How to Use Evernote to Save Time on College Coursework

Have you ever took college courses while also working a full-time job and attending to a family? I know there are many of you that have, and like you, I can admittedly say that it’s not easy. I’ve been there – the late nights with coffee and 5-hour Energy, cramming sessions, “all-nighters,” never-ending papers, classes blurring together…

As spouses, parents, and working professionals, though, we still have responsibilities. The trash has to be taken out. Pets have to be fed. Your job and family both need attention.

Life doesn’t stop just because we’re in school.

Online classes can certainly give you more flexibility, but they still take time and concentration – which we’re often in very short supply of these days. Luckily, there are tools like Evernote that can help make college coursework easier – saving you both time and your sanity.

Note: If you’re thinking about trying out the program for the first time and need a gentle nudge,  start by reading my post on 7 Killer Reasons Why You Should Use Evernote.

How can Evernote help you as a college student?

Below, I’ll show you how to use Evernote so you can:

• Collect and organize all of your physical and digital notes in one place,
• Help you collect and cite references faster
• Help you remember important facts, dates, and ideas
• Save you time in all of your class writing, particularly with papers and class discussions
• Help you stay on top of all your class assignments and when they’re due

So, let’s get started…

Evernote Consolidates all your Physical, Digital, and Audio Notes

One of the things I like most about Evernote is that it goes with me anywhere and I can use it just about anywhere. Whether I’m using the audio recorder to record a lecture, typing in notes manually, or using the Web Clipper to save articles from the web, it all goes into Evernote and is searchable later. If possible, I add my notes directly to a class-specific notebook within a stack that’s dedicated solely for that college/university.

Here’s an example of the structure I typically use…

Within each class notebook, I typically have separate notes for class discussions and assignments.

Now, the college classes I took were all online, but if you’re at a physical university and would like to record lectures that you can read later, there are some pretty cool Evernote integrations that will transcribe them for you, even while taking manual notes.

Voice2Note

• Quicktate
• TranscribeMe + Evernote

Now, even though I’m a huge Evernote fan and do 90% of my work digitally, I still occasionally hand-write notes and ideas in my Moleskin notebook. I do this primarily at night when I’m minimizing screen time or when I’m trying to break through a creative hurdle. I also do this often in seminars or in-person classes.

Luckily, I can just take pictures of these notes afterward and upload them to Evernote with little effort. They’re even searchable using the program’s built-in OCR technology.

Evernote Helps you Organize and Cite References Faster

When I was collecting references to back up my statements in discussions or class papers, one of the most tedious things I had to do was append my citations in the correct format. As most college students know, formats can vary from school to school and even for various classes. The most commonly used one, though, are APA and MLM (in my case, primarily APA).

Most students will manually assemble their citations according a guide like Writer’s Reference or an in-school citation guide. But did you know that there’s an easier way to clip your references and add citations to your papers?

Sites like citethisforme.com allow you to clip the parts of your research that you want and instantly create correctly formatted citations that you can then import directly into Evernote. Pretty cool, right?

What’s really cool is that you can use this with online content as well as with physical books (just by scanning the bar code).

If you have a Kindle, you can also export your academic highlights to Evernote with one of the following tools:

• Clippings.io
• eHighLighter
• ClipBook

Evernote Helps you Memorize and Remember Important Ideas or Facts

While studies show that handwritten notes are better than digital ones, just the act of taking notes in class or is better than not taking any notes at all. One study showed that students who took notes in a lecture and reviewed them afterward maximized their retention and recall better than students who only listened.

The key to this is the “review” part, which you can do by simply reading your notes, converting them to flash cards, or by actively reviewing them over a specified timeframe (spaced repetition).

Luckily, there are some pretty cool integrations that can help in this department.

Note: If you took handwritten notes, you have to first upload them to Evernote.

StudyBlue

Similar Integrations:

• Eidetic
• Reflect

Evernote Lets You Simplify your Discussion Posts & Assignments with Templates

Writing papers and formatting them correctly is one of the most time-consuming parts of an assignment. It’s also factored into your assignment grade, which means you should pay attention to it.

For many classes, though, particularly within the same university, you’ll find yourself using the same type of format for each assignment. To save time with this, I copy the assignment requirements into Evernote and use them to make a template for the assignment. In doing so, I’m able to see my notes, research, citations, and paper outline all within the same note.

Here’s an example of some assignment requirements that I copied from Blackboard to Evernote in a prior class:

Here’s an example of the APA template I used, which I keep as an attachment within my assignment note:

Aside from papers, I also simplified my discussion posts.

For example…

I would copy key discussion points from Blackboard into a given note. Then I would do my research if necessary and fill in my response to each respective discussion point.

Evernote Helps You Stay on Top of your Coursework

There are three awesome features of Evernote that can help you stay on top of coursework:

Checkbox To-do Lists

You can have one running note with all of your assignment tasks, or you can do a note for each class that has the tasks due each week for that class…

For example…

Reminders

When you add your school tasks on top of tasks for your day job and home life, you end up with a pretty big to-do list, even if you just have one class.

Having scheduled reminders keeps you aware of upcoming assignment and discussion post deadlines, even if you already have them in your calendar.

To create one for your class-specific notes or assignments, just click on Reminder in the program toolbar and pick the date that you’d like to be reminded on.

Calendars (and calendar integrations)

Did you know that Evernote has calendar templates?

When Evernote first published these, I saw immense benefits to using them for writing, but shortly after realized that they could also be used for tracking assignment due dates.

These are the types of calendar templates available, which you can save directly into your own notebooks:

• Yearly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily

If you’d prefer to use your own calendar, and just sync your school notes in Evernote with your Google or Outlook calendar, you can use of the following integrations (or recipes for you IFTTT/Zapier fans):

• Evernote Calendar Connector
• Event Noted
• Evernote & Google Calendar (Zapier)
• Connect Google Calendar to Evernote (IFTTT)

Armed with these tips and tools, you should be able to take your studying to the next level. At the very least, you should be able to save time and cut some of that studying stress.

With your time freed up, you can also get back to spending time with your family and friends, and living the life!

Do you use Evernote for your studying? What tips or integrations do you use to make the most of it?