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But, like so many great tools without a system and logical way to bring them into your everyday reality, they can become just another distraction. So, I want to give you a little of the logic of how I use Evernote.

my thinking on productivity is influenced by David Allen’s Getting Things Done. One of the core premises of the book and teaching is that by getting everything into a system that you know won’t fail, you can relieve a great deal of the stress that comes from trying to make sure you don’t forget something important.

The function that makes Evernote so easy to adopt for this purpose is the ability to add and capture information in numerous ways.

Here’s my system for using Evernote

I create separate folders for things like blog post ideas, research for my books, and each project I identify

and then happily clip, take notes and email ideas to Evernote as I visit my RSS reader, read my email, meet with clients and surf throughout the day

I use Evernote as a tickler file by creating folders for each month of the year and adding reminders of future actions into each. So, now when I need to file some report quarterly I find a reminder when I review that month and add it to the to do list.

Because I can get info into Evernote in so many ways and some many forms I also create and maintain lists of things I want to track of find later,

I have folders for random thoughts and when I hear, see or read anything that I want to capture I use my iPhone to capture it or a service called Jott to quickly record a voice message that’s transcribed and added to Evernote.

Evernote has become the central nerve center of my work and its usefulness has spilled over into every facet of day to day life.

I check in every morning to create a list of action steps and to dos and then routinely add content throughout the day. The secret (once more for emphasis) is that its so integrated into every tool I use so it is easy to create a routine to use it.