How I Use Notability and Evernote Together

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll show you how I use both Evernote and Notability together for notetaking and record keeping.

I use my two traditional note-taking products: Evernote and Notability.  I consider Evernote my main note repository since it is fully

Cross-platform

That means that Evernote has an app (in my case) for the iPhone, iPad, software for the PC, and a web-based format as well.  So, I can get to my notes from any of these devices, from someone else's phone, or from anywhere I happen to be.  My notes are stored in the cloud and are replicated across all of these platforms.  This is important to me.  I have over 3,000 notes and I refer to them regularly.  When I am deciding which app to use for a note, Evernote is my default choice if the content of the note will be text-based.  Any note where typing is the mode of input goes immediately into Evernote.  I only choose Notability if the contents of the note will include

Drawings or handwriting

This also sometimes includes notes that include multiple photos, since Evernote doesn't give you a lot of control over how photos appear in a note.  So, notes with drawings might include diagrams, mind maps, story boarding, or forms to fill in.  Sometimes, I'll be typing a note into Evernote and will have an idea for a diagram that will make things easier to understand.  I'll switch over to Notability, create the diagram, screen shot it, crop it and insert it as a photo into my Evernote note.  Evernote has a rudimentary drawing capability called Sketch, but it's a little sketchy (ha!) and not nearly as robust as Notability's.  Plus it is not well integrated into the rest of the app.  By far my most frequent use of Notability is for handwritten notes.  I have attempted to type notes during meetings, but I'm not able to capture everything as quickly while typing AND I seem to remember things better when I've handwritten the note.  I don't have the best handwriting, but Notability has a way to convert your handwriting to text if needed.  For important meeting notes that I want to keep, I select the handwriting, choose Convert to Text, Copy it to the clipboard, and then paste it into an Evernote note.  

I already mentioned my main reason for using Evernote as my primary notetaking app -- the fact that it is fully cross-platform.  The other main reason is I really prefer Evernote's

Organizational Structure

Every notetaking app has a different way to organize your notes.  I'll take you through Evernote's and Notability's methods.  

• Evernote - The primary organizational unit for Evernote is notebooks.  They contain broad topics.  The secondary organization unit are tags.  Although notebooks are physical locations for notes -- a note can only be in one notebook -- tags are logical organizational tools.  In other words, notes can have multiple tags, which are searchable.  For example, I have a notebook that houses all of my recipes.  I can tag a recipe with a Meat tag.  And also tag it with a Pressure Cooker tag and an Entertaining tag.  That way it will come up if I search on any of those tags.  You can also create subtags, but only in the desktop version of Evernote -- those tags nest underneath the primary tag.  They are not truly on a different level, but you can collapse them under the primary tag in the PC software. Generally speaking, I find logical organization to be much more flexible for searching and organizing notes.  
• Notability - The primary organizational unit for Notability is a Divider.  This is a physical location.  The second organizing units is also physical: Subjects.  Notes live inside of a Subject, which lives in a Divider.  You can move the note easily between Subjects, but a note can't be tagged with two Subjects.  I find this more limiting despite Notability's good search capabilities, including its ability to search the text in handwritten notes.  

Storage

So because of the reasons I just stated, Evernote is my primary repository for notes.  I tend to think of my notes in Notability as temporary with a couple of exceptions, which I'll address in the next section.  If I write handwritten notes in meetings, I either convert those notes to text and paste them into an Evernote note, screen shot them and import into Evernote, or if it's a multiple page document, I may export the note to PDF and attach it to an Evernote note.  Or I could just delete it if I don't need that record and have completed all of the actions in it.  Either way, I try to store most notes in Evernote and keep Notability as a temporary note taking tool.  As I said, there are some exceptions, so let me walk you through the kinds of notes that I have in both apps.

Notability Notes

I have 4 Dividers in Notability.  In my Grad School divider, these notes are temporary and consist of notes for class or from my field placement.  Once these classes are complete, I'll archive these by sending them to Evernote or deleting them.  I have three different Subjects in my Home Notes divider: Random, which has my daily schedule and anything else which otherwise doesn't have a home; Packing, which has my family's packing lists for a couple different types of scenarios -- these live here permanently since I duplicate the note and then check each item off by hand while packing; and finally, Forms.  Some forms live here all the time -- like those for our mail away pharmacy, others I just fill out and then delete once I've submitted them.  Under Activities, I have some notes for my part-time bookkeeping job, some notes for my financial mentor volunteer work, and some diagrams and brainstorming mind maps for writing.  Finally, under the Music Divider, I have general guitar music and chords and a Subject for Xmas carols to play on the piano.  These are permanent as well.  What notes do I keep in

Evernote Notes

Evernote has 6 Notebooks.  In Books and Reading, I keep all notes on articles, books, TED Talks, and reading lists.  In Grad School, I keep anything related to school including assignments, class notes, information about my internship, and general stuff about my school schedule.  Kid's Projects contains crafts, games, and activities to do with my kids.  I use this notebook a little less now that my kids are older teens.  Recipes contains just that -- over 1,000 recipes tagged by type of dish, occasion, and cooking method.  My YouTube notebook contains the scripts for all of my videos plus notes for new videos.  And finally, Lara's Brain contains everything else -- how to notes, lists, notes on finances, events, our cars, etc.  

So that is how I use these two notetaking apps together.  I use them both every day.  Let me know what you think!  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!