Meeting Organization with Evernote

Meetings, meetings, meetings. They are a necessary evil. But, you can make them more organized and productive by being organized yourself.

I use Evernote as my main work (and personal) tool. For meetings, it is indispensable. Here's how:

1. I clip the meeting/appointment slot from Outlook into Evernote. This has the invitees/attendees, agenda, topic, time and date, etc. 
2. I then add any additional information and relevant files, along with links to other notes in Evernote. This way, everything related to the meeting is in one place.
3. I use a template for meeting notes (see below) and copy it into this note. I will add questions I have before the meeting and then use it for the meeting itself. 
4. I tag the meeting note for easy searching later. 
5. I can take notes on my smartphone, tablet, or laptop or Chromebook and access all meeting info.

This lets me have everything I need for a meeting in one place, and makes it easier to find the information later.

You can also share the note with others after the meeting.

Meeting Template

Date: 

Topic: 

Objectives: 

Attendees:

Notes: 

•  
•  
•  

Questions to ask:

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•  
•  

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Action Items:

• 
  
•  
•  
•  
• 
• 
  

Related:

Evernote for Educators Resources

My Workflow as CIO - includes heavy use of Evernote

Another great feature of Evernote - integrated in Outlook

Keys to running Effective Meetings

Taking organizing and planning lessons from Ben Franklin - great tips for educators too

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It's National Get Organized Month - here are some great resources

January is National "Get Organized Month" so I decided to share some resources on getting organized. There are some great sites out there too, including the National Association of Professional Organizers.

I am a type A personality in many ways and I've always been organized at work (not so much at home). As an engineer, it was vital to be organized. As a teacher, it was too, but harder to do. I learned some great things from United Technologies when I worked at Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft. They use a system called ACE, Achieving Competitive Excellence, and parts of it are related to having an organized work space so that you can be more efficient.

Technology is also a great resource for getting organized. I'm about 99% paperless - everything is either done electronically or scanned. I use Evernote extensively for staying organized.

Below are links, with descriptions, to help you get organized.


Evernote Resources
Evernote is the i-ching for organization. Save everything here, organized by notebooks, notes, stacks, and tags and searchable. Text notes, files, documents, web clippings, etc. As a CIO, it is my main tool.

Google Apps Resources
Google apps, like email and calendar, can help you get and stay organized with the features they have.

Getting Organized Tips and Resources
I wrote this last January and it has some great tips and ideas for getting organized, along with resources. I even discuss paper planning here.

Taking Organizing and Planning Tips from Ben Franklin
Ben Franklin was great at being organized and had some great ideas that are used today.

Great Uses for Binder Clips
Binder clips can help you get organized, and not just by clipping papers together.

Tips, Resources, and Ideas for Going Paperless
Going paperless can help you get more organized - less clutter, less space needed for paper, and the digital versions are easily searchable.

All Articles Tagged as "Get Organized"
This will pull up a list of any blog post that I tagged as "get organized"

Getting Organized with Google Calendar
Tips on using calendar to get organized.

Getting your Lesson Plans and Room Organized for a Substitute Teacher
Life is much better for the sub, your students, and you when you return, when your lessons and classroom are organized.

Using Technology to Organize your Lessons and Resources
I was a much happier, more efficient teacher when I got myself and my lessons organized.

Getting Students and Teachers Organized
Some tips for students and teachers.

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MonioMap - visual mind map of your Evernote notes and notebooks

I use Evernote a lot. I have about 100 Notebooks and close to 6,000 notes, so it can get a little overwhelming at times. I use tags and Evernote's search is great and the related notes feature helps find other info, but I just learned about a new service, made for Evernote, that turns your Evernote notes and notebooks into a mind map. It's called MohioMap.

MohioMap takes all of your Evernote notes and data and creates a visual map. It makes it easy to navigate and see connections. The center is your account and then it branches out by notebooks and notes. You can view the notes in Mohiomap or open in a new window or in Evernote itself. You can pin nodes on the map and view by relevance to points you click on and you can even drag and drop tags from one node to another, making it easy to connect notes by tags.

