79 replies to this topic

[danielegold]

I recently interviewed Grumpy Monkey for my site on how he organizes Evernote. I've always been fascinated with his posts and his site. In my interview, I take it even deeper. There's so much I think we can all learn from his setup -- even if we don't apply it in its entirety! Thanks so much and I hope you all enjoy the post! Hit the link to view. Cheers!

[gazumped]

Nice (and very detailed) post. GM's organisation is an inspiration - and a source of considerable envy - to us all. Although I thought the name was more to do with a philosophy than a tea...

[jbenson2]

I recently interviewed Grumpy Monkey for my site on how he organizes Evernote. I've always been fascinated with his posts and his site. In my interview, I take it even deeper. There's so much I think we can all learn from his setup -- even if we don't apply it in its entirety! Thanks so much and I hope you all enjoy the post! Hit the link to view. Cheers!

A super job well done! Documentation and images with the with the classic who, what, when, where, and why clearly explained.
Including the hook about Grumpy Monkey's name to keep the reader engaged.

[BurgersNFries]

Very cool interview!

[May]

This is great to see what works for different people and how they personally organize things in Evernote, we can learn and get a lot of value and inspiration from this!

I like GrumpyMonkey approach, it really highlights the fact that you don't need to organize a lot of things and can just rely on decriptive titles/keywords for the most part. There is still some organization, e.g. Journal, but it's used only when it's really helpful to the user instead of trying to organize everything into some encompassing categories, e.g. Home/work, to have a safety net for everything

[mdalves]

Excelent interview. Thanks a lot for sharing with us.

[GrumpyMonkey]

a big thank you to daniel for posting so much helpful information about evernote on his sites, asking me for the interview, and doing such a great write-up.

also, i want to say thank you to everyone on the forums that have given me great advice on how to make better use of the application. i hope my small contribution can give back a little of what i have received from all of you!

as for the name, sorry to disappoint! it is a silly thing, really. but, sometimes nicknames stick. i always wanted to be called barracuda, but i always end up as a monkey...

[JMichael]

I recently interviewed Grumpy Monkey for my site on how he organizes Evernote. I've always been fascinated with his posts and his site. In my interview, I take it even deeper. There's so much I think we can all learn from his setup -- even if we don't apply it in its entirety! Thanks so much and I hope you all enjoy the post! Hit the link to view. Cheers!

Daniel,

Thanks for sharing. Your blog is excellent -- clear, well organized, and an easy read.

Clearly GM has a system that works well for him, and perhaps many others.

GM and I have discussed his system in various threads, but I would like to provide some counterpoints in the interest of providing a balanced view for others, particularly new users, who may read this thread. As others have stated, the "best" system is the one that works for you.

@GM: Many thanks to your contributions, and a willingness to discuss and debate issues in a very respectful manner. I know I have learned much from you, and I hope others have benefited from our discussions.

First, let's start with GM's system, from Daniel's blog:

How he uses Evernote
Christopher’s magic lies in the way he names his notes. Every note has the same syntax:

YYMMDD keyword keyword keyword

No tags. No notebooks. Just the default one Evernote makes you create.

You have outlined the advantages of GM's system in your blog.
IMO, there are some pitfalls with this approach.
Maybe they only apply to me.

In any case, here are the pitfalls I see:

• Note Title
  
  • The Title embeds metadata in it that are readily available as separate fields in Evernote: Creation Date, Tags
  • Since you have to type the complete title, it is subject to typos and spelling errors
  • A lot of Notes come from web clippings which automatically provides a good Title in most cases, so I don't have to waste time typing a Title
  • By prefixing the Title with date and keywords, you loose the ability to sort on a descriptive title.
• "YYMMDD" -- Why Not use Created Date field?
  
