Skip to content

Evernote

app · in 30 sources (2018–2020)

Sources by year: 2018: 3 · 2019: 10 · 2020: 17

Threads

Also named in the threads: Ali, a fifth-year medical student at Cambridge University, is co-founder of SixMed, a small company running courses for medical school applicants, and has taught its BMAT Crash Course for five years. · Ali prepares for the MRCOG exam in obstetrics and gynaecology, documented in study-with-me videos (2018) · Ali promises a much more detailed video about Roam Research (2020) · Workflow, Ali's series on Nebula of deep dives into how he uses his apps · Ali memorises essay references with the peg system in his second year of medical school (2014)

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

Microsoft OneNote (10) · second brain (9) · Notion (23) · Drafts (8) · Roam Research (9) · GoodNotes (6) · Notability (10) · Building a Second Brain (7) · Day One (4) · Apple Watch (4)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2020

  • 2020-01-14 · My Favourite iPad Pro Apps (2020) — recommendation: Ali thinks of Evernote as his long-term memory: he uses Notion for project management, to-do lists and important but not urgent projects, and Evernote to store archives, highlights from books and articles, and random bits of his writing. — 00:03:26
  • 2020-02-28 · My Favourite Note-Taking App for Students - Notion — Ali: If one thing makes Notion fantastic for students, Ali says, it is its toggle feature, which hides details and which no other note-taking app has: not OneNote, Evernote, Notability or GoodNotes. — 00:03:11
  • 2020-05-05 · My Favourite Mac Apps · What's on my MacBook Pro? — Ali still uses Evernote: no app handles everything you throw at it as well, and it is the long-term memory of his second brain. — 00:08:08
    • Drafts is Ali's quick-capture tool: he dictates notes into it from his Apple Watch, say while listening to a podcast in the car, and later moves them to Evernote, Notion or Roam Research. — 00:09:27
  • 2020-07-07 · My Creative Workflow with Notion — Ali: Before Notion, which he has used for over a year, Ali kept video ideas on his phone, in Evernote or in a paper notebook, and often forgot ideas he had in the shower or while driving. — 00:00:29
  • 2020-07-21 (said on 2020-07-20, implied) · How I Organise My Life — Ali: Two key features set Roam Research apart from Evernote and Notion; the first is the daily note: each day the app opens on a new blank page, with no folders or notebooks. — 00:00:58
  • 2020-08-20 · The Second Brain - A Life-Changing Productivity System — Ali: The sixth Building a Second Brain principle, start with abundance: you are never starting from scratch; to write about motivation, search your second brain in Evernote or Notion for the word and draw on the articles you have read and annotated over the years. — 00:07:14
  • 2020-08-23 · The Perfect Note-Taking App — recommendation: Ali: Switching note-taking apps, like a divorce, is messy and expensive, Ali says: it takes energy to learn a new system, so decide whether the new app's features are worth the switching cost. — 00:05:24
    • Hopping from app to app out of shiny new toy syndrome, from Evernote to Notion, Roam Research and Obsidian, is probably unfulfilling, Ali says: you only go round in circles. (hedged) — 00:06:55
    • Ali uses a combination of four apps for his note-taking: Notion, Roam Research, Evernote and Drafts. — 00:07:56
  • 2020-10-04 · My BIGGEST Rejections in Life — Ali: To win back the £900, in September 2012 Ali brainstormed money-making schemes in Evernote from what he was good at, including websites on getting into medicine, BMAT preparation and interview preparation. — 00:17:34
    • Ali's 2012 Evernote brainstorm morphed into SixMed, the company he founded a year later, in 2013. — 00:18:01
  • …and 31 statements more in 2020 — all statements of 2020

Also named in: How Much Money I Spend in a Week as a 25 Year Old Doctor, The KEY Study Techniques for Exam Success, Improve your Reading + My New Favourite Pen, Apple Fanboy Reacts to Microsoft Surface Go 2

