Using the new Evernote 10 for GTD/TSW workflow?

[MvdH 393]

Hi there my fellow Evernote users.  🙂   I am very curious how/if people are using the new Evernote 10 succesfully for a high-speed, effective and efficient GTD/TSW system. I've read many many posts so far, and found no specific topic on it yet. I have seen @MissArdbeg @KnutBH @Oberdada @Stacey and a few more, mentioning fragments of what I also need. The most important ones being able to use/switch between saved searches and shortcuts FAST, and sorting by Tags for example.

First a little bit of context. I've been using an Evernote Premium user for as long as I can remember. I am very happy with the tool, the ideas behind it and being able to add and find items through my Android phone, and using Evernote for my daily workflow offline and synced to the cloud on multiple workstations. I rely heavily on the system I set up, inspired by Getting Things Done (GTD) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done and The Secret Weapon (TSW) https://thesecretweapon.org/. I use this to organise my workflow, my output, my information gathering and retrieving, for my business life as a COO and also for managing my private life.

Now my system. Evernote is essential for containing, supporting and executing my whole workflow, which is based on GTD/TSW. I use Evernote on Windows 10 and on the newest Android version. I use almost no notebooks. Only I've got time-based tags starting with !1-, !2- etc.., where I consider "Reference" and "Archived" and "Parked" material also time-based. I don't use location-based tags. I do use people or organisations starting with a ?   Colleagues I work with with ??   Clients start with $  and groups/teams start with **   and furthermore I use hundreds of tags for projects, domains, insights, etc. al starting with a slash /   Based on these tags I have around 100 saved searches I use weekly. See the attached image for an impression, if you like. 

Now for my process. During the whole day, meetings, 1-on-1 talks, working on projects, teams, etc., I context switch via saved searches many MANY times. So they should be one-click available in saved searches, and the ones I use that day like 50 times, are on the short-cut bar. I read/view about 200 notes every do to make choices, or to drill down to information. I change about 100 notes every day. Changing contents, lists, images, etc. in them, but also heavily changing tags, to add/remove people, change a status, a flow, or a team. See the attached image for an impression, if you like. I need the information fully operational offline and syncing to the cloud for across devices.

My questions. Does anybody that has comparable requirements for her or his external brain, that is using Evernote 10 succesfully? Has anyone tried to do so, and what are the experiences from this GTD/TSW point of view? How do you deal with the bad?  What have you found is the good?  How do you deal with these new cirtumstances? 

My stance right now, is waiting, gathering information, setting up a plan B (might be migration to another tool) and keeping an eye on Evernote, so it doesn't surprise me when they pull the plug on legacy Evernote or when the legacy won't work anymore with e.g. a newer version of Windows or Android. I hope they get the new Evernote to a level where it meets my demands. I hope they keep the old Evernote long enough. I am very reluctant (scared!) in upgrading, cause if my workflow gets bogged down, I might as well start looking for a new job, or a new life, as far as I'm concerned.

I hope people will chime in from this high performance workflow perspective like GTD/TSW. Thanks in advance, and thanks for reading so far already. 😉  Greetings and a smile, Mark

[MvdH 393]

Some discussion about friction in the whole tag adding/removing/editing process, and a little about sorting on the tag column » 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

On 10/15/2020 at 9:35 PM, MvdH said:

and sorting by Tags for example

This would be sorting the tags column in Top List View
Top List View has not been implemented yet - we're told it's planned for a upcoming update

edit; Top List View was implemented, however we're still missing sort by tags

[MvdH 393]

5 minutes ago, DTLow said:

This would be sorting the tags column in Top List View
Sorry, Top List View has not been implemented yet - we're told it's planned for a upcoming update

Ok, clear. Thank you for that! "An upcoming update" is a timeless statement, but at least it is there. So that is a must-have feature for my workflow missing right now. I'm curious how far people got with such a workflow, and what they still miss for that usage and also considering overhead of clicks/speedyness in usage/responsiveness of product. So far:

must-have-missing:

1. top list view, with ability to sort on tags column

[darioangelo 26]

@MvdH

You seem to be on a similar journey that many of us who are passionate about Evernote (EN) and GTD have been on.

From my own experience, our quest for an efficient and effective workflow,  invariably drives us to; minimising the number of tools (or apps), and making the most of our much loved EN which is the best for capture (and retrieval.)

The challenge is the GTD piece.

It is important that any system does not, consume inordinate time and gamify task management.

Whatever investment is made in terms of learning, subscribing to and administering a system, the system should deliver a tangible return. 

