Saving Quotes With Evernote [Workflows]

A few friends have asked me recently how I use Evernote to organize quotes I come across for future writing, speaking or whatever.

One of the great things about Evernote as a platform is its ability to make “capture” really easy. It’s the perfect tool for archiving and accessing those savory quotes you come across as you go about your daily life. But how do you get them in there to start with?

Well, it’s worth considering how you tend to “find” quotes you like in the first place. I’ve found my great quote clips come from a number of sources.

Consider the Sources
 1) Twitter - Yeah, there’s a lot of drivel out there, but Twitter has ended up being a great place to “follow” some notable quotables. (Some of my favorites include: @chspurgeon@CSLewisDaily, or @NeverTheTwains.

2) Personal Reading - by far my biggest source of “capture” - when I’m reading I have a way of noting to myself that there’s a quote I want to go back and write down sometime.

3) The Web - This could include anything from blogs to news articles to white papers, etc.

4) Conversations With People - Sometimes things you hear people around you say, whether in conversation, creative meetings, or during sermons, etc. are worth saving for later!

The Process
There are several parts to making notable quotables useful to yourself in Evernote. Most of this is a riff on the principles behind David Allen’s, Getting Things Done. You find it’s one thing to save a bunch of quotes, but if you can’t quickly access them later when you need them, what good is it? That’s why all three steps are important:

1) Capture - get those quotes into a trusted system so that it all ends up in one place.

2) Process - name, tag and store those quotes in a way that ensures you’ll find them when you need them.

3) Search - quickly and reliably find your way back to those quotes for just the right moment.

Today I’ll just talk about what “Capture” looks like for me, using Evernote.

1) Copy and Paste
By far the simplest and smoothest way to get quotes into Evernote is by using good old Command+C and Control-Command-V to cut and paste. I use this for web quotes and even from PDF documents (using Preview for Mac) and Word documents. It’s a simple as cut-and-paste, but when you add in the “Control-Command-V” it opens Evernote and  pastes to a new note in the background. (This has become muscle memory for me.)

Evernote_clipping_preferences_
You can change your clipping Preferences in the drop down menu-bar icon, or in the application itself. That screen looks like this:
Evernote_clipping_preferences
2) Email it in . . .
I know that seems painfully obvious, but the magic is learning where to apply it. First off, every Evernote user has a personally assigned email address that allows them to mail in whatever they want into their account. Look for that address under Evernote>>Account Info
Account_info_2
So here’s what’s great about that. If you’re using an iOS device (or anything similar) and you come across a great quote in Twitter, just click on the button that lets you email the Tweet and select your Evernote address (hopefully you’ve saved it in your Contacts list, right?) and away it goes!
So this Twitter quote . . .
Photo_2
After you choose this option . . .
Photo_1
Looks like this . . .
Photo_3_2
And ends up as an Evernote note that looks like this . . .

 

Cslewisdaily_1-29-11_17-33
I usually go in and clean up some of that extra Twitter-fluff that comes along with the mail-in process. (Not that I don't like that pic of Lewis and all, but really).

By the way, this email-in flow works great with saving/archiving whole articles or blogposts when using Safari “Reader” view and emailing in the note from Mail.app. I also love the RSS app for iPhone called “Reeder” which lets you email in a whole blog post AND pre-select an automatic email address. So whole articles can go straight to Evernote in just a few screen taps.

3) While Reading A Book . . .
I tend to make marginal notes as I read books (paper ones) which serve as symbols or clues to myself later that there’s a particular quote I want to go back and capture. Lately the “code” for “this is a great quote!” is a box drawn in the margins with quotes around it. 

Something like this: “[]”

The box looks like a task - so I can check it off later to tell myself that I’ve entered it in. The quotes mean it’s a good quote!

Rather than put the book down and go to Evernote every time I come across a good quote, I leave these marks and go back through when I’ve finished the book. It takes a little time, but the entry process helps me remember the highlights of the book and forces me to be choosy about what gets saved for later!

