How do you handle Note-to-Note Relationships / Hierarchies?

[RY27 21]

What are the best practices from your experience (and experimentation) with Evernote to implement note-to-note relationships? I know that we can group notes in notebooks, and stack notebooks together and nest tags, but that doesn't always capture how the notes are related to each other (within those notebooks and across tags) as opposed to relating to the same topic or a number of topics or concepts. For instance, if you had a long note that you wanted to break down into related parts or have a number of related notes that you wanted to organize in some hierarchical order, how would you go about keeping those parts in a sensible order and separate from other notes that may share the same metadata with other notes (tags, notebooks, etc.)? Would you use the table of contents feature? If so, how do you distinguish your table of contents notes vs. regular notes, and how do you keep those table of contents constantly updated?

[DTLow 5,736]

I'm not a fan of Table of Contents because of the static nature
I prefer notes linked by a tag and search; the note list becomes a dynamic TOC; i.e. constantly updated

>>how do you keep those table of contents constantly updated?

My solution is to save the search behind the TOC and do a  manual update.
Running the search produces an up-to-date list of notes.

 

 

 Filterize is a third party solution that keeps TOCs constantly updated
I could do something similar with scripting on my Mac.

>>how do you distinguish your table of contents notes vs. regular notes
    ...a number of related notes that youwanted to organize in some hierarchical order

I don't have a need to distinguish TOC notes from regular ones.
I do need to control the sequence in a list of notes and I'd want the TOC note at the top of the list.

An example is a list of project notes.  These are identified by a tag, and I view the list in title sequence
-Project: Master Note with TOC
++Task (Next Action)
+Task
>Task (Completed)
Miscellaneous Notes 

Here's an example of a set of notes with a TOC 
I tried to emulate the tabs at the top of a web browser
This TOC is repeated at the top of each note

 

Another TOC used as a web anchor page
Each sub-note contains a link back to the main page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Daily Journal contains TOC sections.
I populate these each morning using a search and the copy links feature.
The template also contains various static links; notes or web pages

wAL

[gazumped 11,661]

Hi. 

15 hours ago, RY27 said:

if you had a long note that you wanted to break down into related parts

I tend to avoid long notes where I can.  Organizing several notes is relatively easy - if they're found in a search,  or spring from a larger note breakdown,  I keep them in one list on screen and create a ToC.  I can mess around with the order by dragging items into place within the ToC.  Then I can title the notes with dates or sequential numbers so that they're forced into the right order on a search.  If I need to add more information I can check the list and choose an appropriate date or number so it stays in the right place.

As usual with Evernote;  it doesn't have to be rocket science,  it just has to work for you.

[OMNIZEN 86]

On 8/17/2018 at 6:59 PM, RY27 said:

What are the best practices from your experience (and experimentation) with Evernote to implement note-to-note relationships? I know that we can group notes in notebooks, and stack notebooks together and nest tags, but that doesn't always capture how the notes are related to each other (within those notebooks and across tags) as opposed to relating to the same topic or a number of topics or concepts. For instance, if you had a long note that you wanted to break down into related parts or have a number of related notes that you wanted to organize in some hierarchical order, how would you go about keeping those parts in a sensible order and separate from other notes that may share the same metadata with other notes (tags, notebooks, etc.)? Would you use the table of contents feature? If so, how do you distinguish your table of contents notes vs. regular notes, and how do you keep those table of contents constantly updated?

It all depends what’s the context I would suppose. What I suggest and whay has worked for me, is using notebooks to group a related topic. And then use Tags to group related items.   Tags are best because they can span to many notes & notebooks without being limited. They are also the fastest way opposed to other methods. Keep it simple and effective, consider using the tags feature. 

[jbenson2 2,147]

There are some good tips already. My tips on using Evernote - currently at 52,000 notes. The two most important parts of Evernote are 1.) tags and 2.) title structure. 

The purpose of Evernote is to store information for easy retrieval. To enhance search accuracy, I rely on these tips.