I have tried all the various techniques that singularly deploy EN (and even developed my own);  for me they all fell short in providing the agility and flexibility, and review of my work and personal deliverables.

My research and trials; finally led me to settle on Omnifocus which integrates well with EN and my email client;  Sparkmail.

Omnifocus, allows me to ”slice and dice” my tasks by any vector (perspective, in Omnifocus parlance) such as; contexts (tags)- people, agenda’s,  place,  projects, and even a return on effort (eisenhower), errands, etc.

It is feature rich and includes a cool geo fencing capability.

Realistically, EN, cannot be expected to cater for GTD power users , so we should deploy it's power to capture and clarify, and then organise, reflect and engage using Omnifocus or another similar specialised app. Most GTD systems singularly using EN, can become time consuming hacks, at least with the current EN version. 

Your task management needs are quite heavy; hence I would strongly recommend that you adopt a specialist app to work in concert with EN. 

Expecting EN to manage a power users task management needs, is no different to expecting say Apple to have a leading edge email client or calendar app, and satisfisfy it's broad user demographic at the same time; an impossible expectation - hence why , Fantastical, and Spark (and a few others) are popular for power users. 

EN future versions I suspect will better address task management. 

I hope this helps. 
 

In the meantime, let's hope for a better set (and reinstatement) of EN core features such as handwriting, pdf annotation and business card scanning.🤞

[DTLow 5,736]

On 10/15/2020 at 9:35 PM, MvdH said:

 I am very curious how/if people are using the new Evernote 10 succesfully for a high-speed, effective and efficient GTD/TSW system.

I'm running Evernote 10 side by side with Evernote Legacy
It's easy to test something like your "high-speed, effective and efficient GTD/TSW system"

btw  I graduated from TSW long ago; it's missing a critical component - Due Date
 I use the Reminder feature to store Due Date and Completion Date/Status   
I don't sort by tags

[Oberdada 28]

I have to contradict @darioangelo : There may be extreme heavy users like @MvdH for whom an external tool for GTD would be more efficient. But many users like me, who use GTD only for private or for a freelancer task management, EN was the perfect application so far. I find it extremely advantageous that I can organize and link all my data (information storage, document storage, GTD task management) in one single tool. I have access to all my data and tasks, regardless of whether I am sitting on a Windows PC, an Android mobile phone, an iPad or a third-party PC using EN web. That is the great strength of EN, that (almost) everything can be managed in one tool and linked together.

Now, with Evernote 10, workflows that have been used for years are completely broken for many people like me (or will be broken as soon as the EN legacy version gets switched off). But we are the paying premium and business customers that Evernote shouldn't put off!

Therefore I think it is absolutely essential that EN brings back most of the functions of the previous Windows version of EN! I may add (and this list is not yet complete):

1. ...,
2. side list view with freely definable and sortable columns (e.g. tags),
3. save the sorting for each saved search / notebook / tag,
4. shortcut toolbar,
5. view all notes in all subordinate notebooks by clicking on the notebook stack,
6. ability to click on several tags (or a combination of notebook/stack and tags) while holding down the Ctrl key (causes an AND operation, e.g. show all notes with tag X in notebook stack Y)
7. import folders,
8. keyboard shortcuts for creating new notes (while working in other applications),
9. colored tags / saved searches for a better overview,
10. ... ?

[darioangelo 26]

I completely understand and support where @Oberdada is coming from and his particular needs.

A task management approach should resonate not only with your thinking process, the type of work that you do, your level of responsibility and also your personal and community obligations. 

A trusted system enables a healthy detachment. 

For a long time EN was my go to GTD system (I have previously written about it in this Forum); it is now my capture (and reference storage) tool. I also use apps such as GoodNotes 5 for note taking and pdf annotation as Skitch just doesn't cut it.

So out if necessity, I am somewhat used to venturing out of the EN ecosystem to gain the sharpest tools. 

My work has many interfaces, and is high in its intensity- my particular setup helps me to deal with all it's moving parts. 

I look forward to the day when EN gains and regains sufficient features and capabily, so that I may once again rely on it exclusively for my GTD, and also save a bundle of money on other app subscriptions. 

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, Oberdada said:

But many users like me, who use GTD only for private or for a freelancer task management, EN was the perfect application so far. I find it extremely advantageous that I can organize and link all my data (information storage, document storage, GTD task management) in one single tool. I have access to all my data and tasks, regardless of whether I am sitting on a Windows PC, an Android mobile phone, an iPad or a third-party PC using EN web. That is the great strength of EN, that (almost) everything can be managed in one tool and linked together.