It adds another layer of functionality to Evernote.

Here is a view of mine for just my data for my CIO section:

Go to the site, create a free account, confirm your account and provide MohioMap with access to your Evernote account and you are all set.






Related:

Evernote for Education Resources

My Workflow as CIO - includes heavy use of Evernote

MindMapping Apps and Resources

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Two great teacher blogs showing uses of Evernote as teachers

I'm a power Evernote user and have documented a lot of ways to use Evernote in education over the years.

I recently found two blogs from educators that show how they use Evernote as teachers and offer some great ideas and tips for other educators.

Jordan Collier has a great blog with a whole section on Evernote. He is on #8 of 50 planned posts with different ways school administrators and educators can use Evernote to be more organized and more effective. There are some great ideas here.

The Not Another History Teacher blog, also has some great posts and tips for using Evernote in the classroom. Justin Stallings, another Evernote power user like me, is guest posting these articles.

Evernote is a great resource for education, and is free. If you haven't tried Evernote out yet, create a free account and read some of the posts on my blog and the two above for ideas on how to use it.


Related:
Evernote for Education Resources

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Empty Inbox Courtesy of Evernote

I recently wrote about how I use Evernote as my main tool as a School CIO. It is my primary tool for work, and home. I just did some more with it that I found useful and liberating - emptied my inboxes!

Yes, you heard correctly, my email inboxes are empty. I used to keep emails in my inbox as reminders to do something about that email, follow up, a task, etc. But that meant my inbox was messy and I didn't always know/remember what I had to do with that email and there were no notes for it.

I have been using the clip to Evernote add-on for Outlook to save and store important emails in Evernote, but now I send them all there.

For my personal email, all emails I want saved go to Evernote and my personal notes. My personal email is pretty empty.

For my work email, I save all important emails, with the attachments, to notebooks based on what project they go with. Any email I save also gets moved to a folder in Outlook for backup reference.

For emails that require me to do something, I clip them to Evernote, and put a link to the note on my task list. This way, they are always on my task list so I don't forget them, and I can add other notes and information to the note for reference. They are better organized, easily searchable, and I can link them in other notes.

I have a clean inbox, all emails are organized (and with additional info) and set so I won't forget about them.

See also:

My Workflow as CIO - includes heavy use of Evernote

Evernote for Education Resources and Uses

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Infographics about Evernote

I know, another article about Evernote from Dave. Sorry, but I found these in my "to blog about" folder and wanted to share it before I forgot. Some interesting info and stats on here.

There are three infographics:

• 100 new features in Evernote for Windows Desktop
• All About Evernote
• history
• abilities
• platforms
• users
• 101 Ways to use Evernote

Enjoy!

Lots more about Evernote: http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/p/evernote-for-education.html

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Tips on getting started with Evernote

Evernote is my main tool for work and home. I've been using it for 5 years and love it. It can be tough for someone new to Evernote to get started with it.

Here is a great article by an on-line friend of mine, Tim Stiffler-Dean, about how Evernote can be a little overwhelming at first and how to get over that.

Here is also a great article, and video, from Evernote on getting started and my main Evernote page has ideas on getting started.

I also told another on-line colleague that I would give him some tips on getting started with Evernote for his specific needs.

He teaches technology and physics, assists with the school network, and writes a tech column for a newspaper. Here are some ideas for using Evernote for each of these:

Teaching: (see here for more on how I used Evernote as a teacher)

• lesson plan resources (from books, web sites, magazines, files)
• lesson plans - schedule of what you are doing each day, linked to the actual lesson plan in Evernote
• unit plans and resources (attached files, links, web clippings)
• curriculum
• project ideas
• student work and e-portfolio's

School Network

• specs of all equipment
• network map
• to do list
• web clippings of articles that are useful
• equipment information
• plans

Writer: ( I do this for the articles I write for this blog and two tech magazines)

• story ideas
• notes
• clippings of research
• articles themselves

Hope this helps!

