Today, Jon Elhardt and I led a company-wide training on the benefits of going paperless in both sales and your personal life. We discussed how to accomplish this through the use of two tremendously popular tools, OneNote and Evernote. Both Jon and I find these tools indispensable–Jon being a OneNote guy, and myself an Evernote lad. The following are some key features and how both programs benefit us in our day to day lives.
Key Features and Benefits
Indexing/OCR – Unlike my first attempt at going paperless (writing on notebook paper and scanning it into my computer) these tools index and utilize OCR (Optical Character Recognition), which in turn helps you find what you need when you need it.
Tagging – Similar to Indexing/OCR, both programs allow you to “tag” your notes (think Twitter) so you can easily call it up in a search when you need to find something. A great tip I learned is to tag things the way “dumb” you would look for it in the future. For example, if someone shares a workout plan that Arnold Schwarzenegger used to work out to, you can save it and title it “Workout.” And yes, this example is a real one from my Evernote.
Ongoing Lists – This is a favorite feature, as a series of lists seems to run my life these days. How often has someone said “you have to read XYZ book” or “when you are at the store can you pick up ABC?” With both tools, you can easily create lists and continue to add to them.
Multi-Device/Collaborative Platform – No matter what device (computer, tablet, smartphone, etc.) you work from, your lists can be accessed anywhere. A great example is my ‘honey, do’ list. B.E. (Before Evernote) my wife and I would create a paper to-do list, and I would inevitably forget it as I walked out the door. I would then ask her to take a picture of it and text it to me. With these tools, you always have your lists at your fingertips.
Dictation – This has become a huge time saver for me, especially in light of having 1 ½ hours of “windshield” time a day. When I think of something (to-do, ideas, topics to talk to my partners about, etc.) I can instantly dictate my exact thoughts into either one of these tools. This way, I never lose track of thoughts or good ideas due to not having a pen.
Saving Articles for When You Have the Time – How often does someone pass on a great article that you have every intention of reading, but you can’t at that exact moment? Both these tools have a feature where you can seamlessly save the full article and assign a tag to it (say, “articles”) and then easily access it when you have the time.
Hopefully these tips have provided some insight into how leveraging tools like Evernote and OneNote can help you stay organized in both your sales and personal life.
Happy Selling!
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