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Guide to Evernote for Veterinarians: Part 3

How to Train an Elephant

We hope you’ve found our 3-Part Evernote Guide for Veterinary Professionals useful.

Start here: Part 1: Anatomy of an Elephant and Part 2: The Elephant in the Exam Room.

Now, I don’t claim to be any kind of elephant expert. But I love to tinker. And in this tinkering, I’ve discovered some of the truly special elements of Evernote.

Here’s your crash course in all the little things you can do from deep within Evernote. Almost all of these are unique to this program. Once you read and understand the following, I’m sure you’ll find a place for this time-saving program in your veterinary life.

A Note About Premium

No one will stop you from using Evernote in its amazingly functional free format. But before plowing in below, it is advisable to check out the benefits of paying for Evernote via Evernote Premium (or Business).

I pay for Evernote Premium because of a variety of benefits (offline Notebooks, extra security, and enhanced search, to name a few). Make the decision for yourself.

 

Without further ado, here are my favorite little tricks to know about while getting started with Evernote

1. Plethora of Ways to Get Stuff into Evernote

The beauty of Evernote is in the design. It’s so simple to get Notes into your Evernote. Besides the obvious ways (dragging, taking photos of things, or recording audio notes)…

Download the handy web clipper and save anything you find on the web directly into Evernote.

Set up a folder on your desktop that Evernote monitors constantly. Anything you drag or save in this folder automatically becomes a Note in your default Notebook (I call mine “Inbox”). I’ve set mine up so my scanner dumps into this folder. Now at the touch of a button on my scanner, I have documents in my Evernote.

You also get your own secret Evernote email address. Send (or bcc) any email to this address and it shows up in Evernote. You can automatically sort these by adding using the “@” and “#” symbol (see link).

You can even Tweet to your Evernote or use the share button on any mobile device to dump stuff into your system.

2. Accessing Your Stuff like a Hero

Evernote allows you to access Notes on the fly by creating Note links, or hyperlinks that allow you to bounce from one Note to another. I use this all the time in my to-do list.

You can use these links anywhere. One particularly useful place is within a calendar item. For example, next week I have a meeting with someone and I keep a link to the Note that contains all the materials related to this meeting.

I also use Note links to create shortcuts on my desktop to individual Notes.

3. Give Your Notes Their Own Secret Website

Remember that Nurse Drug Book from Part 2?

Well, here’s how I did it.

4. Offline Notebooks

Premium feature alert! On your mobile devices, you have the ability to label any Notebook as an “Offline Notebook” and Evernote will automatically keep any of the Notes within fully accessible without any internet connection. A must when traveling.

Bonus: Did you know you can also access any Note’s version history (again, premium users only)? Check it out.

5. Note Reminders

This is a new feature but it’s so obvious. Attach an alarm clock to any Note.

6. Encrypt Text

This is important if you have taken the leap and gone fully digital. Learn how to encrypt the text within a Note so that you need to enter a password prior to viewing the Note or certain parts of the Note.

7. Insert a Check Box

Any Note can contain checkboxes which enhance to-do list functionality.

8. Google Search Your Notes

Search is powerful within Evernote Notes, especially if you have Evernote Premium, where you can find text within photos and PDF files.

You can also search your own Evernote Notes while searching Google. Here’s how.

9. Evernote Clearly

Try out this really slick way to read content on the web (such as this blog post) without the clutter of sidebars or other distractions.

10. Skitch = Awesome

I wasn’t always obsessed with Skitch, another Evernote family program, but it has evolved into something really great. This is the best tool I’ve found to annotate photos or PDF files.

Here’s a video introduction:

 

Are you intrigued? Awed? Intimidated? Honestly, we’re just scratching the surface with these tips.

As you dig into Evernote more and more, you’ll find tons of little functionalities that prove useful in turning Evernote into that second brain you’ve always wanted.

In other words, Remember Everything.

 

About the Author

Dr. Caleb Frankel is an ER veterinarian, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He currently divides his time between two roles: emergency veterinarian at VSEC, a 70-doctor referral hospital in Greater Philadelphia, PA (USA) and the founder of Instinct Science, a new animal health company helping the world’s state-of-the-art veterinary practices streamline their care through medically-driven invoicing and thoughtful automation.

He served as Director of New Product Development at Brief Media for 4 years where he lead the development and launch of products such as Plumb's Veterinary Drugs and New York Vet. Follow Dr. Frankel on Twitter @VMDtechnology.

 
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