How to Juggle A Blog (or Two) With Your Busy Solo Schedule, Pt. 2: Evernote

This is the second post in a two-post series on Blog Time Management. See the first post, on Rusty Budget, here.

Create More Time By Processing Resources Quickly and In One Place

The premise behind my two-tool approach to blog time management is simple: all my stuff available, wherever I am. That’s why I chose two services/applications that reside in the cloud, at least partially. Rusty Budget is entirely internet-based.

Evernote, the second tool in my arsenal, is a special creature: it’s downloadable to any computer, any OS, but is updated across platforms with an internet-central database. So, no matter where I go, my Evernotes notebooks are always synced, always available.

Also, because I use both Macs and PCs, I need tools that are cross-platform and user friendly. Both Rusty Budget and Evernote meet this requirement.

Creating Notebooks

Evernote couldn’t be simpler. The user defines his/her own notebooks, and designates which of those notebooks should be private or shared (useful for group projects, but I only use private notebooks) and whether the notebook should be kept local (on the computer in which it was entered/edited) or synced with the Evernote database (necessary for accessing on other machines or your phone).

With the installation of the Evernote web clipper, which resides in the toolbar of most browsers right next to the address bar, it’s a two-step process to copy portions of a web page to Evernote. You simply highlight and copy the relevant text, then click the Evernote icon (amusingly, the silhouette of an elephant, because elephants never forget). A note is automatically created in your default notebook or the last notebook you accessed. You can then edit the note to include tags, jot down your own ideas, and change the title if you like. The URL of the source material is automatically copied for you and inserted into the note.

How I Use Evernote and Rusty Budget Together

I use Rusty Budget as an editorial calendar worksheet, of sorts. I have a separate budget for each blog, and different folders for various categories that are frequently used (for instance, our blogging posts at TIS) as well as for planned series of posts (like the popular “Macs Practice Law” week we sponsored last year) and interviews with solos or other folks (in which much background research is collected).

Rusty Budget also operates as an initial catch-bin, of sorts. I throw in URLs I find accidentally, while I’m browsing, that strike me as potential blog fodder for the future. I have a different “grab bag” bookmarklet for each blog in my toolbar of Firefox.

Then, when I’m ready to work on a post, I call up those URLs that are relevant to the current post in Rusty Budget. Then, I extend my research, add notes, update and verify quotes, etc. At that point, I’m ready to compose, which I usually do in Notepad++ on the laptop or Text Editor on the iMac. I copy and paste into the dashboard of the blog, add formatting, and publish.

Pricing

Evernote is free, although I think there is an Enterprise edition as well. For more information, go to the Evernote site.

Features

Evernote is feature rich, and I can’t even begin to do it justice. In addition to copy-and-paste capabilities from the web, it can recognize handwriting, doodles, scanned documents – just about anything, in fact. Not only that, but it renders all input searchable. So even if you can’t remember the tags or notebook you assigned to a particular note, you’ll still be able to find it.

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