The easiest and best way to do this is just by creating a new text note either in the desktop Evernote client or your mobile app. I have experimented with taking a photo snapshot of the quote or page and emailing it in to Evernote (something you can do from the mobile app). Truthfully, the images end up being searchable, meaning you can actually find any word in that photo later once it’s in Evernote. But it’s hard work getting a good photo to come through on the page, and I often end up wishing I’d just written it down.

4) On an eReader like Kindle
One of my new favorite tricks is getting quotes in while reading on Kindle - which has multiple formats besides the Kindle device itself. While your’e reading Kindle you can highlight and make notes, all of which get saved on your Kindle site at Amazon. From there it’s as easy as going in and doing the copy and paste trick I mentioned earlier.

However, since Amazon lets you “share” your quotes via Twitter you can actually integrate it with Evernote as well. I tend to be a private person, so not all of my saved quotes are for public consumption (yet) so use a direct message to @myen to get it into my Evernote account.

That might sound complex but it’s actually pretty simple. 
1) Set up your Evernote account to integrate with Twitter
2) Set up your Kindle to integrate with Twitter
3) then as you’re reading in Kindle, hit ALT+Return to “share” and type in the following:

d @myen

From there whatever quote you highlighted will head straight for your Evernote account.

Well, not exactly. It ends up as a link that looks something like this:

With that in your Evernote account, click the link then do the good-old “Paste to Evernote” clip I outlined above. That’s a long process from the sound of it, but I’m thinking it’s a huge time saver compared to manually going back through a book to type in good notes, know what I mean?

5) Everywhere else . . .
Lastly, if I’m in a productive meeting, hear a great sermon, or one of my very clever friends starts waxing eloquent, I often grab quotes straight into my Moleskine journal or a small Field Notes pocket journal I carry with me at all times. The same handwritten code applies here as it does to books: the square “to-do” box with the quotes around it.

The critical part of this system is getting them from your journal or notebook into Evernote. So I’ve built it into my GTD “Weekly Review” process . . . to go back through my journal and scrub for any quotes I need to enter into Evernote for later. Once you get into the habit of doing this every week, it doesn’t feel right skipping it - and you get the pleasure of crossing off those quote-boxes like finished to-do items once they’re in there!

I supposed if I had good enough hand-writing I could scan in my notes every week and let Evernote do the searching, but that’s not likely going to happen. Also, I suppose you could use the iPhone app in Evernote to take an audio note and record the sound clip while someone is talking - but that doesn’t end up converted into searchable text, so probably not very practical.

Okay, you’ve got all that great stuff into Evernote now; what are you going to do with it? I’ll tackle part two of the quote-magic on another day: Processing Quotes in Your Inbox.

Best of 2010: Music Discoveries

I'm going to close out 2010 with two more "Best Of" posts, if I can manage.  Part two is a longer one on my favorite productivity workflows on the Mac, but for now, how about one that's a bit more lighthearted and fun?

One of our favorite things to do in the Prince household is rock out to some good tunes.  And every now and then we shove the furniture aside, tidy up the toys and have a good old-fashioned dance party. (For my more conservative readers, what else would you do with energetic kids in the cold of winter?!?!)  Some of the kids' latest moves include stage-diving off the coffee table and incorporating various living-room accessories as dance props. Very cool.

Some of this music is perfect for the family dance nights - others of it is for solitary listening either while on the bus, walking the dog, or relaxing at my desk in between conference calls and project work.  2010 was another year of great music discoveries, so I thought I'd share a few of my faves here!

In random order . . . I'll share music by bands/albums and in some instances reference specific songs.  Links are to iTunes web previews.

1) Owl City

This was probably a late 2009 discovery, but it became the family theme music for much of 2010.  The whole family officially adopted "Fireflies" as the soundtrack for our big road trip across the US South back in April.  The music is catchy, the lyrics clean and creative, and it basically just makes you want to bust a move, even if you've been strapped into a car seat for six hours.  "Ocean Eyes" might be my favorite album of the year in fact.  Interesting side note: the music is basically written and performed by a guy named Adam Young whose work reminds us an awful lot of what our dear friend Todd Kennemer would have produced from his bedroom keyboard.