Agreed - Evernote is my GTD tool   
Still using the legacy version, but anticipate switching to v10 when work is completed
 

[MvdH 393]

Thank you all!

@DTLow for the hints/possibility to run both. I will face my fears and give that a shot...on a seperate system at first. 😉 I read somewhere notes get damaged in the new Evernote. But as I understand this only happens to editting complex mark-up notes. I'll never do that, I use simplify formatting almost automatically on every note anyway  [which removes highlighting, grrrr, but I digress].

@darioangelo  it is very true that I use Evernotes capabilities in a high-speed, efficient far-fetched GTD/TSW setup. See my screenshot above. I'm probably not the primary target audience. Keeping my flow, GTD, and reference information one fast system though brings me a LOT. There are little to no things I miss in my set-up. Also I am a wizard with Ctrl+Alt+T in a Note. Moveing to something else is going to be a pain. I'll stick to Evernote for now, hopeling they will build in my missing features. I wiss them also the very best. I'm the owner of an IT company, I know how difficult it sometimes is. However, they really make me feel they won't focus on power users anymore. The nerdynesh of Evernote is getting lost...it seems.......half my life is built on that.  I love the Omnifocus you pointed to. I'm a Windows/Android user.... Think it's not going to match, but it definately helped me on perspectives/considerations! Seperating my workflow management from my information storage is not something I want, but I'm also checking Microsoft OneNote <> To Do <> Planner for my setup. That also requires separation, but also has more clicks/steps in managing my workflow, I think so far.... Mmm... Don't like that.

@Oberdada  I agree. @darioangelo is a bit black white, but his perspectives really helped me. Evernote 6.x is NEAR PERFECT for what I do. Even with stupid things like removing highlighting when simplifying formatting. No complaints. I would pay 5x what I'm paying now for Evernote. Lots of value for me. However, Evernote 10.x might have new focus. "the 90%" or whatever. I realise I am in "the 1%" in demands for my workflow and speed and offlineness.... I'll not move away soon from Evernote BUT I am checking out Notion, the Microsoft solutions, Nimbus and others in the meantime. If they don't make Evernote 10.x fast, stored searches, and quick Tag changing, or if they seem to abandon 6.x too soon, then they force me out.  I love your list, it is the list I was thinking of building for my GTD/TSW setup. Only thing I don't need is the stacks/notebooks. I don't use those. Have you seen my screenshot how I GTD/TSW in Evernote?  How does that differ from your ways?  Is your process possible to capture in a screenshot, like I tried, I am really curious?

Thanks all, you really helped broaden my perspectives! More? Welcome!

 

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by MvdH
few typos

[darioangelo 26]

😀@MvdH

[OceanRoyale 2]

@MvdH Keep us posted as you try out some of the other apps, with the latest update killing my ability to sort by tag, I've begun looking elsewhere as well (currently evaluating Notion as an option, though not sold yet).  I was really hoping the TSW author would've updated his blog in light of the changing tool landscape but I think that ship has sailed.

 

Thanks!

[MvdH 393]

On 11/17/2020 at 7:51 PM, OceanRoyale said:

@MvdH Keep us posted as you try out some of the other apps, with the latest update killing my ability to sort by tag, I've begun looking elsewhere as well (currently evaluating Notion as an option, though not sold yet).  I was really hoping the TSW author would've updated his blog in light of the changing tool landscape but I think that ship has sailed.

 

Thanks!

I will. U2 please! For now I'm stting still, and waiting. In the meanwhile I use legacy version en quite happy with that. :-)  Same as what @DTLow is doing, I imagine. I really want "handle, tag, sort, find, saved search items like a Ninja again".  :-) 

[PinkElephant 8,076]

Personally I use Things 3 as my main GTD manager, and EN as supporting data base where I collect stuff. I found EN too weak on some relevant aspects even before v10 (just say „recurring reminders“), and it just got worse with v10. When I was force-upgraded on my iPhone, the Apple Watch App disappeared without any warning. For me this app was the quick way to drop anything that crossed my mind into EN. So I use the Things or the JustPressRecord apps on the watch, both working just fine.

Whoever designed this new version either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about supporting GTD (and related productivity methods) by this piece of software. I hope they will fix it by releasing new, relevant functions.

[DTLow 5,736]

11 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Whoever designed this new version either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about supporting GTD (and related productivity methods) by this piece of software. I hope they will fix it by releasing new, relevant functions.

