Evernote is our favorite program for journaling and storing notes while Omnifocus is our favorite task manager. Individually they are arguably the best at what they do but if you combine them together it’s even better. If you are someone who needs to reference a lot of notes within Omnifocus and you want to use Evernote in conjunction – read on!
Reference Materials with Evernote
For a lot of tasks you need to have reference materials in order to complete them. Tasks such as “Read this article/magazine” or “Fill out tax form” require you to use reference materials. Anyone familiar with the Getting Things Done methodology will be familiar with storing them in a single A-Z reference system but the problem with GTD is that is mostly assumes paper reference materials (remember: GTD was written in early 2000s). In this day and age it’s quite common to have digital reference materials. This is where Evernote really shines – it excels acting as a file cabinet for your reference materials.
It is available on all major platforms, it syncs via the cloud and it is free. Plus its search functionality is very good. If you opt in to pay for the premium version, you can have OCR scanning abilities which means you can search for text within images. This allows you to quickly find reference materials – no matter on what platform you are on.
Going Paperless
If you have a lot of paper based reference materials, we highly suggest to go digital. We’ve written before how you can go paperless with Evernote – it will save you a lot of headaches and it will make referencing documents a lot easier. Once you have everything stored in Evernote, you can easily look up reference materials by using the search function. Not only is this a great way to get rid of papers but you’ll also be more efficient with finding and referencing documents.
Omnifocus and Evernote
Let’s just assume that you’re sold on going paperless and that you have everything stored in Evernote. There will be times when you need to access these notes within a task in Omnifocus. You could write in the tasks’ note “Check note in Evernote entitled instapaper tips” but that’s a little inefficient.
Fortunately you can link back to specific notes in Evernote within Omnifocus. It’s really simple. When you want to reference a specific note, right click and select “Copy Note Link”. Below is a screenshot on how that looks like.
In Evernote, right click on any note and select "Copy Note Link".
On your clipboard is now a link pointing back to this specific note. Now go to your Omnifocus task, add a note to it (Command + ‘) and now paste the note link. You’ll see the note title appear as a link (see screenshot).
Your link will point back the specific note you selected earlier in Evernote.
It’s that easy. When Evernote released this feature, I vigorously started to use a lot more notes and reference materials for my tasks. Now you can easily use reference materials and most importantly – reference material can be accessed quickly. Examples of reference material I use a lot include:
- Articles – I use Evernote’s clipper in Chrome for storing complete articles because sometimes articles go 404.
- Chat history – Sometimes I have brilliant conversations on Skype that I want to reread later.
- Drafts – I often write drafts of emails and articles in Evernote that need to be polished later on.
- Scanned items – anything I might have scanned in Evernote but I have not processed yet.
Cross Platform
The fun doesn’t stop here. For you readers with an iPhone and/or iPad you guys will love this. Assuming you have Omnifocus and Evernote on your iOS device, these links pointing back to the Evernote note work on iOS as well. That means you can setup your notes on your desktop, reference them in a task in Omnifocus on the desktop and within Omnifocus on your iPhone you can tap on the note’s link which will open the note in Evernote on your mobile device. Isn’t that cool?
Evernote Note Links work on iOS as well.
This way you will always be in sync with your tasks and you can access all your tasks’ reference materials.
Do you have any more tips for using Evernote and Omnifocus together? Please share them in the comments below!
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s always the little things that make life just that much easier! Thanks! BTW, beware of updating to Mountain Lion as OmniFocus is not working in it. Forced me to work off my iPad.
Check the comment above by John – that might make your life easier as well.
Yeah I saw it on Twitter – good thing I haven’t upgraded yet. Hopefully they will fix it soon so you can go back on your desktop :-)
You can also pul up the quick entry window and drag the note in. Seems a little faster then right clicking then pasting.
Yeah that works quite good as well. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for a great article. Note linking also works within Evernote – allowing notes to be connected Wiki style.
That’s brilliant. I can’t believe I’ve never done that before. This is going to take Evernote to the next level for me!
Is anyone using the IPAD version of Omnifocus exclusively with Evernote. I have an unusual mix – IPAD (with Omnifocus) and Evernote for Windows…. Just curious if anyone uses this combo.