Related:

My Workflow as CIO - includes heavy use of Evernote

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My Workflow as CIO - includes heavy use of Evernote

I am the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for an urban public school district. We have over 21,000 students, 3500 faculty and staff, 40 buildings, 15,000 devices, a full data center and fiber network, and an IT department staff of 15. We manage multiple large IT projects at once, including desktops, Chromebooks, Smartboards, network upgrades, Kronos, printers, new school construction, multiple network applications and software, and also consult on all technology issues and purchases in the district.

I have specific workflow that I have developed over the last year to help stay organized and on schedule.

I check emails when I get up for any critical issues (sent from monitoring software) or emergent needs. When I arrive at work, I login to my computer and check emails again, along with my calendar and tasks for the day. Then I check in with my staff and network engineers and technicians to discuss tasks and projects for the day, and anything they need from me.

I monitor the work orders in Track-It, which is our help desk software. I review work orders and reassign, add notes, comment, address the issue, as needed.

Throughout the day I answer emails, monitor Track-It, communicate with my staff on projects, consult with other district and school staff, work with vendors, manage projects, and more.

At the end of the day, I review the current day and make notes for the next day - tasks, follow-ups, and priorities. I check with with my staff and make notes on their projects.

The main tool that I use for all of this is Evernote.  I use Evernote for, well, everything. I have project management notes with schedules, tasks, attached files and more. I clip news articles for review, vendor websites, all my contacts, clip emails, with the attachments, from Outlook, notes, tech reference, personnel files, etc. You name it, it's all in Evernote for one-stop access, from any device, anywhere.

I have notebooks setup for projects, personnel, vendors, reference notes, tasks, contacts, to do later, to read later, etc. I have a main note, Project/Task Management, that I use as my task list. I can reorganize the tasks based on priority. Each task links to another note with more details. I have this note divided up with Follow Up, Priority 1, Priority 2 and Priority 3 tasks. These get moved around a lot as priorities change.

By linking to other notes, my task list is clean, but each task is linked to more details.

Each note also has attached files as needed - quotes, specs, spreadsheets, documents, and more. I also clip emails using the Evernote clipper for Outlook - it clips the email chain, along with attachments. I can then merge or link this note to other project notes and keep everything in one place. Instead of emails in Outlook, notes in Evernote and files on my computer, everything is in one place in Evernote.

I also have meeting notes, personnel files, schedules, and reference files and notes in Evernote. I clip websites and documents from online with the Evernote clipper and save them to the proper notebook. I use Evernote Clearly to clean up the page before I clip it also. You can also clip online PDF documents directly into Evernote.

I also forward emails or send files and notes from other apps to Evernote via email. You get a special email address to use.

The other nice thing about Evernote is that you can share notes with others, even if they don't have an Evernote account, for them to view. It is very easy to do. You can also share notes with others who have Evernote accounts and allow them to edit them.

I use the Evernote Scanner from Fujitsu (the Fujitsu ScanSanp scanners work to) for one click scanning into Evernote. All paper documents, print magazine articles, print brochures, conference materials, etc. gets scanned into Evernote and organized.

Meeting notes are taking in a variety of ways - type directly into Evernote, audio recording into Evernote, Livescribe Pen directly into Evernote, handwritten notes scanned into Evernote, and even notes take with other apps copied into Evernote.

If you open an attached file by double clicking it in Evernote (and it opens in created software such as Word), edit it and click "save" it updates the file in Evernote.

By keeping everything in Evernote, I can easily link or merge items, organize them by notebook and tags, easily search them and access everything - notes, emails, clippings, and files - in one place, from any device or computer. I use the Windows Desktop app at work and on my home laptop and then access my data with the Android App on my HTC One and Nexus 7, and the web app on my Chromebook and from other computers.