2019

  • 2019-01-20 · My Favourite iPad Pro Apps — recommendation: Ali calls Bear a nice, simple, easy-to-use Markdown writing app that he enjoys writing in, without the bells and whistles of Evernote; he also tracks his gym workouts in it. — 00:04:37
  • 2019-05-18 · The Best Productivity Apps for Students — recommendation: Francesco D'Alessio: Francesco used Evernote at university: when he lacked focus in a lecture he hit its audio-recording button, which he found really useful. — 00:02:02
  • 2019-05-31 · Monthly Favourites #9 - Ali Abdaal — Tiago Forte (quoted): To remember what you read, Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain says to keep an app such as Evernote as a second brain: summarise and distil what you read to its essence, put it in, and review it semi-regularly to build a treasure trove of knowledge. — 00:05:51
  • 2019-07-23 · The World's Smartest Notebook - Rocketbook Everlast Review — Ali has set the first Rocketbook icon so that when he shades it and scans the page with the Rocketbook phone app, the scan goes straight into his Evernote inbox. — 00:00:58
  • 2019-09-06 · Life Advice Q&A with my Brother — Ali: When listening to a podcast while driving, Ali taps his AirPods and has Siri record a voice note; for a really big point he stops the car and makes notes in Evernote or Notion, whichever app he is using that week. — 00:06:41
  • 2019-09-17 · My Favourite Productivity App for Students - Notion — Ali: Note-taking apps such as Evernote, OneNote and Notability impose a rigid structure, Ali says, like buying or renting a ready-built house, while Notion has no set hierarchy and is like building your own house. — 00:01:07
  • 2019-10-30 · How I Read 100 Books a Year - 8 Tips for Reading More — recommendation: Ali has recently started syncing his Readwise highlights to Evernote, so when making a video on productivity he searches Evernote for the word and finds every quote on it he has highlighted. — 00:09:49
  • 2019-11-20 · Study with Me + How I Learn New Content — Ali: Though a sucker for productivity apps, Ali thinks the specific app rarely makes much difference: GoodNotes or Notability, OneNote or Evernote, Todoist or Things are basically the same; what matters is applying the general principles of productivity and effective studying. — 00:00:58
    • Ali is working on making his own productivity system as app-agnostic as possible, so that if Evernote, Notion or Todoist shut down he could easily move it to another app or even pen and paper. — 00:03:24
    • Even when not preparing teaching, Ali would still write down active recall questions, in OneNote, Notion, Evernote or whatever note-taking app he was using that month, because he calls it the single most effective study technique ever. — 00:04:41
  • 2019-12-11 · What's on my iPhone 11 Pro Max (2020) — Ali uses Evernote as the long-term memory of his second brain, with notebooks for the subjects he cares about. — 00:07:43
  • 2019-12-27 (said on 2019-12-20, implied) · My Annual Review using Notion — Ali used to do his annual review in Evernote; he prefers Notion for it because its toggles keep the review from turning into one massive page. — 00:00:57
  • …and 9 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2018

  • 2018-06-02 · How I take notes on my iPad Pro in medical school - Cambridge University medical student — Ali: Of the note-taking apps, Ali has tried only OneNote, Notability and Evernote, and he loves Notability the most. — 00:06:16
  • 2018-10-29 · Study With Me - Scoping the Subject ft. Just Eat — Ali used OneNote for his last few years of medical school but is now giving Evernote a try for his personal revision guide. — 00:00:58
    • Ali promises a more detailed comparison video of Evernote and OneNote once he decides which he prefers. — 00:00:58
    • Ali uses Notability on the iPad as a rough handwritten notepad: for jotting things down while doing past paper questions and for testing his active recall of concepts by writing down everything he knows and drawing diagrams. — 00:01:27
    • After looking up the syllabus online, Ali creates an Evernote notebook for each of its 17 subjects and recreates the structure in Notability on the iPad under one obstetrics and gynaecology divider. — 00:01:27
    • Ali's Evernote notebooks are his personal revision guide, a mini textbook of concise bullet-point summaries for each topic with all his active recall questions for that topic above them. — 00:01:56
  • 2018-11-01 · My Favourite iPhone XS Apps — Ali, who had switched from Evernote to the minimalist Bear, has decided to give Evernote another try: he thinks it more full-featured, which he wants for notes for his upcoming postgraduate medical exams. — 00:09:14
    • Ali says he will report back once he has tested more iOS note-taking apps, such as Evernote, Bear and OneNote, and decided which is his favourite. — 00:09:14
    • In Evernote Ali has notebooks for the parts of his obstetrics and gynaecology syllabus, such as clinical skills and governance, and plans a separate note for each topic within them. — 00:09:43