This post by Jimmy Chickey was originally published on ActiveRain. Follow him on Twitter: @jimmychickey.
Tech tip No. 6: Evernote
Technology can be a great help in your real estate career. However, just because it is the new “flashy” thing doesn’t mean that it will actually make you more productive. I can say from experience that many tools end up just getting in the way and actually can slow you down. With that in mind, here is the the sixth (of 10) tech tips that have proven to be a great help with my real estate business.
Evernote is a very cool program that, like Dropbox, you can put on all of your devices for access. Also, like Dropbox, it is one of those things that I have had for a couple of years and never used. It wasn’t until I saw the CEO of Evernote, Phil Libin, interviewed by Charlie Rose that realized I was missing out and needed to finally check it out. I decided that the best way to start was slow and gradual, and with one main goal: to help me keep track of my conference notes.
For your reference, Evernote is so much more than that, but I think it is good to take it in small bites. Down the road, we will talk more about the sharing capabilities, the way that it can reference meetings with other team members and the way you can even search for words inside PDFs. This is one of those programs that can “change your life.” For now, though, let’s just work on making one tiny part of your life better.
I have always been a note taker. I guess that’s what I get for having a degree in engineering. So, I would go to these real estate conferences and take notes on legal pads. The bad part of that approach was that these legal pads would just pile up in my office and I would never go back to review my notes. I also could never seem to find the notes that I was looking for. My answer to that was Evernote.
Now, when I go to conferences (we have lots of them in Las Vegas), I take my computer or iPad and take notes directly into Evernote. If there are handouts, I take pictures and add it to the same note. The best part is that while I am taking notes, I also audio record the event directly into Evernote. As I am writing notes, I add in the counter from the audio recorder in Evernote. This allows me to reference the audio so that down the road I can find exactly what I am looking for without having to listen to the whole lecture.
Now I always have my conference notes with me. I am always able to review (both audio and notes), and I have an office that is cleaner than it was before.
Last, but not least, Evernote is free for the basic version. If you’re doing a lot of audio recording, however, you will run out of space and may want to consider upgrading to a paid premium account. That will give you more space, the ability to mark up screen shots and index PDFs for searching. More of all of that will be in a future blog post.
