If we have ever had the chance to meet in person, the chances are that I had two of my most endearing companions with me – my Moleskine journal and my Mont Blanc pen. Those two items have been with me for over 20+ years, seven days a week. If you wonder what the attraction is, I will have to use a phrase from my Harley riding friends and say
“If you have to ask, then you won’t understand.”
One of my most frequently used web tools – Evernote – has collaborated with my lifelong companion – Moleskine – to convert my note-taking and journal entries and provide them to me in a digital, searchable format.
Moleskine notebooks are everywhere, overpriced, and somewhat of a cliché in some circles. I don’t care. There is something about writing ideas, comments, quotes, and referencesI encounter during my daily activities into my notebook that is very comforting.
Evernote is on every computing device I own from desktop to laptop to iPad to iPhone. I have written about Evernote many times in the past to highlight the productivity and value that I gain when using Evernote to capture the ideas, comments, quotes and references that I encounter during my daily activities. I never have to worry that I will be able to come back and find the information and use it when it is needed.
Notice that I described the exact same benefits of both the Moleskine notebook and Evernote:
“…capture the ideas, comments, quotes and references that I encounter during my daily activities.”
With the release of the new Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine, both are now combined into one very helpful solution.
How does this work?
The new Evernote Smart Notebook uses Evernote’s Page Camera feature to capture the pages of your notebook with your smartphone or tablet. Evernote Page Camera is the iOS version for iPhone and iPad. Evernote Ruled Smart Notebook features the unique “Evernote ruled” page style with dotted lines designed to ensure a clean image when digitally capturing your notebook. Smart Stickers introduce Smart Tagging into your workflow. When you capture a page with Evernote, the Smart Sticker icons become searchable, digital tags that make it easy to keep your ideas organized and to keep your digital and analog work-spaces synced.
Hold on – each notebook is priced between $24.95 and $29.95 depending on size and type and at first blush that seems ridiculously high. What makes this new product a good value in my eyes is that each Evernote Smart Notebook comes with 3 months of Evernote Premium which I have been paying $5.00 per month for some time.
Evernote Premium gives you bigger upload capacity, offers greater sharing options, gives you access to note history, and more. Plus, you get PDF searching, faster image recognition, and no ads, all of which I thoroughly enjoy and recommend.
Yes, the notebook itself will set me back $29.95 for my version (Evernote Large Ruled Smart Notebook – 5 x 8.25) but I save $15.00 every three months, which strangely enough is about the time that it takes me to fill up my notebook anyway. So the total price for the notebook for me ends up being $14.95. I have been buying my notebooks through Amazon.com for $12.21 each, so for the additional $2.74 I can now have all my notes digitized and searchable for the future.
I still haven’t found a replacement for my favorite Mont Blanc pen, but not really looking for one. So when we meet, look for my Evernote Smart notebook and my pen, it will hopefully be in use capturing your ideas and thoughts.
Let me know if you are a fan of Moleskine, Evernote, Mont Blanc or all three. I’m off to Starbucks to write some ideas down for my next post.
