A Philosophy, not a list - Things to Store in Evernote

One of my first Evernote posts on my personal blog was my list of things you could do with Evernote from way back in October of 2009.

Most every blogger that uses Evernote has published their own list.  My post cited several from that time period.

Today I was asked how I managed to accrue over 20,000 notes in just over six years, a rate of 285 notes a month.

I started to give a brief list, and then it occurred to me, I can sum up what should go into Evernote like this :

The short version:  If you encounter something you might remotely want to see again, it goes into Evernote.

Of my 20,000 notes, if I ever pull back up one half of one percent of them, that is 100 items I needed and was able find, and find easily.

In practice, that percentage is higher, but probably note more than 2 or 3%.  Evernote:  suggestion, put a read count field into each note, and provide analytics please.

The longer version:  If it comes into your life, and there is the smallest chance you'll want to see it again, then type it, scan it, photograph it, import it, web capture, screen capture, audio record it, into Evernote.

Cross posted with Ideas from Mark Stout