You can even set reminders for notes so that you don't forget to do something. Great for following up on tasks.

Evernote is available in free and premium versions. The premium version allows you to upload more data each month, have offline notes in the apps, and more. It's well worth it.

Here is a redacted image of my main Project Management note and notebook. You can also see the other notebooks I have on the left.

Here’s more information on Evernote:

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/p/evernote-for-education.html

Evernote Clearly:

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2011/11/evernote-clearly-one-click-for.html

Livescribe Pens:

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/livescribe-echo-smartpen-very-cool-and.html

Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanners:

http://scansnapcommunity.com/

Evernote Scanner:

https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/scanner?sku=SCAN00101

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LiveMinutes - Edit your Evernote notes in real-time with others!

LiveMinutes is a very cool app that integrates with Evernote (my all time favorite and most used app) and allows you to work on the same Evernote note with others, similar to Google Docs.

Evernote is an excellent app, with the ability to share notes with others, but there is not a collaboration piece until this app came along.

You go to LiveMinutes and create a work space and select the notes from your Evernote account that you want to collaborate on, share them with others and off you go. You see multiple users editing the same note. Even if someone edits the note in Evernote, the changes are synced.

Here's a video that shows how this works: http://youtu.be/FOxYa8NqRmc

LiveMinutes is a full collaboration app that also lets you run conference calls, annotate documents and visuals and organize projects by workspaces.

If you use Evernote, this is something to look into. 

Related Articles:

Evernote for Education Resources

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Free Evernote Training Videos on YouTube

Evernote is one of my favorite and most used apps. I use it for project management, task lists, meeting notes, reference notes, web clippings, personal tasks and more.

I just found out about some great training videos on YouTube that show you how to do different tasks in Evenrote. Check them out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/EvernoteScott?feature=watch

If you don't use Evernote, check it out. It's free, easy to use, and cross platform. I used it for lesson planning, lesson notes, class notes, student notes and logs, and more as a teacher. As a CIO I use it for meeting notes, project management, contacts, web clippings, research and much more.

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Evernote updates Windows version with over 100 new features

Evernote, one of my favorite and most used apps, has recently updated the Windows version of their software.

If you don't use Evernote, check it out. It's free, easy to use, and cross platform. I used it for lesson planning, lesson notes, class notes, student notes and logs, and more as a teacher. As a CIO I use it for meeting notes, project management, contacts, web clippings, research and much more.

There are over 100 new features in it and I really like the new version.

Here is a link to the official announcement and below is an image with the new features.
http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/10/17/100-reasons-to-love-evernote-for-windows/

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Evernote releases some great new features

Evernote is my go to app. In fact, in my position as CIO, I use two apps for 90% of my work - Outlook for email and calendar and Evernote for all my notes, project planning and more. I keep meeting notes, project management, reference files, clip websites and even save emails with Evernote clipper for Outlook. I use it on all my devices: desktop, smartphone, Nexus 7, Livescribe pen, and ScanSnap scanner and Chromebook and it is an indispensable app.

One thing I love about Evernote is that they are always working to improve it. This month, Evernote has announced some great new features.

The first new feature is reminders. Reminders allow you to add alarms to notes, create a to do list by pinning notes and mark tasks as they are complete. I use them for tasks and even to remind me to check notes for other information and tasks inside meeting notes. This feature is available on all platforms.

The next feature is using the Chrome web clipper to clip Gmail emails and attachments. I use the Outlook clipper and it's a great way to save emails, and their attachments, to Evernote. With Gmail being so popular, and so many schools using Google Apps for Education, this is a great feature to have. Save the important stuff to your Evernote account and keep you email account clean.

Evernote has also improved Penultimate for iPads and Evernote Food.

The Evernote blog is a great way to find out about features and tips. This weeks tip is organizing your notebooks in Notebook Stacks, which is a great way to keep things organized.  Learn more →

Evernote is a great tool, that just keeps getting better.


