Episodes

  • Connecting Outlook Calendar to Evernote

    Connecting Outlook Calendar to Evernote
    Mar 22 2024
    Housekeeping: Version 10.81.4 is out for PCs & Macs. Grab it from the download page or wait a few days for the in-app updates. A few bugs have been fixed, everyone should have the new Ai Edit feature & there’s a new toggle to hide the slash commands text hint. More at the bottom of this article.This ended up being a lot more straightforward than I thought it would be.It was really simple and quick to add an Outlook calendar to my Evernote account.The video above demo’s the latest calendar features but for those who prefer to read, here’s the low-down.Connecting your Outlook calendarIf you use Outlook/Hotmail/365 then you should be able to connect your calendar.If you have any issues adding an Office 365 business calendar, then you may need to get in touch with IT as there may be policies in place to prevent sharing.The button to connect Outlook is all over the place. The best place to find it is in the settings under Calendar. Click “Connect Calendar”. You’ll see this screen.Click on the “Sign in with Microsoft 365” and you’ll be asked for your Outlook/365 username and password. Enter these, accept the connection between Evernote and Outlook and you’ll be good to go.Then head back into your Evernote app and after a few seconds the connection will be made and you’ll be able to see events.Dead easy!Calendar OptionsOnce connected you’ll have access to all the calendars in your Outlook account and you can have some or all connected to Evernote.The easiest way to manage these is to click the new calendar icon in the left sidebar (version 10.80.3 onwards) and you can see the calendar full screen.Select which calendars you want to view.These calendars will mirror the ones in your Outlook account.The settings section also has reminder options, the option to pre-format notes that you create for an event and a way to disconnect your calendar.The reminders have saved me many times. Having a pop up on my desktop and phone is huge!The pre-format notes option is quite interesting as it adds predefined content to your note when you add a note to an event.What I would love to see is some way to customise this as it’s not very useful for me which is why I leave this option un-checked and I just get a black note that I can add my own template to.Adding notes to eventsThis is the main reason for connecting your calendar, adding notes to events.When Evernote added Google calendar a few years ago I didn’t think I’d use the feature much, how wrong I was! The calendar and my tasks are the first thing I look at each morning.Adding notes to events can be done in many places.From the calendar screen just click the add note icon or click the event name and link a note.You can add more than one note to an event and you can also add events to notes by using the insert menu, clicking the little calendar icon in the note editor menu or by using a slash command.So, how my workflow goes is I look at my calendar, see a meeting, click on the event which usually brings up the Zoom/Teams/Meet link. I click that to enter the meeting and then click Add Note to start talking my notes. I usually move meeting notes into my client or project folders.After the meeting I can write things up and move the note to the correct notebook.What I’d like to see in the futureSo many things!* Two way sync between Google and Outlook so we can add and edit events.* I’d love to see a week view so my whole week is in front of me.* How about a month view. Would that be useful?* An option to select a template for the pre-defined note content.* Maybe an ‘Evernote only ‘calendar. What are your thoughts on that?How would you like to see the calendar area develop? Leave a comment below.Version 10.81.4 is out in the wildIf you wait for the in-app updates you’ll get it in a few days. If you want the update right away head over to the Evernote download page.There’s a couple of new things. Ai Edit is now available to everyone so you can summarise, translate, fix speeling and create social media posts from your notes. I put together a video demo of the new feature a few weeks ago so head over for a quick look at what it can do.If the “Press "/" to insert an element” as been irritating you when using the slash commands, there’s a toggle in the 3 dots menu of the note editor to switch it off.This is a global setting so when activated it works on all notes.That’s it!Have a great weekendAll the bestJonThanks for reading Taming The Trunk! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    9 mins
  • First Look at Evernote's new AI Edit. A Deep Dive.

