Evernote vs.Trello – How Productivity Tools Increase Your Bottom line from small business to startup.
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In today’s competitive world, managers and small businesses are looking for people who are productive and efficient in their work. No matter what job you do or where you work, it is very important to schedule and prioritize the work in order to be successful.
In this article we will discuss two different yet connected tools namely Evernote and Trello that help improve productivity at various levels in an organization.
We’ll discuss what they are:
Pros & Cons
Top Hacks
What all this can mean for you as a small business owner, specifically in relation to your ideal customer.
[bctt tweet=”Real time collaboration is important for team members working in different time zones.” username=”cascadeavenue”]
Productivity
Productivity depends on four specific elements:
Strategy, people, process and tools. With workforce, strategies and processes defined, the most important factor that determines productivity are the tools team members leverage to their highest uses.
Far too many small business owners overlook the tools considering them insignificant factors in terms of productivity, and as a result, they remain “small”.
Let’s look at the tools of today’s topic and the following advantages they add to the workplace. Advantages such as:
Ease of Use:
Studies show that when productivity is high the average worker deepens their level of commitment and takes on a sense of pseudo/emotional-ownership and buy-in for, not only the tasks they’re directly responsible for,
they also develop a healthy concern for the process in the chain of command that both precedes and follows their direct input.
The right tools in the hands of adept workers skyrockets productivity, lessens error margins, and generates production-increasing momentum.
No organization can afford several hours of training for people to get familiar with the usage of tools at the workplace that are overly complicated.
Your tools should have universal appeal, and should be easily adaptable for the organization.
Saves Time: The tools should get people organized, plan effectively and save time.
Real Time Collaboration: Real time collaboration is important for organizations whose team members are working in different time zones. Any updates regarding a project should be in real time and visible to all the members of the project.
What is Evernote?
Evernote vs. Trello – How Productivity Tools Increase Your Bottom line
Evernote is a cross-platform freemium app that allows users to capture, store and synchronize content across multiple devices. Evernote has largest user base as compared to similar products in its domain.
The most important feature of Evernote is that it nicely integrates with just about every software platform.
Registration for Evernote is a single step process where you can use your Gmail account or email id to register on the website. A “note” can be created in many different ways such as formatted text, web pages, photos, handwritten, voice memos and pdf files.
It can easily decipher text inside images and hence it is the best tool available for brainstorming sessions.
Evernote is the best tool available for brainstorming sessions. Click To Tweet
Evernote has what are called “notebooks”. Notebooks serve to group common notes together, collect all forms data regarding a particular project in one place, and is virtually seamless in synchronizing data across various devices.
One can even share notes with friends and colleagues on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn easily with Evernote because of its efficiencies for most online activities.
It is available in four versions namely Basic (free), Plus, Premium and Business depending on the end usage. Students, researchers and small advertising firms mostly use the Basic, Plus and Premium versions of Evernote; whereas the Business version is less popular because there is no option to update them in real-time, increasing chances of data redundancy.
Pros:
- Save any information from a webpage as a note, thus saving users from having to bookmark a webpage.
- Easy to sync across various devices.
- Save business cards online.
- Save handwritten notes online.
- Flexibility in content type used to make notes.
- Cloud based solution
- Immediate use, no training necessary.
- Automatic built in full page OCR.
- Restricted access by setting password on mobile app.
“The most invaluable aspect of Evernote for me: is keeping all my tax information in one notebook,I can easily share with my accountant online. We use the chat feature to answer and respond to questions, so it’s all in one place, and their two-step verification option keeps it all secure.”
Cons:
- Premium membership is expensive.
- No audit trail.
- Indexing is not possible with Evernote, only tag option is available.
- Size restrictions prevent upload of large files.
- Free version allows synchronization of only two devices.
- Monthly upload capacity very limited for Basic user accounts.
- No shortcuts for simple commands in desktop version of the software.
Top Hacks for Evernote:
- Always create synchronized notebooks: This will help you continue notes from where you left previously irrespective of the device.
- Use Evernote Web Clipper for referencing articles or web links: This is useful when you are doing a project, which involves lot of citations and references to other webpages.
- Use note links to jump between articles: This helps when you are brainstorming and need to go back and forth quickly between different notes in a notebook.
Step #1 Right click on any note and then select “Copy note link” option to grab the note link.
Step #2 Paste the link obtained on same note or different note to jump from one note to another. - Drag any note and put it on toolbar for easy access: This helps access notes quickly instead of searching it in the entire notebook.
- Save handwritten notes as Ink notes: This helps you noting down an idea as soon as it comes to your mind in your own handwriting.
[bctt tweet=”Top Hacks for Evernote:Always create synchronized notebooks.” username=”cascadeavenue”]
What is Trello?
Trello is a web-based freemium PM (project management) collaboration tool that is infinitely flexible, incredibly easy to use, and it supports all major software platforms.
It lets you organize your boards and share status report with other members at a glance.