Evernote is a generic service for note storage and organization 
There's nothing specific for GTD, but we can use the available tools

The TSW followers are missing Top List view and sorting of the Tag column   
We are expecting the addition of the this view "soon"

Personally. I always considered the Tag sort to be a hack, and I don't use it
I use a Reminder based system for my GTD processing

[PinkElephant 8,076]

There are 2 documents from the David Allen site: One describes a GTD setup in EN, the other a setup with Things.

When I started with GTD, I purchased both and read them, with my intended use case in mind. I found the EN implementation quite complex, and it messes things up if you use EN as an archiving tool as well. With Things there were much more native functions that are usefull in a GTD setup, and a much leaner way to operate it.

Since I am practically in the Apple ecosystem, I had not problem to set me up with Things, that does not support the PC world.

Now with v10 I am quite happy I am not depending on EN to run the show.

[MvdH 393]

Windows here..... 😒

[DTLow 5,736]

I should mention that I don't limit myself to Evernote's presentation of data   
The note-list paradigm is just too constricting

For presentation, I take my data to spreadsheets    
My GTD spreadsheet displays the data in a gantt timeline view

My data export is executed by an Applescript on a Mac    
It's automated to run on schedule overnight    
Script integration is pending for the Version 10 product

[MvdH 393]

Nice! For me I have every view/perspective that I want in Evernote (legacy), so I need nothing else for now. I don't work with far away timelines, so no Gantt or timeview needed. Sounds like a nice setup though DTlow, for when you need time based management. 

[jolee61 5]

This is a fairly old post, but it stikes at the heart of the issues with EN v10

I was the poor soul that created the TSW website and wrote the TSW manifesto, the reasons all entailed in that document.

I have not come up with any great alternative solution to date, though I have been casually playing around with Todoist and the IFFT integration with EN.

Apparently EN was sold last week to Bending Spoons, so something good or bad will be afoot.

I picked EN originally because of the unique way in which it allowed me to organize. Yet I am not program specific, and would be happy to find an equivalent vessel to do the job. It would help if I could import an ENEX file to it!

 

We shall see.

JDL 

[gazumped 11,652]

2 hours ago, jolee61 said:

This is a fairly old post, but it stikes at the heart of the issues with EN v10

I was the poor soul that created the TSW website and wrote the TSW manifesto, the reasons all entailed in that document.

I have not come up with any great alternative solution to date, though I have been casually playing around with Todoist and the IFFT integration with EN.

Apparently EN was sold last week to Bending Spoons, so something good or bad will be afoot.

I picked EN originally because of the unique way in which it allowed me to organize. Yet I am not program specific, and would be happy to find an equivalent vessel to do the job. It would help if I could import an ENEX file to it!

 

We shall see.

JDL 

WTF?

What's a "TSW Website and manifesto?"

I can export my notes wihtout issues.  Importing should also be pretty easy...  What exactly are you trying to achieve??

[jolee61 5]

https://thesecretweapon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The-Secret-Weapon-Manifesto.pdf

 

This was the original document I wrote to share TSW. When my friends said it was too complicated, I developed thesecretweapon.org for a video version.

Given the issues with EN v10 we are all experiencing, a new equivalent vessel would be good.

I haven't seen it just yet, and a good way to move the structure easily.

[MvdH 393]

Hi JDL. Thx for chiming in. Also much appreciation for your TSW manifesto/webpage. I still recommend it to many people each year. Very inspiring. When you use EverNote as a Ninja (like me) with TSW, the new version is WAY to slow and WAY too many actions per change. I am a COO of a mid-size IT company and I change >100 EverNote notes per day currently, all kinds of tags (context changes, timeline changes, project integrations, related people changes) and do so very efficiently. EN 10 is no way that works. Still on legacy, reading allong with v10 progression, alternatives, etc.. I'll be very curious if you introduce an optimal adapted version of TSW. Grtz & much appreciation!

 

[JackSprat 0]

@MvdH

Hope you're doing well! I've followed your posts here and elsewhere in the forum and can see that you are still seriously looking for a solution to the tags shortcuts and sorting issues in Evernote v10. I recently saw that you moved from using the legacy v6 to fully committing to v10 even though it has drawbacks for the TSW workflow. I'm curious to know, how are you currently addressing the issue with unsortable tags? In the TSW workflow, it seems like it is crucial to be able to sort by tags when reviewing work and updating them on a daily basis. I haven't figured this out yet.

