Addicted to checklists? Use Evernote? Yeah, me too. I know a ton of Evernote users, and I’m always astounded to discover how few people realize that Evernote has its own checklist feature built right in. Once you know it’s there, and start putting it to use, it can be a powerful tool for daily productivity.
When you create or edit a note in Evernote’s Android app, Web app, or desktop apps, look for a little checkbox icon in the menu bar. Clicking it will put a checkbox wherever your cursor happens to be within a given note. You can use this feature to make packing checklists for trips, simple to-do lists, trackable talking points for a presentation, and just about anything else you’d like to set up and then check off.
Evernote’s checkbox feature is pretty limited. All it does, after all, is create a checkbox next to some text. It doesn’t make a full-fledged task manager out of your notes. But for little lists that you’d rather not allow to clutter up your actual task list app, it’s great.
As of this writing, the checkboxes feature doesn’t yet work on Evernote for iPad or iPhone, but a great app called Egretlist fills that need on those devices. I’d hope to see Evernote add the checkboxes feature to its iOS apps soon, but it’s been a long time coming and hasn’t appeared yet, so I’m not sure if it’s reasonable to expect it anytime soon. (Right now, editing a note with checkboxes in it on an iOS device actually breaks the checkboxes, so it’s best not to try editing such a note in the Evernote universal iOS app.) But on Android, in the desktop apps, and the Web version of Evernote, the feature works great.