* Title for each note always starts with appropriate Date Code [yyyymmdd]

* Title has a consistent and structured structure [date location subject person]

* Learn Evernote's search grammar - here is link to a cheat sheet
http://www.cheatography.com/senseful/cheat-sheets/evernote/

* Notebooks - stay with just a few broad categories [avoid getting close to Evernote's max of 250]

* Tags - can be very specific and/or detailed [Evernote's max is 10,000]

* Tags - keep them in lower case to avoid confusion

* Tags - don't use spaces, use underscore instead [hewlett_packard] to avoid using quotes

* Spelling variants can be added to the body of a note for improved search results [Gaddafi Gadhafi Qaddafi el-Qaddafi]

 

[DTLow 5,736]

25 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

Tags - can be very specific and/or detailed [Evernote's max is 10,000]

Tag limit is actually 100,000 but I don't recommend an excessive #; I have 300 or so

For tag organization, there is a tag hierarchy feature available on selected platforms.  I also use a prefix naming standard so the tags sort in order; for  example Budget, Budget-Rent, Budget-Food.  This also allows the use of wildcard searches like tag:Budget*

[CalS 5,280]

10 hours ago, jbenson2 said:

The two most important parts of Evernote are 1.) tags and 2.) title structure. 

I would add the search engine to any list of important parts of EN...  For my use case it stops me from having to do much in the way of title structure, re date, place, person, etc.  

IAC, if I get the title and/or tag wrong, I am comfortable that I will be able to find anything.  In the vein of this thread, tags are the linkage that I use, or the odd TOC where I want a bit of research consolidated in one place.

[RY27 21]

On 8/17/2018 at 5:19 PM, DTLow said:

I populate these each morning using a search and the copy links feature

Thank you for this. I did not realize one could copy links from a selection of multiple notes. That actually creates additional flexibility for searching and updating related TOCs.

These are all very interesting suggestions. One of the reasons I was asking this question is that I would like to create a hierarchy of notes in a TOC format, something similar to the below:

• item
  • sub-item
    • sub-sub-item
  • sub-item
• item
• item

Given what everyone has said above, it seems one way to accomplish this and keep this list updated, would be to create an initial/regular TOC with the required structure and links to notes, then associate each included note with a unique tag (let's say "Outline1"), and then run periodic manual searches with some date parameters for notes tagged with the "Outline1" tag to see if there are any new notes that should be added to the TOC.  Any thoughts on this?

Also, is anyone aware if there is a way to run automatic periodic searches? Let's say, run a search each week for all notes tagged with a particular tag during the past week and then create a new TOC using Filterize?

[DTLow 5,736]

6 minutes ago, RY27 said:

run periodic manual searches with some date parameters for notes tagged with the "Outline1" tag to see if there are any new notes that should be added to the TOC.

Each morning I have a script running a search with criteria   updated:day-1
I'm using this for incremental babkups, but it could be used for TOC updates.  

I'd also like to automate the TOC update but it's difficult if it's not the default list structure.

[DTLow 5,736]

15 hours ago, jbenson2 said:

* Title has a consistent and structured 

 

4 hours ago, CalS said:

I would add the search engine to any list of important parts of EN...  For my use case it stops me from having to do much in the way of title structure, re date, place, person, etc.

 

For me, lack of structure is an organization nightmare.
My notes have a consistent and structured title, and a defined tag structure. 
The screenshot is an example of a receipt note.
I process notes with a script (Mac) to implement the structure.

And after this when I still can't find a note, I use the search feature. ?

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Each morning I have a script running a search with criteria   updated:day-1
I'm using this for incremental babkups, but it could be used for TOC updates.  

I'd also like to automate the TOC update but it's difficult if it's not the default list structure.

Filterize is a 3rd party app which purports to maintain TOC notes.  No experience with it.  

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

For me, lack of structure is an organization nightmare.

Horses for courses.  I find tags to provide just the right level of structure for me.  Which means less work which is in tune with my efficient (read lazy) tendencies.  ?

[RY27 21]

2 hours ago, CalS said:

Filterize is a 3rd party app which purports to maintain TOC notes.

It does, but the usefulness of the feature is somewhat limited. You cannot add notes to your automatic TOC items or maintain any hierarchical structure other than the pre-determined order  (you can have it show tags, and other metadata also, though). Any such info would be stripped out and overwritten when the TOC updates.

[CalS 5,280]

18 minutes ago, RY27 said:

It does, but the usefulness of the feature is somewhat limited. You cannot add notes to your automatic TOC items or maintain any hierarchical structure other than the pre-determined order  (you can have it show tags, and other metadata also, though). Any such info would be stripped out and overwritten when the TOC updates.

Oh well.   Good to know.