I too use something of a who/what format, but I put the date in front as YYYY.MM.DD. I generally have an idea of the time frame of a note I’m looking for, and use keywords in the search function to narrow it down. Then I can search by date.
Thanks. I don't use tags much at all so always good to hear about other use them. I like the idea of cleaning them up every now and then. I do that myself with notes and notebooks.
Another interesting post. Like you I tend to review my "system" a couple of times a year - to tweak things to make better sense of things, and potentially to take advantage of new EN features. I guess my "system" currently embodies some of concepts from both GTD and PARA. I'm a minimalist when it comes to tags. Your post is making me rethink how I title my notes better; I've been focussing on making my task titles better, but I think I need to review how I title my botes.
OK, makes sense - but isn't it more flexible&clear to use tags for Who, What and When? I for example use "~<Who>" and "=<What>" tags, set the CreationDate for When and "<Year" for grouping When to years... In addition, I've "@<Where>", "!<Project" and some minor tag groups for other staff like "#<Keyword>". Doing so, you're free to give notes any subject, create SavedSearches in Favorites for often used listings and avoid to spelling errors...
But as You already mentioned: One of the great things about EN is the flexibility of systems. 😉
"~<Who>" and "=<What>" tags, set the CreationDate for When and "<Year" for grouping When to years... In addition, I've "@<Where>", "!<Project" and some minor tag groups for other staff like "#<Keyword>".
... just frazzles my brain 😂 Life is too short lol.
Interesting. But I wish I could tag subjects within a note so that when, for example, I'm meeting with a client and reviewing 10 projects, I don't have to scramble from project notebook to project notebook to get everything in the right place.
That's interesting. I'd like to tag tasks and events. That would be useful but hadn't thought about other elements. Maybe we could tag headers and images!
Have you tried a separate table of contents note where you link to the various projects for the meeting?
For the short term, I have decided to create a daily note with a list of all my scheduled meetings (I am, generally, back-to-back from 8:30-5 with them) and, next to the meeting title, an internal link to the notebook relative to the project the meeting is about. It's 20 minutes of set-up each morning, but better than scrambling from notebook to notebook. When it is a meeting that covers multiple projects, I just have to copy/paste into the appropriate notebooks as part of my follow-up.
Not sure if there's a typo in the part about shared notes ("could" may be "couldn't) but I am not clear on the exact use case. Does this remove someone else's notes from my EN or my notes from someone else's EN?
I too use something of a who/what format, but I put the date in front as YYYY.MM.DD. I generally have an idea of the time frame of a note I’m looking for, and use keywords in the search function to narrow it down. Then I can search by date.
Nice. One of the great things about EN is the flexibility of systems. We should all have our own way of doing things.
I should say, then I can organize by date.
Create date and Modify date helps too... keeping things organised - but yet fluid.
This is a great approach. I use kind of the same setup except I do use tags for certain "Whats", like Receipt, invoice, vet...
Also, even if I use the "Who" in the title, I typically also have a tag for it.
Nice. Do you have many tags? What's your process for remembering what tags you have?
I have way to many tags, just checked 509!!
I don't actually have a process to remember. There are tags that are frequent use, some who and what and sometimes where.
But I do tend to go a little tag crazy at times. Other times I don't tag at all relying on "search" if/when I need to come back.
Every once in a, long, while I go through and delete a bunch of one-offs and clean things up a little.
I find that who and where, if needed, are pretty easy. It's the what that really gets out of hand.
Same problem with my LightRoom catalogue ;-)
It's a work in progress and probably always will be.
Thanks. I don't use tags much at all so always good to hear about other use them. I like the idea of cleaning them up every now and then. I do that myself with notes and notebooks.
Another interesting post. Like you I tend to review my "system" a couple of times a year - to tweak things to make better sense of things, and potentially to take advantage of new EN features. I guess my "system" currently embodies some of concepts from both GTD and PARA. I'm a minimalist when it comes to tags. Your post is making me rethink how I title my notes better; I've been focussing on making my task titles better, but I think I need to review how I title my botes.
OK, makes sense - but isn't it more flexible&clear to use tags for Who, What and When? I for example use "~<Who>" and "=<What>" tags, set the CreationDate for When and "<Year" for grouping When to years... In addition, I've "@<Where>", "!<Project" and some minor tag groups for other staff like "#<Keyword>". Doing so, you're free to give notes any subject, create SavedSearches in Favorites for often used listings and avoid to spelling errors...
But as You already mentioned: One of the great things about EN is the flexibility of systems. 😉
Now for me...
"~<Who>" and "=<What>" tags, set the CreationDate for When and "<Year" for grouping When to years... In addition, I've "@<Where>", "!<Project" and some minor tag groups for other staff like "#<Keyword>".
... just frazzles my brain 😂 Life is too short lol.
The flexibility of Evernote is great.
Interesting. But I wish I could tag subjects within a note so that when, for example, I'm meeting with a client and reviewing 10 projects, I don't have to scramble from project notebook to project notebook to get everything in the right place.
That's interesting. I'd like to tag tasks and events. That would be useful but hadn't thought about other elements. Maybe we could tag headers and images!
Have you tried a separate table of contents note where you link to the various projects for the meeting?
For the short term, I have decided to create a daily note with a list of all my scheduled meetings (I am, generally, back-to-back from 8:30-5 with them) and, next to the meeting title, an internal link to the notebook relative to the project the meeting is about. It's 20 minutes of set-up each morning, but better than scrambling from notebook to notebook. When it is a meeting that covers multiple projects, I just have to copy/paste into the appropriate notebooks as part of my follow-up.
Always worth setting up the day. I spend five or ten mins every morning sorting out what I have to do.
Not sure if there's a typo in the part about shared notes ("could" may be "couldn't) but I am not clear on the exact use case. Does this remove someone else's notes from my EN or my notes from someone else's EN?
Typo! Nice spot. Just fixed it.
It removes notes that other folks have shared with you and you don't want anymore. It only removes from your Evernote.