Evernote for Education Resources

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Evernote Skitch meeets Windows to create a great, easy to use screen capture and image editing service.

Evernote, the app I talk about way too much, has some other great apps that work with it. Skitch is one of them. Skitch is a free image editing and screen capture app that has been on mobile devices for a while and is now, finally, on Windows.

It is easy to use, has enough features for most users, and is free. Hard to beat that. You can use it to take screen captures, annotate images, and it integrates with Evernote.

Teachers can use it to capture and annotate images for students, professional development, e-portfolios, etc. and students can use it for class projects.

It is available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Windows 8.

Learn more at the source page below.

Source: Evernote Skitch website

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Evernote Clearly gets Text-to-Speech - premium only

Evernote is one of my most used apps, ever. I'll be sharing the apps I use, and how I use them, in my new job as CIO shortly.

Evernote has a very cool product called Clearly. Evernote Clearly is a browser extension for Google Chrome (other browsers will be added soon) that allows you to read online with less distractions. You simply click the extension and it hides all the distractions from blogs and articles, allowing you to read with less distractions and more easily.It use it a lot, especially on sites that I want to clip to Evernote (it keeps all the junk from getting clipped too).

This is great for students who have issues with distractions and makes things easier to read.

It has a great new feature also. Clearly now has Text-to-Speech for premium account users. Premium accounts are only $5 per month, or $45 per year and are well worth it, adding some great features.

Words are highlighted as they are read and users can pause and skip. This is a great feature for ELL, early readers, and struggling readers. It supports 12 languages.



Source: Evernote Blog

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Another great feature of Evernote - integrated in Outlook

I love Evernote. It's no surprise. I use it for everything and even more now in my new job as Chief Information Officer of the district. It allows me to keep everything - notes, files, and more all accessible anywhere on any device. I use the web clipper, Livescribe SkyPen, Android App, web app, and Windows Desktop App.

As a teacher, we all used the web version of Outlook. Administration and office staff use the desktop version of Outlook because we utilize more features. I had always used the web version of Evernote as a teacher and now use the desktop version (more features that I need). After installing Evernote, I noticed an Evernote logo on Outlook. What a great surprise. I can easily and quickly save any email (and attachments) or contact right to Evernote from Outlook.

This has become invaluable to me as I get organized and keep track of information, contacts, and resources. Instead of setting up a bunch of mail folders, desktop folders, and Evernote notebooks, I just put everything into Evernote. It also means I can access all of this from anywhere, very easily. I have my important personal and work notebooks set up to offline sync on my smartphone and Nexus 7 tablet so I can always access them, and I have the desktop versions of Evernote at work and home for offline access and backup.

Once again, Evernote has made my life easier and more organized.


Related:

Evernote for Educators Resources

Livescribe SkyPen - automatically sync your handwritten notes and audio recordings to Evernote via WiFi.

Nexus 7 Android Table Review

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Kustom Note - templates/fields for Evernote Notes

Evernote, one of my favorite and most used apps, is a great note taking, web clipping, and organizing app. The notes are free form though. You can make your own templates and copy/paste the template into a new note, but there is now a better way. Evernote Trunk is a collection of apps that work with Evernote. Each year, Evernote holds a conference and contest for develops and this year, Kustom Note won a Silver DevCup award. It was well deserved.

Kustom Note is a app that works with and integrates into Evernote and allows you to create custom note templates with fields similar to databases. You can also use pre-made templates. These templates can help make your note taking more organized and efficient.

For example, you could create a template based on how you like to take meeting notes, class notes, or a template for teacher observations, lesson plans and much more. Students could set up class note templates based on the class and the format they like.



