My December Evernote Deep Clean!

Newsletter housekeeping: I’ve just updated the ‘about page’ of the newsletter which includes my productivity stack. I’ll keep this updated when things change. It may give you a few ideas on different workflows.

It happens twice a year, every year in July and December.

The Great Evernote Deep Clean!

Last February I wrote about keeping jars of screws in Evernote and I’m still a big believer that we should have clear-out at least once or twice a year.

Some folk tell me not to be so daft, Evernote has unlimited(ish) storage so just hoard it all, keep absolutely everything even if you never look at it again, but I’m not a hoarder.

The main reason for keeping things clean is that I don’t pollute my search results with notes “that used to be” relevant.

Remove unwanted notes

I’m working on my deep clean now and I’ve removed notes like this:

• 250+ screen shots which were sent to clients or were used in articles here! I really should keep on top of them.

• A windscreen wiper receipt for a car I no longer own.

• Archived a receipts notebook that’s over 10 years old.

• Web clips for things I don’t care about anymore.

• Meeting notes that are absolutely not relevant to anything.

• Archived old client notebooks.

If I don’t think I’ll need something again but I’m not 100% sure, then I export the notes, or a notebook as an ENEX file and upload it to my cloud drive.

Just right click a notebook and select export.

I sometimes create a temporary notebook, move a bunch of notes into it and then export and delete the notes and notebook.

As I’ve been going through my notes, something I’ve started to do since Ai Powered Search was launched is to edit the title of some notes and make the contents a little more descriptive. I don’t spend much time on this, but I change things when I see them.

It helps the Ai find better answers.

Audit your notebooks

Take a good look at your notebook structure. Do you still need all those notebooks? Can you remove any and simplify things?

My receipts notebooks are called “Receipts YEAR” and I only keep then in Evernote for 10 years. Anything older gets downloaded as an ENEX file and stored on my cloud drive.

Ask yourself if the structure you’re using is still working for you and change things to meet any new needs.

Also take a quick look at the names of your notebooks. Are the names still relevant? Do they need changing?

Declutter your tags

If you use tags don’t forget to give them a quick audit.

Do you have many orphaned tags? Pointless tags? Although, most tags are kind of pointless!

Keep your tags at a minimum because you usually need to remember what tags you have so you can tag stuff. In my mind the idea of Evernote is that you DON’T have to remember things.

Empty the trash

Dig into your trash-can and get it emptied.

I do this twice a year and clear-out anything older than 12 months.

Am I crazy!

I’ve been told many times I’m a little crazy. I’ve been told to keep the windscreen wiper receipt just in case I want to know how much windscreen wipers cost in 2016.

I don’t care!

I’ve been told the stop wasting my time as Evernote will store everything forever and it doesn’t matter if there’s unwanted stuff in there.

It does matter to me!

Like that strange particular screw in the jar that’s been there for 20 years, I might need it one day!

No, I won’t and if I do a new one will cost like 50 pence.

Empty the jar. Keep things clean and tidy.

Have a great weekend,

All the best

Jon