A board is similar to a project and each board has lists, lists contain cards, and cards are draggable and are similar to individual tasks.
Cards: For an individual card multiple users can be assigned, attachments can be uploaded, checklists can be created, due dates and labels can be added.
There are no restrictions on the board size.
Real time discussion coupled with reasonable pricing makes it one of the most attractive project management systems available on the market.
[bctt tweet=”Trello is the most attractive project management systems available on the market.” username=”cascadeavenue”]
“Trello because of its collaborative nature can be widely used in the field of teaching, software development and project management and can be utilized by professional organizations like real estate firms”.
Pros:
- Easy set up, you can create your account, add your boards and invite members within minutes
- Good for project management / collaboration.
- Visibility to board members with respect to the project status.
- Real time collaboration is possible.
- Assigning cards to team members is extremely easy it requires only typing their name.
- Board size is not restricted.
- Checklists with progress meter.
- Drag and drop functionality makes it easy to use.
- Cloud based storage.
- You just need email address to invite non-members to the boards.
“I use Trello on a daily basis. It helps me stay focused and intentional with my client projects as well as my own. Because of its intuitive design, it’s easy to use, keeps me organized, and helps me keep track of client deliverables.”
Cons:
- Free version has limited features; time tracking and calendar are not available.
- The number of labels for tasks are limited to 12 per board.
- We have to copy information manually from one card to another.
- Large file attachments require a paid subscription.
- No option to delete a board
Top Hacks for Trello:
- Create a card by dragging a URL: This option helps to create a card instantly in a board by dragging URL. The card includes relevant data and images from the URL. We can save time and improve efficiency using this trick over conventional method. In conventional method, we need to copy individual items separately.
- Rearrange your cards with your keyboard: This is the best method to organize your cards. You can add “^” and number to move it to a different position to a list. If you need to move a card to a different list then you can add “^” and list name to move it to a different list.
- Attach files from Google Drive or Dropbox: This option works best if you want to attach a file from Google Drive or Dropbox by selecting “attach file” option from sidebar.
- Tag team members on cards: This option works the same way as Twitter or Instagram. You can tag a team member using “@” and username. The team member is notified and has to respond to the card he has been tagged.
- Customizing Trello card labels: This option helps to prioritize the cards.
There can be specific colour for cards depending on the progress like “on hold”, “in progress” and “urgent”. There are three ways to add labels:
Step #1 Edit menu of a note, by typing “l” to see list of available labels or by card’s back “Labels” button.
There are 10 label colours to choose from in Trello and a colourless label option. One can add name to the label colour if desired.Step #2 A single card can have multiple labels. Coloured labels display on front and back of the card. For example, “urgent” can be labelled as Red, “on hold” to be labelled as Yellow and “in progress” to be labelled as Green.
This will help you decide the importance of card without reading the card and thus saves time with Trello.
CONCLUSION:
Evernote vs. Trello – How Productivity Tools Increase Your Bottom-line
All-in-all, your organizational needs will drive the requirements of the software and tools you choose.
Your tools will help you build your teams and strengthen your collaborations as they help in the prioritization and assigning of tasks to individuals and groups to improve efficiency and maximize productivity, while lowering costs, without cutting corners.
It’s rare that you can place any tool in the “right” or “wrong”, “good” or “bad” category. The bigger question is “Based on what you want/need to accomplish, which tool is “right” for you?
You’ve read the pros and cons of Evernote and Trello, had time to assess your small business needs; hopefully, took a moment to boil all of the noise away to look at your individual business model and goal sets, and did your own compare & contrast processes to determine how, when and why you’d use one or both of these tools: Evernote or Trello.
At Cascade Avenue, we love them both for different reasons.
Now here’s where you want to take all that you’ve learned and discover how to make the most of this information…
We have a saying at Cascade Avenue, “If all you have is information without a viable plan to put it to work for you… you’ve probably wasted an incredible amount of time and money.”
You need to know How to use these tools in ways where they put money back into your bank accounts.
We have a training that walks you through the process of your planning for Pinterest marketing. It’s our “Pinterest Visual Marketing Consultation”.
Once you’ve implemented your data mining, structured your content using one or both of these two tools, you’ll want to use it like your roadmap to driving your most relevant buyer-traffic to your offers.
Pinterest is your ideal vehicle to use, as it has, per capita, the highest level of sales conversions across the marketplace.
Touting over $11 Billion in sales in one day back in 2015, Pinterest marketing can set you up to dominate the sales in your industry, and we’d love to take you through our free training.
Just add your name and email address to get the free Pinworthy checklist now.
Guest Blogger
About Neha Rai:
I am a teacher and blogger based in Mumbai. I love to connect to people, share and listen to ideas. I believe blogging is the best way to share knowledge and information with others. I believe one must continue to learn throughout life. Nobody is born perfect but one can do the best and leave the rest to God.
Blogging has been a life changing experience for me. No one in the family cares about educating a girl child. Through blogging, I wish to support and educate as many girls as possible. Please feel free to visit my personal blog.