For context, I'm recently new to the GTD/TSW system in EN and I started using it EN v10. However, when compared with the TSW manifesto setup guide, it is clear that v10 does not work the same way that v6 did when TSW originated. I started looking at alternative software options that provide better sorting but, while they exist (Clickup being my frontrunner alternative), the keyboard shortcuts for adding/editing custom fields don't exist so the workflow is even slower than editing tags in EN v10. So it seems like the gains of sortability might be outweighed by the loss in speed without keyboard shortcuts, so it feels like I'm stuck with using EN for now even though reviewing tasks seems painfully difficult.

What have you found to address this in v10?

[MvdH 393]

On 7/6/2023 at 10:54 PM, JackSprat said:

What have you found to address this in v10?

Hi JackSprat thx for you post. Hope you are doing well too. Sorry for responding way later than I wanted.

As a temporary solution I introduced extra tags to paperclip certain notes together.

So I use less saved filters, but miss them dearly. So for example, normally I'd have a filter for each of the 10 meeting/workgroup types I have in the company. So I would have a filter "!Management" which filtered all notes not having the archive tag, but having the mangement tag, and then sorted by the tags column, would produce all notes active or for reference/parked or today, or next or later (see my tags for this "time" aspect). That worked wonderfully. However, we do not have sorting. I now have an extra tag (sadly, but still effective and efficient enough to leave Evernote right now, but I am not an ambassador anymore until it is fied). This extra tag could be "**Management!" alongside "**Management" that I still use and add, as before. So I can see all notes related to **Management  meetings, but also produce only the active ones by filtering **Management! with the exclamation mark in it.

Please let me know if the above isn't clear. I can imagine that.

I want above all for my GTD/TSW methods to use Evernote as was promoted, and why you went this route. I want it to be mu go-to-tool, and it is. I have 15000 notes in it, each having an average of 3-5 tags, and 40000 notes in trash (because of lots of merging past 10 years). 

I still miss dearly however:

1. sort-by-tags-column in the list like we could in Legacy.
2. hide-unused-tags in the "Edit tags" Window, like in legacy, and make Esc button close that Window, like you should in Windows, now I need the mouse.
3. stability (not loosing data, have trust the elephant doesn't EVER forget)
4. performance (quicker search results, especially after via faster tag index updates after changing a bunch of tags, which I do as a TSW/GTD fundamentalist)
5. wish: after merging notes, keep backlinks working, keep reminder info (simply pick the soonest reminder in time and place that in the resulting note), I consider both of these a functional bug, data gets unnecessarily lost after merging 

After they deliver my missed features 😉 , I hope they would also introduce Microsoft Loop like functionality, which is basically the same as Notions synced-sections. The foundations for that have been layed by introducing RTE. If they do I'll voluntarily double my subscription fees, as a figure of speech, or stick around with a smile when they raise/double my price again.

I trust they will do things like Notion-synced-sections and add the missing GTD/TSW features, because it is the logical thing to do and not that expensive and there is an important community using Evernote this why. Why important? People that organize their work this way in Evernote most of the times think in value, have lots of contextswitching during their day and generally have the money and are willing to pay for that value.

[JackSprat 0]

Thanks for your response! No worries on the timing. I can't believe I saw it so soon after you posted considering I hadn't yet started following you. It was providential because I just happened to be in the forums looking at another issue off a google search and noticed the update.

Anyway, I really hope they produce the features again too! If for no other reason than simply to follow through on a full implementation of tags, since they seem to keep them around.

I personally landed on a different approach to the GTD method, abandoning TSW. In addition to providing a reliable structure for notebooks and notes and internal linking, with all of the EN keyboard shortcuts, it relies primarily on actually doing a weekly review, which I have reluctantly realized I cannot live without. Everything spirals out of control for me without that, even if I had all the speed of TSW, and trying to find a shortcut around that just hasn't worked. However, beginning to do regular reviews has been hugely helpful and reduced stress, even though my method isn't as fast as TSW.

As far as structure, it heavily uses internal linking in a similar way that Notion allows pages within pages to create infinitely deep dashboards. This gets past the otherwise flat three level hierarchy that EN provides by default (stacks / notebooks / notes). While I previously new about internal linking, I rarely used it compared to how I use it now. It has completely changed my mind about limitations I perceived in Evernote's hierarchy.

For that reason, I agree it would be nice if EN implemented Microsoft Loop functionality to provide synced-sections. I'm assuming when you refer to that, you're referring to the ability to, for instance, copy a certain amount of data from one place to another, creating a link instead of a copy, so that when the data is updated at the source, it updates at the link (or vice versa).