    First Look at Evernote's new AI Edit. A Deep Dive.
    Mar 1 2024
    Hey there, it's new feature week!Evernote is testing out an exciting new tool called Ai Edit, which is set to replace the Ai Cleanup feature. This tool seems to be a game-changer, offering a range of functionalities designed to enhance your note-taking experience.From summarising notes in various styles to fixing typos and even translating content into different languages, Ai Edit is packed with useful features. So, if you're curious about how it all works, there's a video at the top of this page that gives a great overview. Plus, subscribe as I plan to create more videos in the future.Let's dive into the details of this innovative tool and explore its incredible capabilities.OK, I need to admit something, all the introduction above was written by the new Ai Edit tool and not changed apart from some British English spelling. Not bad eh!Everything below is me... honest!At the bottom of this post there’s a quick yes/no/meh poll about video content… If you have 2 seconds please respond, it helps.What is Evernote Ai Edit?Last May Evernote launched the Ai Cleanup tool which kind of tided up untidy notes. It was OK and worked alright. Sometimes it added bold formatting and bullets in strange places but it did seemed to work really well for recipes.One thing it couldn't do was apply the cleanup to a selection of text, it was always the whole note.Evernote have been taking feedback on the Ai Cleanup tool for a while now and its evolved in Ai Edit which is MUCH more useful and does the following:* Summarise a note as a paragraph, extended paragraph(s), bullet points, micro-post or email.* Fix speeling mistakes.* Writes introductions, conclusions and titles based on your notes.* Translates your note into many languages.* Changes the tone of your note.This is still in the testing and beta phase so what you see may change slightly but to be fair, it’s working great!The privacy side of Ai EditLike all the other Evernote Ai features Ai Edit only sends data to the Ai model when you tell it to. There's no hosepipe full of your notes being worked on by the Ai and Evernote do not train any models on your note information.What happens is that when you select the text and click the Ai Edit action, only the selected text will be sent to the Ai model and then the answer returned.Lets get into the different features.SummariseTo test things out I asked ChatGPT to create some generic meeting notes for me to work on and I'm also using last weeks article about the Evernote Legacy apps being shut down.The idea of Summarise is to create different styles of summaries for your notes, reports or articles and I've been using this in real life, it works well.This is what Summarise does:ParagraphThis will create a single paragraph summary based on your notes. I've run it on my meeting note and it gave me this:ExtendedThis will give you more than one paragraph and sometimes some little headings based on your note.BulletsThis function will turn your note into some bullet points.MicroThis feature is quite interesting as it creates a social media style post from your note that includes emoji's and hashtags. I've tested Micro using last weeks article.EmailI think this will be useful for a lot of folk who write reports. You can summarise the note as an email. Back to the meeting notes for this one.Fix TyposThis works really well but from what I can tell its in US English so it adds lots of zeds and esses! Double check this before sending work onto someone. I've mentioned it in the feedback to Evernote.Help Me WriteI think the actions under Help Me Write are going to be useful for a lot of folk. Its sometimes quite tedious to come up with introductions and titles to reports and notes so this will help.IntroductionThis will create a short introduction to your note. If you're writing a report you can just concentrate on the main content of the report and then get the introduction written for you.ConclusionSame goes for the conclusion. Just write the report and get the Ai to create the conclusion for you.TitlesComing up with a descriptive title for reports, articles and to be honest anything else is hard work. Get some ideas from Ai Edit. Back to last weeks article again for this one.TranslateThis will be useful for a lot of folk who deal in multiple languages. Right now you can translate your notes into:* English* Spanish* French* German* Chinese* Japanese* Russian* Italian* Portuguese* Arabic* Hindi* Turkish* Indonesian* Vietnamese* KoreanTo test out the translate function I thought I'd enlist the help of a native Portuguese speaker so I gave fellow Evernote Certified Expert Vlad Campos a quick shout-out on Mastodon.Change ToneThe change the tone section is not working as yet but I think its there to make your note content more friendly, official or another style of writing. Will shall wait and see.Conclusion (written by Ai Edit & not changed)In conclusion, the new Ai Edit feature from Evernote seems promising and more versatile than its ...
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    10 mins
  • Becoming the hero of our story with The Hero Tribe

    Becoming the hero of our story with The Hero Tribe
    Dec 13 2023

    I'd been looking forward to this chat for a while and I learnt a lot.

    The Hero Tribe are a group of lifelong martial artists, coaches, researchers and scientists and their vision is to live a life in deep connection to the world around us.

    In short, to follow our own hero's journey.

    So this week I'm chatting with Sascha and Camilla from The Hero Tribe who explain what the hero's journey is, how it can make us more productive and feel better about ourselves.

    How do we become the hero of our story instead of the villager or antagonist?

    Connect with The Hero Tribe

    Website

    https://www.hero-tribe.com/home

    Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/theherotribe/

    Instagram

    https://www.instagram.com/theherotribe/

    YouTube

    https://www.youtube.com/c/TheHeroChannel

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    36 mins
  • Evernote Free Plan Drama + A Lot More with Dr Frank Buck

    Evernote Free Plan Drama + A Lot More with Dr Frank Buck
    Dec 6 2023

    I enjoyed this Evernote chat, lots to chew over.

    Dr Frank Buck has been using Evernote forever, he teaches productivity and organisation and has a huge amount of knowledge about the whole productivity world and lots of opinion.

    We talk about the drama that is the restrictions on the Evernote free plan, if we want to stick with free, how do we use it effectively.

    We also talk Ai Powered search, a ton of other organisation advice and Frank answers the Tripe T questions.

    Connect with Dr Frank

    Website

    https://frankbuck.org/

    YouTube

    https://www.youtube.com/@drfrankbuck

    Twitter/X

    http://twitter.com/drfrankbuck

    Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/DrFrankBuck

    Instagram

    http://instagram.com/drfrankbuck

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    36 mins
  • Self-Analysis and Unveiling Truths with Terry McMullen

    Self-Analysis and Unveiling Truths with Terry McMullen
    Nov 29 2023

    I enjoyed this chat. Terry McMullen is the host of the What's the value? podcast and has spent the last 10 years studying philosophy, cognitive psychology, and social psychology to try and figure out what really makes humans act and behave the way we do.