  • GM argues that "we naturally remember things chronologically"
    
  • I don't think this works for everyone, especially me.
  • I can remember most events, but not necessarily the date, or even the year, in which the event occurred.
  • As I study and learn about the same subject over the years, I can remember the facts, but not when I learned them
• By entering the date at the beginning of every Note, you are always forced to sort by date even when you choose "Sort by Title"
  
  • Most of the time I do NOT want to sort my Search results by date
  • I want to sort the result by descriptive Title so that similar Notes are grouped together, regardless of when I entered the Note
• The Evernote "Created Date" field can be changed to the same content-related date as you would type using "YYMMDD". But if today's date is what you want, you don't have to enter anything.
• This would allow you to enter a descriptive title that is indicative of the Note contents
• Then you have two meaningful sorts:
  
  • By Date
  • By Title (descriptive)

• "keyword" -- Why Not Use Evernote Tags?
  
• GM's use of "keyword" in the Note Title is an attempt to classify or label the Note in the same manner that Evernote Tags do.
• However, manually typing the "keyword" in the Title looses most of the advantages that Tags offer:
  
• Tags eliminate typos and spelling errors since you are always selecting from a list.
• Tags allow you to consistently use the same Tag when there might be several alternatives (e.g., "Auto" vs "Car", "Folder" vs "Notebook".
• Tags allow you to quickly search/select Notes by clicking on Tag in the Tag list, or selecting a Tag on the Favorites bar
• Searching/finding Notes by Tag is very easy in the mobile EN Apps like EN iPhone/iPad. You don't have to remember what tag was used, or how to spell it.
• Tag names are easily changed, whereas it would be a real chore to change the "keyword" in all Notes that it is used.
• Today we can sort by Tags in EN Win
  
• Hopefully in the near future we will be able to sort by Tags in all EN Clients

[*]By entering "keywords" in the Title, you loose the benefit of a descriptive Title that you can sort on.
[/list][/list]I provide these comments with the hope of providing a more complete, balanced, view of organizing Notes in Evernote. There is no one perfect or best system. Each of us has to go through the journey of discovering what works best. I, for one, am still on that journey, and I have learned much for all of you that post your thoughts and suggestions in these forums. Thanks to you guys for helping me understand the benefits of tags, and how to use them.

[May]

JMichael, there would always be some pitfalls when you look at a one sided approach, what really matters is - do those pitfalls matter to you personally...

As I've said in a different thread - any approach/solution that says "this is the only and the best way to do it", is very likely to not work great in some cases.  There is no such thing as a one-sided solution, especially when dealing with personal information database.

Real solutions need to be some of this and some of that. It's not a this VS that thing.

Notebooks, tags, unique keywords/random codes, note links.
Any of those things could be used as a main method of organization and all of them are still useful in some different cases regardless of what's your main organizational method.

I think most people use all of the possibilities/functionality Evernote provides (except random codes) to at least some extent but if you don't really need some functionality then there's obviously no point in using it just because it's there.

I do agree though that tags are very useful for many reasons and work better than keywords in titles in a lot of cases. They're easier to add for example.

I personally use both keywords in titles and tags but for different purposes..

For example I add a type of a note to its title. Type of a note is something which describes what a note represents and any note could have only one type.
For example some notes are my own thoughts and I add "Thoughts - " to its title; some notes are used for mind maps and I add "mm"; some notes are describing how to do something and I add "Tips - " and etc. Some other Types I use: Articles, Books, Others - [name] -, Lyrics, Video, Image and etc.

Those Types in the beginning of a note title make it possible to sort notes nicely by name even when they are still kept in a single flat list and of course this could also be used in search.

The key here is that any note could have only one type which describes its essence (kind of, not exactly, of course) but a note could also have many additional tags, so whenever I look at any list of notes sorted by title - they're always sorted nicely and it's easy to read and navigate.

I personally don't usually use dates in titles unless the date is important, for example if it's a photo or a video log.

I don't remember information by date at all, dates are useless for me as metadata, I only use them as actual data in a vast majoriy of cases, i.e. the date is usually something that I want to find out, not something I use to find other notes...