2) Matt Tinsley

Okay, it's easy to recommend this guy - he's the worship leader at our church!  So aside from being a great guy and a blogger for TUAW he's a terrific songwriter and recording artist in his own right.  His soulful croonings were the soundtrack for a turning point in our year this year: that beautiful moment back in March when the sun came back out, our UKvisa issues were all sorted out, and I finally replaced my stolen bicycle.  (Sorry, a bit off topic there I guess, but you know how music comes to represent a clustered set of memories for a specific era of life?)  Anyway, Matt's music is great and since he was definitely a great 2010 find for our church, I thought I'd nudge a few of you to discover his music as well.

3) Jake Armerding

Here's a fellow Wheaton grad who was a freshman the year we were seniors - but even then his music was stunningly good.  (He opened for David Wilcox when Wilcox came to campus in 1997 - and has since landed on at least one if not two of DW's recordings.)  Jake's got talent for writing country music I can actually tolerate, maybe because it tilts more towards folk than country anyway.  He's creative, witty, and a musical genius.  I fell in love with his 2009 album "Her" and pretty much listened to it on auto-repeat during a solo drive all the way back from North Carolina to Nashville on my way to T4G in April.  That's right - picture me listening to folk/country on a lovely spring-time drive through the Smokey Mountains. Bliss!

4) Mumford and Sons

While I'm talking about folk I'll go ahead and mention these guys: I realize I was kinda late to the party on this one, but they still ended up being one of my favorite music discoveries of 2010.  They're a London-based neo-bluegrass/folk band with some of the most achingly poetic lyrics I've heard this century.  (How's that for a statement!) If anybody can make banjo and mandolin playing sound amazingly hip, it's M&S. They know how to craft a song like nobody's business, and their 2010 album "Sigh No More" is EP storytelling at its best.  Some of their lyrics are not safe for family dance parties, mind you.  And if you want to know how to knock my socks off for my 2011 birthday just find a way to help me see these guys live.  I'm sure they're amazing.

5) Phoenix

It's amazing the music you discover just by following a few culturally savvy friends on Twitter.  I have @lumpyjuice to thank for this one.  Phoenix is the kind of band I never would have come across on my own, but they're just so much fun.  They're a French indie-rock group with immensely singable tunes that are perfect for cycling on a sunny day.  (Hope my mom doesn't read that one - she hates hearing about me riding my bike with earbuds on!)  If you want to get started with them, definitely go for their 2009 release "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix".  It's a simple recipe: bass, drums, keyboard/guitar, odd lyrics = dance party or bicycle accident, take your pick.

BONUS PICKS:

EMBARRASSING BONUS PICK:

  • While we would never publicly admit to watching Glee, cough-cough, does anyone else agree that sometimes the Glee Cast musical covers are actually better than the originals? Seriously!

Alright that's it for me - what were your best musical discoveries of 2010?

 

Best of 2010: Ministry Happenings

As long as I'm listing some of my faves from 2010 I should get serious and include some of our more significant ministry events as well, right?  For those who don't know, we're members of InnerCHANGE, an urban order among the poor. I currently direct and coordinate much of our internal member development and training, plus help coach some of the new teams IC is seeing launched around the world. All in all it's been a fun year with some great moments along the way!  Let me pull back the curtain and share a few with you.

In chronological order . . .

1) Launching the Sub-merge Course (January)

Late last year our team decided we wanted to take another step in developing many of the relationships we’ve cultivated locally in London through our church networks by leveraging one of our internal training resources: Sub-merge.  John wrote the book back in 2006 and I developed a study-guide for our summer interns in 2007.  So we revamped the study guide and launched a 13 week course for some of the people we knew who wanted to go further in intentional incarnational living in our community.  The launch day was a blast and the course went really well - with several people asking us for more at the end of it.  All in all, a success!

