I didn't get Evernote for the longest time but then it made way more sense to me when I bought a tiny double sided scanner and started scanning and shredding all my paper, bills, documents. Then I started forwarding all emails with attachments to my Evernote account. Then I started sharing my folders with my wife and using the mobile app. Now it's the central hub for all my information. Since it's all OCR'd I find anything instantly. Of course I had to upgrade to the paid version but at 1GB of NEW storage per month it's a pretty good deal.

The one feature I miss from MS OneNote is the ability to have audio synced to the text of a note which is fricken awesome for taking meeting minutes.

What kind of scanner are you using? This sounds like a great idea.

I'm doing something similar and I'm using the Fujitsu Scansnap S1300 which comes integrated with Evernote support.

Wow I wonder how many are this organized/anal about tracking stuff. My bills sit in a pile on the table until the first of the month, I pay them, and throw them in a box, never to be seen again.

What value is there in scanning your electric bill and archiving it digitally? When have you EVER needed to refer to something like that after it's been paid. For me, never.

I found it surprisingly satisfying to get rid of paper completely. As a self-employed person, I need to keep most receipts including house expenses (for my home office). It's a lot easier to just scan everything as it comes in as opposed to thinking about whether it's worth saving, putting it in a box or file folder, then sometime later think about whether or not it's time to dispose of it. And you never know, maybe some day my grandchildren will be amazed to learn how cheap it was for grandpa to heat his house back in the early 21st century.

When I'm doing my taxes.

Does it allow me to keep a budget and track expenses/info/receipts against that budget?

Unfortunately no. I use Mint for tracking income and expenses (at least the ones I pay with cards or online) but it doesn't integrate the receipts.

I found it takes some investment before it really becomes useful. I didn't get it at the start but now being able to search through notes and clippings I made years ago is really helpful. They have also made great improvements in notebook organisation which I love. I find it a bit unsettling that I'm storing so much data with one company (not that I don't trust them but that at some point they might go away) but they seem to me like a great company who would make it easy to get all your data out if they were ever shutting down.

On the mac, all of your data is in "~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/accounts".

You'll find xhtml files and images in there, one directory per note. (Additionally there is a clucene index, some ocr info, and "enml" versions of notes.)

Back it up, and you'll have a safety net for your notes.

Didn't know that, thanks!

I feel the same way. Evernote is extraordinary in terms of document acquisition, but you're alone once you have to work with it. There is no sane way to keep things organized, other than folders. Saved searches are a joke too. Document editing is really poor. For example, you can't highlight any document, scanned or not (that's on OSX). So I think they got the funnel part right and now they need to work on the processing and editing part. Hopefully the purchase of Penultimate goes in this direction.

I completely agree with you. I'd add that I wish there was an option to store my data in my legal juridiction and not in the U.S. (or better yet privately).

Yep. This would make evernote the perfect tool. I would love to pay for the privilege of running my own evernote server, keeping my data private.

As far as a personal notebook that follows me everywhere, Evernote can't be beat. I have a folder for every sort of data imaginable, from camping checklists to common IOS commands and recipes I usually forget between times I need them.

Taken as an indexed, searchable, omnipresent notebook, it really has become my second brain.

I agree with your point about the drifting; the mostly flat structure of it means it can be easy to lose things if they aren't strictly organized. It seems like they've done very well with the capturing & sharing aspects but all the structural work is left to the user.