Evernote Organization
For years I have not bothered to organize my email inbox. Since I use services like gmail with its abundant cheap storage, I use a “search, don’t delete” approach to email. As I started using Evernote I tried the same organization technique I used for email, namely I didn't organize entries. I just made them and found them with searches. The results were unsatisfactory. Ad Hoc searches of Evernote entries were not as effective as they were with email. After trying different combinations of tags and notebooks I have found that a combination of a few notebooks combined with a disciplined approach to hierarchical tags gives me a solution that I’m very happy with. Below is a description of how I organize items within Evernote.
My organization system within Evernote consists of a few notebooks combined with some hierarchical tags organized in a specific way. Within Evernote, notebooks are basically a hierarchical organization method that is restricted to a single hierarchy (Update: Evernote has introduced stacks which I find very annoying, therefore I do not use them. Perhaps one day I’ll enjoy them and will incorporate stacks into my organization technique). With Evernote notebooks a single entry belongs to a single notebook. For example, you can’t have the same entry in both the Journal notebook and the Research notebook, you must choose one. In real life however, things are rarely that simple. It’s entirely possible to have an entry that could go into one notebook just as much as it could another. This fuzziness inevitably leads to creating more and more notebooks to try and create a good fit for an entry to be shoehorned into. The result is a messy, organic set of notebooks that is difficult to search, organize and maintain. I’ve found that using a limited number of general purpose notebooks combined with some good tags has reduced the number of conflicts I encounter when placing an entry into an appropriate notebook.
Notebook Scheme
Below are the 7 notebooks I have set up along with their general guidelines for what they contain. The guidelines are rules of thumb since where they end up really isn’t super important. The tags, which I discuss in the next paragraph, help sort everything out. My notebooks are:
- File Cabinet
- This is my paperless office. Any piece of paper scanned that would normally go in the ol’ file cabinet such as online receipts for purchases, bills, business cards, etc. Is entered into this notebook
- Manual’s for various home electronics
- Recipes
- Work (I work at GoAhead Software, so the notebook is named GoAhead in the above screen cap)
- Anything specific to the job which pays the bills
- Idea bin
- Clips, scans, etc. for things which planted some idea in my head which I want to do something about later.
- Journal
- Not synced. A personal journal that I don’t really plan to share with anyone else. I have a paper journal too that I usually write in but it’s not always available so I sometimes log entries here
- Entries are given a title using the YYYYMMDD format.
- Lists
- Any sort of list that has actions attached to it such as a shopping list, gift purchasing list, todo list
- Organizer
- List of stuff stored in various locations. Which closet is that box with the metric hex drivers in again?
- Research
- This is the biggest notebook. It holds everything else that I use Evernote for.
Tags: Love/Hate
The Hate
Generally I don’t like tags. The problem I have with tags is that they are totally unstructured. It’s easy to just keep making up tags on a whim. Since a tag lacks context, there’s no story behind it. Does a tag named “Leopard” mean the animal or the OS? Tags often don’t tell a story. They are easy to create so they multiply like crazy and quickly turn into a chaotic mess. Tags rarely help me understand what I’m tagging any better than dragging something into limited hierarchical folders, it’s just easier to use a tag.
Solution: Discipline
To overcome some of these shortcomings I attempt to put some structure and discipline around my use of tags. To do this I make use of Evernote’s ability to create hierarchical tags. I have created tags with the same name as each notebook. These are my “first order” tags.
I rarely use these first order tags directly on an entry, but I do on occasion. I also try not to assign two first order tags to the same entry. However, if an entry straddles two notebooks, I flip a coin, pick a folder to put the entry in, but then I apply two tags. I then created tags under each first order tag which I call “second order” tags.
The second order tags act a bit like folders. For example, under the File Cabinet tag I have second order tags for Bill, Business Card, Keepsake, Manual, etc. I then create third order tags to help provide more information if needed. For example, under the second order tag Keepsake I have a third order tag called Concert Ticket.
Tags: The Love
What this leaves me with is a bucket of stuff that’s easy to maintain yet the entries are easy to find. It also gives me a variety of ways to find entries. For a total ad hoc search I can use the search box to quickly find something based on a keyword. However if I want to see things in context, for example all my concert tickets, I can click on the “Concert Ticket” tag and presto, all of my concert tickets are right before my eyes. True they’re all in one notebook but the cool thing is they don’t need to be. If for some reason they are not in the same notebook, clicking on the tag still shows me all of the concert tickets.
One drawback to this is the tags can get a bit unwieldy if there are a lot of first and second order tags. I might know I’m looking for the “Concert Ticket” tag but was that a third order tag? What second order tag was it under again? If the number of tags isn’t too big then visually scanning the list of tags isn’t too bad. If it is big, there is another way. You can run a search on the tag. It’s not obvious how to do that in Evernote, it requires geeking out on the search a little but it’s very effective. To search for just a tag, enter tag:"Tag Name" into the search field.
I hope that you’ve found this useful when thinking about organizing Evernote entries. If you have questions or feedback please feel free to contact me.