2) Leaders Community London (March)

Every year InnerCHANGE leaders from around the world gather to share learning, swap stories and just generally appreciate and affirm the challenges of leadership in our complex urban settings.  It’s always a great time - and this year London has the privilege of hosting the crew (almost 30 of them!) on our soil for almost a week.  We packed out the living quarters and kitchens of a nearby church with some hospitality space, and we romped all over Stepney, Shadwell and Spitalfields exploring how context influences our mission and ministry.  It’s always fun coordinating these things; but having everybody come see our neighborhood this time made it extra special.  (Pictures by Paul Nix!)

3) Together For the Gospel 2010 (April)

In April I accepted the invite of a pastor friend of mine who wanted to go to T4G: a gathering of several thousand Reformed (leaning) pastors in Louisville, Kentucky.  I managed to rope a couple other IC guys into it with the hopes of quietly infiltrating the ranks of our pastor friends and seasoning discussions with a missional voice from the margins.  I’m not so sure that ended up happening all that much, but the surprise of it was how much we enjoyed ourselves.  It was pretty much a banquet of meaty-sermon after meaty-sermon all day for nearly three days - that and they must have given out about thirty free books to every participant.  I should have taken an extra suitcase!  Though it had been a long time since I was in a large room full of white, middle-aged men (a bit scary after you’ve lived out of the US for a while), overall it was great conference and I came away with a lot to chew on.  If you’re interested, check out the website.  You can watch or listen to all the talks here.

4) CRM Staff Conference - Malaysia (July)

CRM gathers all of its staff together every four years for a world-wide conference of like-minded practitioners.  This year's conference was in Malaysia on a small island that just happened to be both affordable and stunningly beautiful.  We took our whole family and had an absolutely incredible time. The kids loved swimming in the pool, seeing their IC friends, and being in their kids programs.  And us adults had a really refreshing and spiritually renewing time sitting under some incredibly powerful teaching and prayer ministries.  In short, God really moved among us and many, including ourselves, were powerfully ministered to. I could say tons more, but our family pictures tell the rest of the story.  (Recap video courtesy of CRM's awesome Creative Services team)

5) Living Mission Launch - (September)

That’s right - I spent a chunk of 2009 and early 2010 completing a chapter for a collaborative publication put out by the New Friars and Scott Bessenecker.  Take a look at it if you haven’t already . . . I’m really pleased with how it turned out!  Several of us from InnerCHANGE came together with other like-minded organizations to identify the key distinguishing marks of a new global movement of incarnational work among the poor. This book is the result.  The collaborative writing process was really fun, and actually the whole thing reminded me just how much I enjoy writing, particularly for an audience!  I'd love to hear your feedback if you can get your hands on a copy and get the chance to read it.

6) Boston Exploration - (October/November)

I had the privilege of helping “midwife” the birth of a new IC team this year - pioneered by some friends who have had a several year relationship with InnerCHANGE and actually connect back to some of Pam’s early Boston days.  This young couple been doing some amazing work among Boston’s homeless youth scene for a number of years now, and have officially come on with InnerCHANGE in this past year to develop ministry in the Cambridge are of Harvard Square. Trust me, it’s a huge gain for IC!  More than that, it’s pretty sweet to see some of Pam’s hopes and dreams for her (almost) hometown continuing to bear fruit.  I was reminded again of how much I enjoy the “apostle” role of visiting and shepherding leaders on the field who are laboring hard for the Kingdom.

I guess that about sums it up.  Yeah, that’s not much personal/family stuff (or much of our local events in London, which I don't tend to write as much about in public forums on the interwebs) - so those thoughts are for another day and time.  Hopefully you get a sense of what kinds of things we’ve been up to and how much we enjoy getting to do it!

While I'm at it, you can always hear more from us by joining our mailing list, and you can give online in support of CRM's work in London by clicking here.  Thanks!

 

 

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