I’ve been an Evernote user for SO many years. Check out this really old post where I wrote tips on how to used – it looks so different now, and that just goes to show how long I’ve been using it! However, recently (ish) I have given up on it. Now, this is a genuine “it’s not you, it’s me” situation for Evernote. I hope they don’t feel hurt. They are a great product.
Why I’m Loving Scrivener
The reason I had to give up using Evernote was that I didn’t get to my work fast enough. It didn’t load (generally speaking, I wanted to use it on trains and places where mobile coverage wasn’t great).
When I unofficially gave up on Evernote, it wasn’t personal. It was my own shiny object syndrome where I would get distracted trying to make a note by all the other notes I had already made. I wrote about my preference of notepads here.
And as much as a physical notes are great, they just doesn’t have much flexibility for multiple projects, word counts and useful things like that. There’s also the shiny part of buying and using new ones all the time… which really doesn’t keep all your writing and ideas together.
Now, the apparent downside to Scrivener is that there is no cloud syncing. But that’s exactly what I don’t want. Loading time is annoying to me. I want to work on my laptop while I commute. Maybe that’s different in countries with non-notoriously shit internet, but Australia isn’t one of those. Or maybe if you’re lucky enough to work from home most of time, cloud synced software is fine for you. Basically, it’s not right for me and that’s why Scrivener is working for me. I know, it’s odd, but it works!
The only downside is that non cloud software requires manual backups. But there are a lot of things that I actually prefer doing manually, and backing things up is one of them. At least when I’ve done it, I know it has been done. Maybe I have trust issues with backups! But I find it pretty easy to manually back things up – I email it to myself and tag in my backups folder. Easy. Done.
Do you use any specific writing software? Do you manually back up your work or do it automatically?
I was so excited about Scrivener until it ate my manuscript! Now I’m back to writing in Word. I still plan to edit in Scrivener. I like the way you can split chapters and write notes about them easily.
Oh scary! I guess that whole manual backup thing is the downfall too. I jump around a lot as I write so the whole splitting thing is what I like.
I am so old I have NFI what you are talking about in this entire post.
Haha sorry!
Scrivener is my favourite! I love it so much.
I feel so competent and organised using it!
I use the notes section on my phone. You would think I would have learned by now to use something else because every time I get a new phone I lose the lot!
I do use Notes a lot still, just by virtue of the fact the phone is with me more than my laptop! My problem is that I used to then do nothing with the notes…