A Better Option: My Move Out of Evernote and Into Notion

We’re three days into 2025, and if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that a lot can change in one year in the world of technology.

One year ago, I was sharing with you on the podcast how I had moved 80% of what I do into Notion but left 10% in Evernote. Mostly, I kept ahold of Evernote for articles and reference items I didn’t access much but didn’t want to let go of. I got tired of Evernote bugging me to upgrade, so several months ago, I finally exported the rest of my content from Evernote and into Notion.

Fast forward 12 months, and now, 90% of my life is organized in Notion. You may wonder, “What about the final 10%?” While we all have this fantasy of being able to do everything in one place, I just don’t think it’s realistic!

In this post, I’ll give you a little visual comparison of the difference between Evernote and Notion (two note-taking and productivity apps), share the process I went through for moving out of Evernote and into Notion, explain more of my reasoning behind the 10% that’s not in notion.

If you’re an Evernote user looking to move into Notion or just looking for a quality app for managing your studio and life, I hope you’ll walk away feeling inspired by what Notion can do for you.

Exploring a Better Option

Evernote and Notion are productivity and note-taking apps with capabilities like basic text editing, housing images and PDFs, linking to outer sources with bookmark links, connecting to Google Drive, and much more.

Notion, however, has come so much further in customization and design in the short time it’s existed (8 years at the time of this post). Since seeing things helps bring our words even more to life, I thought it would be helpful to give you a side-by-side comparison of a couple of pages. Since I no longer use Evernote, I had to dig into my media files for screenshots I took years ago (so note that the Evernote images, while outdated, still give you the big picture idea of Evernote’s design/layout).

This is an example of a note I created in Evernote for a conference session I attended. You can see the note supports tagging and basic text editing features.

While this note, once imported into Notion, looks pretty much exactly the same (basic text), I shushed it up a little to show you how much more visually driven it is.

Here’s an example of the Evernote interface. I always thought of it like a filing cabinet with the layout / look of email where you can see all your notes (emails) but then preview inside that note (email). On the LH side were all my tags, which were the backbone of the best way to organize in Evernote.

Here’s my current Notion dashboard/home screen. (I say current because I’m always playing with it and shifting it around. It will likely look different in a few months.)

One thing to know is that almost every line of text you see is clickable, so if I click on my “Books Dashboard” under the “Personal” column heading, it will open into a page where I manage all my reading.

Pages can be layered inside each other, so inside the Books Dashboard, I might have another page listing all my favorite authors, etc.

The “Little Life Intentions” section is a database set up in a Kanban column view. The “Projects” are also a database set up in table view. (The background color is optional and changeable).

There are two quotes I love from Adam Grant’s book Originals, which I use in my Evolutionary Entrepreneurilism session, that speak to my move out of Evernote and into Notion and my philosophy when it comes to productivity, time management, and organization.

“The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.”

“Most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise and in staying true to our beliefs and opinions. That makes sense in a stable world, where we get rewarded for having conviction in our ideas. The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking.”

We are never done. I think that’s why so many become weary of technology (I get it!), but it’s what invigorates me. 🙂

Notion was my BETTER OPTION when Evernote started feeling antiquated. While I didn’t seek it out myself (Joy told me about it), I was mentally in a place where I was ready for something better.

The cool thing is, there is no ONE WAY to utilize and organize Notion – it is extremely customizable. I’m always exploring and rethinking layout options that best suit my workflow. It’s so fun!!

To give you an even better picture of what I mean, I went back into my version history so you could see what my dashboard looked like just one month ago. (I would have gone back to show you the really early versions, but I would have had to upgrade, and I didn’t want to mess with that. It’s nice to know the option exists, though!)

Now, let’s chat a little about getting yourself into Notion, especially if you already have a productivity app you’re using, like Evernote.

How I Made the Move Into Notion

It’s important to note that incorporating a workspace like this is not a one-time sit-down event you can do overnight. It was a slow (but steady) process.

How much you do and how quickly depends on how much you have in your other note-taking app of choice. While you can easily export everything out of Evernote (or most apps, for that matter) and into Notion, I think it was nice for me to dip my feet and make a move slowly, growing into it.

The only thing I managed in Notion from my piano studio for a long time was my student repertoire lists

I started by moving items that I used fairly frequently – like the note I use to remember people’s names my student curriculum notes, repertoire tracking, Friday Finds post content, and so forth. The move was a simple copy and paste from Evernote into Notion (and deletion of the note entirely from Evernote). From there, I would gradually start playing with the design layout.

I still managed things like recital planning and tracking our March Minute Madness in other places like Google Docs. (I’m still in the process of moving my recital planning into Notion!)

Once I got to the point where I felt all that was left in my Evernote account were items I had “dumped” in there for reference – that is, notes I wasn’t overly concerned with actually organizing – that was when I did the final export.

The items are imported into a database in Notion (similar to a spreadsheet but with slightly different functionalities). It takes a bit, so don’t worry if you don’t see all your notes immediately.

The database will be displayed in “List View” which looks like this:

That is the one view I DON’T like. You can change the look of a database, though, so I recommend changing it to “Table View.”

Much better!

In databases, you have options at the bottom to display sums, note counts, etc. You can see I have 1,639 notes I imported from Evernote.

It will title the page in the same name as the notebook in which you had the files in Evernote. Mine was named “Filing Cabinet,” but once imported, I renamed it “Evernote IMPORT.”

The search function is so strong in Notion that you can leave everything you import inside the database it imports into in Notion. As long as you’re not concerned with organizing it, leave it. That’s what I’ve done so far! If you ever want to find something and move it into your organizational setup, you can easily search for and move the note.

To demonstrate, I searched for that conference session note I showed you above, and it popped right up at the top of my search results. It even shows you the breadcrumbs, so you know where the note lives.

Notes I Made When Exporting Evernote Content into Notion

While going through the process, I anticipated sharing my experience with you sometime in the future, so I took notes. I hope you find this helpful!

Settings > Import > Evernote
Connects to Evernote, then reopens Notion (but may not look like it did anything)
Go back into Notion Settings > Import > Select Your Evernote Account > 3 Dots > Import
It will create Page(s) in your Notion account named the same as your Notebook(s)
The import may take a while to load the import so don’t worry if you don’t see all your items right away.
All Notes are imported as a database in List View.
Moving items to designated locations in Notion is easier if you turn the database List View into Table View. This allows you to select and move an entire group of database items easily.
If you want to move pages into a database of their own (like get them out of your giant Evernote database import), make sure you don’t just select the page the database is in (it will move them to the new page and turn them into individual pages.
Select Move to > find the page the database is in > open the toggle to select the actual database.

Curious to Learn More?

My friend Joy Morin wrote a really great, in-depth introduction to Notion on her blog. If you’re new to Notion, I would highly recommend checking that post out:

An Introduction to Notion – A Customizable Digital Workspace to Organize Everything in Your Life

Here’s more from Joy:

I’ve also produced several podcast episodes on how to use Notion as a studio owner.

Help Getting Started

It can be overwhelming learning a new tool on your own, so Joy and I put together a workshop where we can give you all the help you need to hit the ground running with your new digital workspace.

This is the third round of the workshop, so you can now hear what other teachers are saying!