernote by
choosing File>Export Note(s) from the menu.

Exporting a note

Any selected notes are exported in either a .ENEX or .HTML format. The
.ENEX format is compatible for Evernote-based applications while the
.HTML file can be opened by a variety of software.
 Picking a note format for exported notes

If you have a special note or set of notes that you want to ensure are
available outside of Evernote, manually export it to a separate file as a
precaution, and then backup that folder regularly.
Appendix B: Implementing
Workflows
Workflows Covered in the Book
Following is an index of the workflows we illustrated in the book in order
by author, with reference to the chapter in which it is discussed. If you
found that one author’s style resonated more for you, this table should make
it easy to find their material.
Workflow Author Chapter

Create and execute your business plan for the year Kristi 4

Curating content Kristi 6

Organizing client workflow internally Kristi 6

Organizing recipes, grocery lists and dining out Kristi 7

Personal goal setting Kristi 7

Vacation planning Kristi 7

Creating a collaborative workspace Stacey 6

GTD task management Stacey 4

Health management Stacey 7

Manage leads Stacey 4

Moving Stacey 7

Store and reconcile receipts and expenses Stacey 4

Managing team projects Stacey & Kristi 5

Sharing with non-Evernote users Stacey & Kristi 6

Team collaboration Stacey & Kristi 5

Creating Your Own Workflows
Your company and situation are unique and you may have processes and
procedures you need to solve for that we have not included. Following is a
list of questions we ask when we are developing workflows for our clients
and ourselves. Use these to help you dissect the challenge you are facing.
Questions to consider when developing a workflow:

How is the information organized or stored now?

What types of information are you collecting (PDFs, pictures,
audio files, etc.) and is it physical or digital?
What type of information do you most often need to retrieve?
What works well with the current process?
What bottlenecks or inefficiencies, if any, currently occur with
this process? Where are the holes?
How many notes do you expect to create for this topic or
process? A few or many? Does it need its own notebook or can
you use an existing notebook?
Is the work transactional or functional? For example, a real
estate agent has a large number of clients who cycle out quickly
(transactional) where as a software developer might have fewer
clients for a longer period of time.
Do you need to share the information with others? If so, who?
Are they internal or external? Are they Evernote users?
When and where do you need to be able to access the
information? Only in the office? On the road? Using a mobile
device?
How sensitive is your data?

As we ask these questions, we map out how the pieces of the process might
fit together on a white board or using Post-it Notes. Be flexible as you are
creating the workflow and regularly evaluate whether you need to revise the
process to be more seamless. Workflows and tools are constantly evolving;
don’t get tied to an old process just because it is always the way you’ve
done things.
We’d love to hear what you create! Share your ideas and comments with us
on Twitter or Facebook.
Appendix C: Recommended
Applications and Tools
We rely heavily on Evernote companion applications and tools from third-
party developers that integrate with Evernote. We use these tools to
automate the process of creating notes and to more easily share information.
New third-party tools are released daily. Be sure to checkout our latest
recommendations on the Resources page at GetUntethered.com/resources.
Evernote Companion Applications
Tool Description Chapter

Create a distraction-free screen in your web browser for easier

Evernote Clearly 1
reading.

Evernote Food Search and store recipes, explore restaurants and capture meals. 1,7

Capture and mark up screen snaps, images and PDF files with basic
Skitch 1,6,7
drawing tools.

Application that allows you to create handwritten notes on a tablet

Penultimate using a stylus and sync them with Evernote. The notes are indexed and 1
searchable.

Third-Party Applications
Tool Description Chapter

Dolphin Browser for iPad and Android tablets that clips directly to Evernote. 5

RSS Reader that allows you to quickly clip articles you want to save
Feedly 1,7
to Evernote.

Digital retriever that pulls information from various billing accounts

FileThis 1,4
and adds it to Evernote.

Google’s email application that includes ability to clip an email to

Gmail 1
Evernote. You can also connect your Gmail contacts with Evernote.
 Tool Description Chapter

HelloSign and
Digital signature and fax software that syncs with Evernote. 1
HelloFax

Social media management software that includes the ability to save a

HootSuite 1
post to Evernote.

Digital retriever that allows you to connect other cloud-based services

IFTTT 1
like Instagram, Twitter and Dropbox with Evernote.

A collaboration workspace tool for sharing notes and other documents.

LiveMinutes 6
Notes are synchronized with Evernote.

Screen capture and annotation software by TechSmith that can export

SnagIt 1
directly to Evernote.

