Your Brain at your Fingertips: Using Evernote with Alfred Workflows

Last week, we celebrated Alfred's 4th birthday by giving away licenses and subscriptions for some of our favourite Macs apps. We'll be featuring these apps over the coming weeks, as well as sharing the best Alfred workflows to make the most of each one. Today, we're taking a look at Evernote.

I've always had a brain like a sieve, so I usually write everything down with the assumption that I'll otherwise forget it. The issue with this system (or lack thereof) is that all of these paper notes, clippings and text files get jumbled up or lost.

The basic idea of Evernote is simple really; Remember everything by putting it into Evernote then forgetting about it. File these ideas into notebooks, tag them, and even find them based on the location you were in when you made the note. Access your account on your Mac, on your phone or on the web. The nifty thing about Evernote is that the more you use it, the more useful it becomes.

Whether it's a photo of the "10 year warranty" receipt for a frying pan I'll otherwise lose next week, or a link to a vintage pattern I want to knit, every scribble goes into Evernote for future reference. That Tetris-themed crochet blanket may never happen, but I'll know where to find my design ideas if it ever does!

Using Evernote with Alfred Workflows

To keep Evernote at your fingertips, Carlos A. Sztoltz has created a fantastic workflow we've been using daily alongside Evernote.

Once you've downloaded and installed the workflow, you can search your Evernote content with the keyword "ens", which searches all notes fields.

Need to add a note note? You can do this without leaving Alfred, with the keyword "enn". The syntax even allows you to include details of which notebook you want the note to be filed in, or what tag to attach to it.

Find all items by tags with "ens #".

There are many more useful keywords, which you can discover by looking at the handy workflow help notes by typing "en?"

I've barely scratched the surface of what Evernote and this particular workflow can do, so I'd love to hear how you use them.

You'll need the Powerpack to use workflows; You can purchase a license to get started with workflows like this one, and many more great features.