Tag: writing

The end of an era. Good-bye Evernote.

There is no paid software I have used longer than Evernote, ever. My user ID is 15,325 (they told me that 5 years in (in 2013) when they had passed 65,000,000 users). I’ve even been through the training program to become an Evernote Expert, providing consultation experiences to other people and providing feedback on new product development.

And yet, I have decided to let it lapse. As of 2 days from now, my professional account will go away, and I will move fully onto Obsidian (and will continue my exploration of Craft).

So what’s going on? Well, honestly, my refinement of my own systems and the overlap of other products, has steadily eaten away at the unique values that used to be provided by Evernote. I have great (and non-proprietary) task management and notes that can sync across my devices, and I don’t need a paid subscription of $130/yr to $170/yr to do that. To be frank, I’d probably pay up to ~$5/month for Evernote, just to have it around, but the higher price-point forced me to scrutinize what I was actually getting out of the product, which, as of late, has not been very much.

I also just want a fresh start. I have tried everything with Evernote through the years, accumulating 10,333 notes. That’s…a lot. I used the Obsidian importer to grab all of those (minus a couple dozen errors), convert them to Markdown, and make them available in a separate folder in Obsidian. They’re there if I need them and my notes will not be trapped in a proprietary .enex file (although I did store compressed version of all of those notebooks in case I ever regret my decision).

I do want to say that the Evernote application has done nothing but improve since Bending Spoons bought the company. It’s faster, more focused, and reliable.

It’s just no longer for me.

I wish them all the best.

The value of painting yourself into a corner

Years ago, when I ran The Puget News (RIP), a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in a while, gave me a wonderful compliment during a conversation we were having. He said something to the effect of, “You’ve been writing a lot recently, haven’t you? It shows. You’re speaking beautifully and gushing with ideas.” His words were spoken without a hint of irony and is something I think about quite often, not just because it was a gracious thing to say, but because there are so many times that I struggle to articulate a coherent thought.

Building a place on the internet to call home and then writing to a schedule is a challenge, but one worthy of throwing yourself against. It’s especially worthwhile if your goal isn’t notoriety, but clarity of thought.

One of the personal principles I try to live by is: “if you can’t write it or draw it, you don’t know it.” While it won’t always be pretty, this place is my attempt to live by that principle.