I think GM intention really was just to share his workflow as an example of what works for him personally, not as the best way to do things overall.
I find it very interesting and valuable to look at things from a different person's perspective

[GrumpyMonkey]

@jm

great points. thanks for making them! i think they will benefit anyone looking for ideas on how to improve their organization, even if i disagree with some of your arguments. it's always nice to hear alternatives and to think again about how i am doing things.

i would like to stress that the way i do things is a potentially useful solution for people who don't want to spend time organizing, because it basically organizes itself (chronologically). the more time you are willing to spend building notebook and tag systems, the less compelling my approach might sound. it also matters how much time you spend on desktop or mobile evernote versions, because i think my system works especially well with the ios client, where you cannot (for example) edit metadata.

i call myself a minimalist, but that is really another way for me to say i am a tidy, lazy person basically, if you are wondering how much you can strip down an organizational system and still have it perform efficiently, then this will give you one answer.

@may

indeed. daniel was kind enough to ask me for an interview, and i was happy to oblige. as you said, i only want to share my perspective. i am not proselytizing. this works for me, and it (in pieces or whole) might work for you.

[nova47]

Good interview and posts. Always interesting and helpful to hear personal methods. Thanks for sharing.

[rmw1]

Read the article and found it very enlightening...love the index card idea and have implemented as of yesterday...as one who struggled with numerous notebooks and tags the simplicity of GM's system hit a nerve...am slowly converting to simpler system now that I understand searches etc...Thanks DG

[GrumpyMonkey]

Read the article and found it very enlightening...love the index card idea and have implemented as of yesterday...as one who struggled with numerous notebooks and tags the simplicity of GM's system hit a nerve...am slowly converting to simpler system now that I understand searches etc...Thanks DG

glad to hear! if you have any questions about implementing it, feel free to ask

[aomumu]

This minimalist approach is about as natural as it can get for me. I'm an ex OneNote user an I love simple searching. With my Flyer and simple solution then I carry my digital life with me.

The biggest differences for me are four digit year, semilogical note titles and extensive use of linked notes.

The final wow was saved searches in android. Means I can easily track my work in throughout the day.

Love the simple world.

[danielegold]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your awesome comments!! The extended dialogue here is amazing - as always - and I'm learning more and more every day from all of you! Truly - thank you!! Cheers!

[rmw1]

Thanks again for this great info Grumpy Monkey..I have converted to your method for the past week and am getting comfortable with all the search capabilities and love it...had 65 notebooks and 42 tags previous....now three notebooks and search..search is a problem now though.. I am on a committee that reviews bills in state legislature...some are HB others SB... I have saved YYMM DD SB or HB...how can I search for HB and SB to review both types?
Thanks in advance

[JMichael]

. . . search is a problem now though.. I am on a committee that reviews bills in state legislature...some are HB others SB... I have saved YYMM DD SB or HB...how can I search for HB and SB to review both types?

I don't know if this can be done with having the keyword in the Title, but if you used Tags you could create the following tags:

• BT.SB
• BT.HB

Then, when you wanted both Bill Types (BT), you could use this Search expression:
tag:BT.*

[GrumpyMonkey]

Thanks again for this great info Grumpy Monkey..I have converted to your method for the past week and am getting comfortable with all the search capabilities and love it...had 65 notebooks and 42 tags previous....now three notebooks and search..search is a problem now though.. I am on a committee that reviews bills in state legislature...some are HB others SB... I have saved YYMM DD SB or HB...how can I search for HB and SB to review both types?
Thanks in advance

hello. glad you are finding my strategy useful. if i understand your question correctly, then if you have titles like "120324 senate bill" and "120324 house bill" then you can just search for "intitle:bill" to see both. "intitle:senate" and "intitle:house" will allow you to see them separately. the key here, as with the tags jm mentioned, is to have some element that they both share in order to return the search results you want.

does this answer your question?

[rmw1]

Thanks JMichael and GM..after reviewing both it dawned on me that I could solve the issue by tagging or being more descriptive...following what GM said I added Leg Comm to all the titles and voila a search of intitle:Leg Comm brings all notes up...as always this forum has solved my challenge..FWIW I liked the GM style of fewer tags and notebooks so adding the description in title met my need... awesome guys

[GrumpyMonkey]

glad we could help! it sounds like you have adjusted your workflow to take advantage of evernote's search parameters. that is definitely the best way to go about things, and takes a bit of trial and error.