[Note: I'm starting a series on Saturdays called "The Toolbox." My intent is to highlight some of the software, products, and services that have become invaluable to me in my work. I think they will be helpful to you, too. I'd welcome your suggestions on what to review. You should know that these are not sponsored posts, and I'm not acting as an affiliate or receiving any funds for this series.]

Evernote was an unknown tool to me just few months ago. Now I can’t imagine doing my work without it. It has become my back-up brain, and my only hope of keeping pace with the level of content I process each day. If you’re someone who processes a lot of content, ideas, and finds yourself saying, “If I can only remember where I put that…”, then this tool is for you.

Here are 10 reasons why I love Evernote:

  1. I can take a picture of a whiteboard, tag it with the client’s name and date, and never have to go searching for it again.
  2. I can capture a voice note right after a phone call or meeting with a client with my iPhone.
  3. I can “clip” any Web page directly from Safari and never have to worry about wasting time searching the Web hoping to find it again. (This is great for gift ideas, research, etc.)
  4. I can share folders with people I’m collaborating with on client projects immediately.
  5. I used to keep running documents of client notes, meetings, and agendas. Now I keep all of that in Evernote which means I can find what I need faster and never worry about searching for it again.
  6. Everything in my Evernote account is available to me whether I’m on my laptop, phone, or other supported device.
  7. I can create to-do lists which provide a great way to track progress of client meetings or projects. (I’ll do another feature on “Things” as a project management tool later.)
  8. I can search over everything, including PDFs, through the global search feature.
  9. I can e-mail my notes to anyone. I can also e-mail (or tweet) notes directly into my Evernote account.
  10. I no longer have to worry about keeping up with mountains of post-it notes from conversations, moments of inspiration, etc. I just store it in Evernote and can forget about it until I need the information again. Freedom!!

Give Evernote a try. It’s free! And the premium version is worth every penny.