August 2008

Since switching from PC to Mac, I've flirted with several desktop note-taking and organizing programs, including Yojimbo and Journler. In the end I settled on Evernote because, in my opinion, it is by far the most feature-rich of them all.

If you're totally unfamiliar with Evernote, it might be a good idea to read their Getting Started guide or watch the Overview Video. You'll be glad you did, because the advice below will save you time and make you better organized in your ministry.

But before we get into the glorious details, here are a few tips to make Evernote work harder for you (and your ministry). First, install one of the Evernote Web Clippers. I use the official Firefox extension, and it's great.

Second, add your personal Evernote email address as a contact in your phone. After you've signed up and logged into your account, your email address is located at the bottom of the page in "Settings". This is where you can send pix and text messages which Evernote will convert to notes you can access later.¹

Third, set up a new Notebook in Evernote specifically for Youth Ministry. If you're like me (or anyone else with a pulse), you'll use Evernote for myriad things outside of your ministry as well (I even had this blog post outlined in Evernote).

Saving devotion ideas and teaching illustrations

If I come across a cool, inspirational, or spiritually edifying story on the internet, I simply use the Evernote clipper to save it for later. For example, a while back I came across a blog post called 18 of The Most Insane Journeys In Recent History, and I clipped it to my "Youth Ministry" notebook. If I'm writing a devotion or message about overcoming trials or something similar, I can refer to this post for some good material. Better yet, I tagged the note with "devo" "trial" and "journey" so I don't have to remember it at all -- I can just type one of those words in the search box or browse through my tags to find what I need. Here's a screenshot of the entry.

Saving informative ebooks and PDFs

This is similar to the above implimentation, but I wanted to point out one of my favorite features: Evernote can search for text contained within pictures and PDFs. When I come across great ebooks or handouts, I clip them to Evernote for future reference. For example, I have 40 Icebreakers for Small Groups from Insight saved, and if I search "icebreaker", Evernote quickly reads my mind finds what I was looking for. Here's a screenshot of the search in action.

Keeping track of signups and payments

As a note-taking tool, Evernote is really handy for jotting things down that don't legitimate their own Word document. I used it this summer to keep track of my junior high VBS sign-ups and payments. You can add "checkmark bullets" anywhere within a note, so whenever I received a payment, I simply checked off that student's box. Simple as that. Here's a screenshot of the checkmark box in use.

Collect those pesky receipts

I hate doing receipts -- it's one of my least favorite components of my job. I'm always losing them or forgetting them and getting ticked when the first of the month rolls around. When I'm at brick-and-mortar stores, I just put the receipts in my wallet, but when I buy things for my ministry online, it's not that easy. Usually, a receipt is emailed to me, and I just save it to Evernote. If it's a PDF, I drag and drop it into a new note, and if it's text, I just highlight all and copy/paste.² Here's an example of a note containing a receipt from my local Apple Store.

Prayer

Prayer isn't one of my spiritual fortés, but I've managed to leverage Evernote to help me. I try to regularly ask students how I can be praying for them, and now I keep a list in Evernote with their names and what they want me to pray about. When I pray, I can focus on a specific student or go down the whole list -- you get the point.

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Those are just a few of the ways that I've managed to take advantage of Evernote in my youth ministry. I've only been using the program for a few months, but I know that the longer I use it, the more indispensable it will become (especially if when I get an iPhone). What are some other creative ways to use Evernote in youth ministry? I'd love to hear your ideas -- please leave a comment and let me know!

1. If you have an iPhone, you can just download the Evernote app and bypass this step. [↩]
2. If you do this, you probably don't want to make your "Youth Ministry" notebook a "Public" web notebook -- don't want people snooping around your receipts. [↩]

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