    Terry says "I want to understand at a first principles level why I think what I think and believe what I believe."

    So this on the Triple 'T' Productivity Podcast week we're digging into self-analysis and self awareness.

    We talk about examining our own behaviour, how to do this and what to do when we find things we don't like.

    Connect with Terry

    Website

    https://streetwiselab.com

    What's The Value Podcast

    Medium Articles

    https://medium.com/@tmcmullen4

    YouTube

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUMA98Lot72z5L7mclJ8H8A/videos

    LinkedIn

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrence-mcmullen-414805162/

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    35 mins
  • Finding fulfilment in your work with Randi Roberts

    Finding fulfilment in your work with Randi Roberts
    Nov 22 2023

    In this weeks Triple 'T' Productivity Podcast we take a look at work fulfilment, job satisfaction and everything in between.

    This is a great conversation with Randi Roberts a Career-Life Coach and someone who was changed her job after many decades to find more fulfilment.

    Randi shares insights into the emotional landscape of work, whether you find fulfilment or navigate the challenges of being unfulfilled. We explore the nuances of workplace culture, unpack societal expectations surrounding work and is it okay not to find complete fulfilment in your job?

    Connect with Randi

    Website

    https://www.corlinroberts.net

    YouTube

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzYl_3LID6SbI_TDlf665jA

    LinkedIn

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/randi-roberts-28a8768/

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    28 mins
  • Sketchnoting. Getting Started with Ashton Rodenhiser.

    Sketchnoting. Getting Started with Ashton Rodenhiser.
    Nov 15 2023

    In this episode of the Triple 'T' Productivity Podcast, we dive into the world of Sketchnoting with Ashton Rodenhiser, a Sketchnotest(!), Sketchnote Artist?

    I can't draw but I do doodle a lot and I was very surprised to find doodling helps knowledge retention. Sketchnoting is like doodling on steroids!

    Ashton has worked with Fortune 500 companies and non-profits and she shares insights into sketching live meetings and talks about her book, "The Beginners Guide to Sketchnoting."

    We're going to unravel what Sketchnoting is, how it differs from doodling, and get lots of tips on getting started.

    Ashton also explains the anatomy of a Sketchnote and reveals her go-to pens for the perfect sketching experience.

    Connect with Ashton

    Minds Eye Creative Website

    http://www.mindseyecreative.ca

    Sketchnote School Website

    http://sketchnote.school

    Book - The Beginners Guide to Sketchnoting

    https://sketchnote.school/book/

    Youtube

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8egQ9KvwCLN8uAJN_OZJdg

    Instagram

    https://www.instagram.com/ashtonmindseye/

    Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/MindsEyeCreativeCF/

    LinkedIn

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonrodenhiser/

    Neuland Markers

    https://www.neuland.com

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    41 mins
  • Productive Meetings, Workflows, GTD and Weekly Reviews with Joel Stevenson

    Productive Meetings, Workflows, GTD and Weekly Reviews with Joel Stevenson
    Nov 8 2023

    In this episode of the Triple 'T' Productivity Podcast I'm digging into the realm of productivity with Joel Stevenson, the General Manager of Direct Brands at Vendasta and CEO of Yesware. With an impressive track record, including building Wayfair’s B2B business from scratch to a staggering $400MM, Joel's insights are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their productivity.

    We talk:

    Navigating Workflows and Systems

    Joel shares his expertise on optimising workflows and implementing effective systems to streamline productivity in both personal and professional settings.

    Getting Things Done (GTD) Approach

    Discover how Joel utilizes the GTD approach to maintain organisation but he isn't 100% strict about this!

    Employee Productivity and Creativity

    We look at the balance between employee productivity and fostering creativity within a corporate environment. Joel provides insights on how companies can encourage independent thinking while ensuring productivity doesn’t suffer.

    Meeting Mastery

    Joel shares his approach to meetings, offering strategies to make them more efficient and purposeful.

    The Weekly Review

    Uncover the significance of Joel's weekly review. Learn how this practice serves as a cornerstone for his productivity, enabling him to plan for the week ahead.

    Connect with Joel

    LinkedIn

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelstevensongm/

    Yesware on Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/yeswareco

    Yesware on Twitter

    https://twitter.com/yesware

    Website

    https://www.yesware.com/

    CreditsIf you've enjoyed this episode then subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon or your favourite podcast player.

    Also make sure you check out my Evernote newsletter Taming the Trunk on Substack.

    I'm your host, Jon Tromans and you can find me on my website, LinkedIn and Mastodon.

    Stomp and claps music by Playsound from Pixabay.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.tamingthetrunk.com
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    32 mins