Digital retriever that allows you to connect other cloud-based services

Zapier 1
like Instagram, Twitter and Dropbox with Evernote.

Third-Party Hardware
Tool Description Chapter

Portable scanner that that creates PDF or image files directly in

Canon P215
Evernote. Offers multi-sheet, duplex scanning and separate business 1
Scanner
card scanning.

Fujitsu ScanSnap
Portable scanner that creates PDF or JPG files directly in Evernote. 1
S1100
Gratitude
A project like this does not happen without tremendous support from others.
We are truly grateful to everyone who supported us in the writing of this
book, particularly to Evernote for giving us a solution for our own lives, a
tool to work with clients and the Ambassador program through which we
met.
We extend a special thanks to Kasey Fleischer Hickey, the initial shepherd
of the Ambassador program, for inspiring us, and to Mie Yaginuma and
Joshua Zerkel for enduring our endless questions with openness and grace.
Our friends, clients and colleagues reviewed countless revisions and gave
us incredible feedback. We are forever in your debt and, at a minimum, owe
you lifetime Evernote technical support. In particular, we appreciate the
tireless work of our assistants, Emma Chase and Lillian Sonnenberg, who
not only pitched in on the book, but also managed so many other details so
that we could focus on writing.
And to you, the reader, we are grateful for you joining our untethered
community. We look forward to growing and learning together on this
journey.

Special thanks from Stacey

Mom, your constant emotional and tactical support never goes unnoticed,
even if I don’t express it as often as I think it – thank you for you
unwavering trust in me. I love you.
Carolyn, without your influence on my life and unconditional support, I
would have never thought it possible to create a career that led to this book.
My gratitude for all you have given me over the years cannot be expressed
in words.
Grant, your daily encouragement of me and of this project has been
heartwarming, soothing and impactful, particularly on the difficult days –
W&F, and a BIG muah!
And to Alex, I’m not sure where I’d be if you hadn’t taken me under your
wing when you did and I am forever grateful. Thank you for being one of
the greatest teachers in my life. This book is the first tangible result of your
influence on the actualization of my dreams. May it be just the beginning.

Special thanks from Kristi

I am blessed with incredible friends and family who, even when I fail
epically, are willing to prop me back upright and remind me that they
believe in me. I owe everything to the love and support of you, the people
who never flinch.
Natanya, Jenna and Sandra, thank you for being my daily touchstones and
sounding boards. I have grown more through your friendship, guidance and
love than you will ever know.
Christina Randle and the Effective Edge team taught me that having a good
system gives me the space to flourish, and that stretching outside my
comfort zone is always worth it. Thank you Christina for encouraging me to
dream big.
Ginger and Shane, you are my rocks. I am so lucky to have you both, and
your incredible kids, to fill my life with love and laughter. Our family gives
meaning to everything I do.
About the Authors
Stacey Harmon

Stacey is an overall curious person who has transformed her love of

marketing innovation and process efficiency into a career as digital
strategist though her namesake company, Harmon Enterprises. She most
enjoys her role as a national speaker teaching strategies for branding in a
digital age along with best practices for being productive with Evernote.
Her passion for Evernote has enabled her to become nearly 100% paperless,
earned her designation as an Evernote Business Certified Consultant and
resulted in her selection as Evernote’s Marketing Ambassador. Her highly
digital orientation, although quite positive to her life, means she is generally
miserable without a strong WiFi connection.
Residential real estate is Stacey’s niche, with nearly two decades of
experience helping brokerages, agents and real estate affiliates better market
themselves. Since starting Harmon Enterprises in 2008, she has expanded
her client base to include small- to mid-sized businesses in several
industries. Stacey can be found on Twitter at @staceyharmon.

Kristi Willis

As Principal of KW Solutions Group, Kristi uses her background in

technology and learning and development to help her clients streamline
their systems and best practices, create engaging learning and build thriving
teams. She is as comfortable diagramming Evernote workflows on a
whiteboard as she is programming an online learning module or facilitating
a session on team trust.
As a long time Evernote convert, Kristi proudly serves as an Evernote
Business Certified Consultant and the Freelancing Ambassador and loves
teaching others how to use the software through speeches, online and
virtual classes.
As passionate as Kristi is about technology, Kristi is equally zealous about
food. She is a regular contributor to Edible Austin and Austin Woman
magazines, Culturemap Austin and her own blog, Kristi’s Farm to Table.
You can follow Kristi on Twitter @kristifarm2tbl.