This is an excellent feature and thanks for pointing it out. However, for me, I only get the full URL of the note, rather than the note title, appearing in Omnifocus on my Mac. Is there a setting that corrects this?
Hmm not sure why you would have that. Do you have the latest version of Evernote?
I have 3.0.6. It would make a big difference having the note titles as links.
Are you also running the latest version of Omnifocus (1.9.4)? If I paste it in any other app or text field, I get the full URL of the note. But if I paste it in the Notes field of a task it does format it correctly.
The only thing I can remotely guess it would have to deal with is Applescript. I know it uses some Applescript HTML formatting. Maybe update that engine as well?
Yes, I just checked. I’m all up to date with everything. Not sure if it’s OF or EN that’s the problem.
Nice use of Evernote with Omnifocus. I switched from Omnifocus to Zendone as it is more integrated with Evernote. Evernote themselves have bought Egritlist to develop their own GTD…. Curious what that will be.
I learned a lot via the eBook Evernote Essentials http://goo.gl/AUb8b (affiliate link)My Workflow with Evernote en Zendone belowhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMGqfPLuLQ
Hi Guys:
Thanks for this. Any thoughts on Springpad?
We haven’t used it yet but I’ve heard good things about it. Have you used it before?
Note links is very powerful feature of Evernote. I’m using it in very similar fashion.
My task manager of choice is Remember the Milk (RTM). When I start a new project, I write down ideas, actions in Evernote and then create an entry on my project list in RTM and connect the two with a note like. This way when I’m looking at my tasks and projects doing some form of a review I can refer to a project file in Evernote and check for any items do complete.
Thanks so much for this! It got me thinking about automating the process even further with OmniFocus and Keyboard Maestro – I wanted to make a single keystroke copy the Evernote link, open the OmniFocus Quick Entry Window, paste the Evernote Note Link into the OmniFocus Notes field, and set me up to name my task, tab over to the other Quick Entry fields if I wanted and send it to my Inbox.
I set up a macro triggered by a custom Hot Key that executes the following in Keyboard Maestro:
Select ‘Copy Note Link’ in the menu ‘Note’ in Evernote
Type the [your Quick Entry] Keystroke
Pause for .5 Seconds (needed to add the pause to allow the Quick Entry window to fully load)
Type the ⌘V Keystroke (paste the Note Link into the auto-selected Title field)
Type the ⌘’ Keystroke (edit the Notes field)
Type the ⌘V Keystroke (paste the Note Link into the Notes field)
Type the Up Arrow Keystroke
Type the Up Arrow Keystroke
Type the Up Arrow Keystroke (I needed three Up Arrows to get back up to the beginning of the Title field)
I wish I had Keyboard Maestro. This would be a really a blessing and make things a lot faster. Actually, I think I might buy it soon just for this.
Looks like Cas and I are on the same wavelength. I’m posting this on Monday or Tuesday on my own site, but I finalized a macro that functions just like the clipper. Here’s an advanced copy: http://cl.ly/13342l1p3K1f2V081S3G
It’s similar to Cas, except it can handle one or multiple notes (for some reason the menu is dynamic in Evernote it goes from Copy Note Link to Copy Note Links rather than just one Copy Note Link(s). It also determines if text is highlighted and copies that in as well. If you’ve ever used the clipper in either Mail or a browser, it functions the same. I didn’t use the quick entry as I wanted it to function more like the actual clipper. That said, Cas’ addition could be a good one for some.
Mike, I’m going to try this out as soon as I have Keyboard Maestro. This looks really interesting. You and Cas are KM wizards – I would love to dig deeper in this software. I think I could automate a lot of things.
It’s proven really useful. I’m so not a coder and it’s allowed me to string together so many of my repetitive actions between multiple applications. It’s easily had the same impact on my workflows as TextExpander. If you really want to get into it, spend some time over at Macdrifter.com. He is a wizard.
I too love using Evernote note links with OmniFocus. Right now the only glaring gap in my workflow is the lack of the “copy note link” in the iOS version of Evernote. Once I’m able to execute this workflow while mobile, my productivity circle will be complete. Fantastic article!