Simulating notebook sections

[D-Nick 3]

I've been a casual user of Evernote for several years, but have never really got the hang of how to organise my stuff in it.  With the subscription changes last year, I ponied up for a paid-for account, and since then have making more of an effort to use it effectively.

However, I am still struggling with how best to organise things in Evernote. I frequently find myself wanting to have another tier of structure, below a notebook and above a note.  I have searched through these forums, and see a lot of people saying that isn't necessary, because you can do it all with tags, but I haven't yet found anyone saying *how* to do that.

Here's a particular scenario.  I take a bunch of adult education classes.  I am trying to have an Evernote stack which is all of my personal classes.  Each class has a notebook.  But I want a division below that, because otherwise I just end up with an unstructured mess of notes, clippings, web pages, PDFs, etc in that notebook that I can’t find my way around.  For example, in my current Corpus Linguistics notebook (class), I want a section that contains tips and notes and manuals about how to use the software tools we use on the class.  I can’t make them a single note, because I want/need to be able to clip various different web pages and stuff to refer to, and I can’t see how it’s possible to structure a note to have lots of web pages clipped into it.

Or should I be using the notebook as my section, so that every class has, say a dozen notebooks – one for each week or topic of the course, another one for software notes and manuals, and another for reading?  In that case the class would become a stack, but what do I then use as a level about the stack?  Where is the “shelf” where my all my different class stacks live?

Any suggestions on how to create the structure I want using the note->book->stack limitation, plus tags?

[DTLow 5,672]

I basically have a single Filing Cabinet notebook

The following is a sample tag structure.  You can also have shortcuts for quick access

Adult Education
     Personal Classes
           Corpus Linguistics
                Tips
                Notes
                Manuals

I acutally prefer applying two tags to the notes   tag:Corpus Linusitics tag:Tips
This way, the Tips tag can be used for other subjects
 

[Greg Vaughn 1]

I would like to find a way to structure my notes similar to what D-Nick is trying for. And what DTLow suggests, but without having to use Tags. 

For example, in my traditional paper-based office I have a filing cabinet drawer for Workshops. Within that drawer I have file folders for individual workshops. Within each file folder I have multiple pieces of paper that are the equivalent of notes (lists, maps, research material, etc.) 

Using Evernote, I want to be able to click on Workshops in the Notebooks section of the sidebar, then click on a workshop name to see all the notes that pertain to that workshop.

Is there a way to structure Evernote like this?  I really don't want to have to tag everything and then search on tags. 

 

[DTLow 5,672]

23 minutes ago, Greg Vaughn said:

For example, in my traditional paper-based office I have a filing cabinet drawer for Workshops. Within that drawer I have file folders for individual workshops. Within each file folder I have multiple pieces of paper that are the equivalent of notes (lists, maps, research material, etc.) 

Using Evernote, I want to be able to click on Workshops in the Notebooks section of the sidebar, then click on a workshop name to see all the notes that pertain to that workshop.

Is there a way to structure Evernote like this?  I really don't want to have to tag everything and then search on tags. 

Your traditional example had three levels; drawer > folder > document

Evernote has Stacks > Notebooks > Notes

As an alternative, there is a Tags feature.  On my Mac, I can organize the tags in an unlimited hierarchy;   Parent Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > ....

[Greg Vaughn 1]

Thank you DTLow!  I did not know about Stacks and I did not see that feature in the basic Help FAQ on how to organize notes and notebooks. 

[CalS 5,008]

6 hours ago, Greg Vaughn said:

Thank you DTLow!  I did not know about Stacks and I did not see that feature in the basic Help FAQ on how to organize notes and notebooks. 

Remember that there is a 250 notebook limit as you design your use case.

[Greg Vaughn 1]

Thank you for that csihilling. So far not a problem for me. 

[CalS 5,008]

You are welcome.

[Athena13 12]

I realize this post and its replies are several months old, but I have some follow-up questions, if someone can help. 

1.  DTLow mentioned they were able, on a Mac, to put tags in hierarchies.  Is that something possible only on a Mac, or is it an EN feature I should be able to find on Widnows app/website?  I have not seen anythign on it and would like to do it.  

2. I also saw that someone else talked just about applying multiple tags, which I can do, but I would like to get a visual of the hierarchy, so I can more easily ensure consistency of the hierarchy workaround and don't have to go through each note or each combination and manually check.  

Any perspective or direction is appreciated.

[Marcs 0]

Tags are great, but unfortunately, you cannot sort notes by tags, only filter, which means you'll never see everything. I use the following workaround:

I defined a number of icons for different types of notes:
🗄 .Reference Materials

🗂 .Index / Table of Contents

📑 .Working Documents / Work in Progress

🗓 .Meeting Notes

💡 .Thoughts & Ideas Notes

✅ .Next Action Steps

🔥 .Inspiration

💥 HOT & IMPORTANT right now

🤔 Someday/Maybe

 

I add such an icon to each note, and then sort the notes by title. Evernote will show the notes with the same icons nicely as grouped.

[Marcs 0]

On 10/21/2017 at 4:26 PM, DTLow said:

Your traditional example had three levels; drawer > folder > document

Evernote has Stacks > Notebooks > Notes

As an alternative, there is a Tags feature.  On my Mac, I can organize the tags in an unlimited hierarchy;   Parent Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > Child Tag > ....

What I'd like to see is Stack > Notebooks > Sections > Notes

[DTLow 5,672]

7 hours ago, Marcs said:

What I'd like to see is Stack > Notebooks > Sections > Notes

My vote is for a parent-child hierarchy (unlimited levels)

[Daliboroslav 0]

Yes please! 
update: i started switching allmy notebooks into Tags and must say it’s gamechanging! Never been happier and productive with EN! Deffinetly it was my blindeness guys! Start using Tags! 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Daliboroslav
Tested new approach

[PinkElephant 4,878]

There is a long running thread about nesting notebooks.This here is just another thread about the same issue, which IMHO makes no sense.

You can vote for the original thread if you want.

[vladcampos 323]

8 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

which IMHO makes no sense.

100% agree. The combination Notebooks + Tags it's an alternative that can mimic the indentation and, IMHO, has more benefits than nesting notebooks. In a traditional file system, nesting makes it impossible to categorize the same file in different folders. Tags solve that on Evernote.

[PinkElephant 4,878]

… plus nesting, as we know it in classical folder structures leads to the duplication of files - because folders are 1-dimensional. So instead of putting several tags on the same file, the file is duplicated into several folders. 

My „no sense“ remark however was about „yet another thread“ about a subject already discussed in all details in a thread that is much older.