I just perused an interesting blog posting on vox.machina about taking notes electronically, which got me thinking about my own note taking.
I currently use a couple of systems, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
I use Evernote when I’m sitting in front of the computer (and when I have my Blackberry handy). It is an excellent piece of software that I use extensively for note taking, jotting down ideas, etc. I have a bit of a problem with effectively tagging my notes, so I have an Outlook reminder to clean up my notes every week (is that a Mind Sweep in GTD? I forget!)
I also use Pixily in conjunction with Evernote. Pixily is a great scanning service that lets me send in paper items that I want to have digitally. I send in articles from magazines, business cards, receipts, etc. I love it. I transfer a lot of my Pixily stuff to Evernote (the two applications are linked).
I’ve just started with reQall - a great way to jot down quick “to-dos’ and ‘remember to buy this’ information. I get updated e-mails reminding me of things that I may have otherwise forgotten. You can call a number and leave a message (like Jott used to do) and it gets transcribed into a text that is stored in your reQall list. Pretty handy.
I use Personal Brain to get a ‘higher level’ look at projects, future projects and the ‘interconnectedness’ of the data in my life. I find it indispensible.
I couldn’t live without Outlook – I have found that I need to schedule time in my work week to actually get work done, but it sure is effective.
Outlook’s task list isn’t perfect, but it’s what I’m stuck with.
And last, but certainly not least, I use GMail’s Tasks – which I follow up on once a week – to store e-mails and quick ideas when I’m not too worried about how time sensitive they are.