Here is a list of many of the features Kustom Note has:

• User Friendly. No seven-level menus to go through. Once logged in you are 1 click away from taking a note.
• Set a default notebook for each form template you have.
• Configurable tags. You can set your tags once for each note form template, new notes will be automatically tagged for you.
• Preset title prefix and suffix. Set that once and it will be applied to all new note titles created with that template.
• Include fields in note title. Set fields to be included in the note title which means you get meaningful titles without doing anything.
• SmartField - Movies. A non-conventional field that shows up as an autocomplete field that searches for movies.Select a movie and it will magically render a beautifully designed snippet with the poster, ratings, stars and links to IMDB, RotternTomatoes and to book tickets on Fandango.
• SmartField - Music. Selecting one of your template fields to be SmartField - Music, same as for Movies, it will display an autocomplete field that matches against Artists, Tracks, and Albums and renders an amazing snippet about that song or artist, with an album art graphic and links to iTunes.
• Set your fields to be required, such fields won’t be allowed to be left blank in creating notes.
• Flexible and constrained. Pick a type for every field and and once set, rules like email format, URL or numeric would be fully enforced.
• Date and Datetime easy entry. Note creation forms will automatically have date and time selectors for easier and valid values entry.
• Preset values to select from. For field types like Multiple checkboxes, Single Select, Multiple Select or Radio Group, you create a set of possible values that will be presented on creating notes.
• Set multiple attachments of files and images with structure and rules for a note template.
• Take notes in style. No more bland and boring notes. With KustomNote you initially get two themes to select from with color variations (all themes are fully ENML compliant).
• Icon Stamps. Mark your templates with icons to be easily recognizable. Notes created are automatically stamped, stored and shared with the icon selected.
• Set email reminders. Once set for a day and time, KustomNote will send you an email reminder to remember that appointment or movie note.
• Share your templates. Get some good karma and share your amazing templates. You can share your note template forms to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Browse and use public templates. If can use some help with setting up templates for effective note-taking, browse public templates created by other awesome KustomNoters, clone them and make any changes you like.
• Everything in one place. With KustomNote you get all those 9 yards, create, update and list your notebooks and notes within the application.
• KustomNote is mobile and everywhere. With an effective responsive design you can access KustomNote from your desktop computer, iPad or smartphone.
• Customized notes for applications like Peek is a breeze, it would be a template with two fields Question/Hint & Answer with the Question field set to be used in the note title.
• Evernote is huge in Japan (also). KustomNote fully supports the Japanese language for the whole interface and data entry.

See all the features for yourself at http://kustomnote.com and start creating note forms for your calories log, workout log, travel itineraries, homework's, your medical appointments, your children art collection and vaccination shots, your pets log, workout and medical records.. well, you get it, for everything in your life!

A new feature is the ability to integrate your Google Contacts and Google Calendar with Kustom Note.

Future updates that are coming include offline access and mobile apps for iOS and Android. The site does have a mobile version for use on your mobile device.

Find Kustom Note in the Evernote Trunk.



Related:

Evernote for Education - resources, tips, help, ideas and more

Evernote Trunk - applications, hardware, and more that works with Evernote

10 Great, Free Apps for Students for Notetaking and Class Planning

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Evernote for Administrators - some ideas and tips

Evernote is a great resource for teachers and students. Take notes, organize information, clip web sites, research, lesson plans and more. But it is also a great tool for administrators.

All of the notes can be created and accessed from desktop computers and tablets and smartphones, so it's easy to use and access.

Evernote can be used by administrators for:

1. Teacher observations and evaluations - take notes in the observation and then share the note with the teacher for review and comment.

2. Meeting notes - take notes at meetings

3. Share Meeting agendas and notes - create the agenda in Evernote and share that note with attendees.

4. Student notes - use to document student conferences, parent contacts

5. Random notes - take notes, tasks/to do's, and more at any time and access from anywhere.

6. Reference notes - policies, procedures, contacts, notes, and more, all in one place.

7. Model technology use for teachers and students

8. Journal - keep a journal of daily activities, ideas, issues, and more

9. Task list - create task lists to keep you organized and on track


These are some of the ideas I had for administrators to use Evernote. What ideas do you have?


Related:

Evernote for Education Resources

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