(Archived) HELP: Notebook vs. tags: New user seeks advice

[zumajay 0]

Hi,

I have just begun to use Evernote as a resource for collecting various pieces of information that I want to record for both personal and professional uses. However, I’m a bit stumped by the relationship between Notebooks and Tags, and how I should best use them to organize information. The way that the two are used probably various from person to person, but I am hoping that the forum can give me some ideas to get me started.

I like the idea of hierarchical organization such as nesting. However, I also like the idea of cloud-based filtering, with tags whose size is based on the frequency of their use (I recently posted a question about clouds and Evernote).

How would you recommend that I set up Evernote with respect to Tag nesting and Workbooks? I can pretty clearly divide my life up into two zones, work and personal, just like most people. Of course, I can also subdivide each of those. For example, I am a Teacher, and I have to lecture and develop course material. Those functions are usually independent. Should I create a Workbook for work, with top level tags for “development” and “lecture” with tags that further subdivide via nesting? In other words, presume that I am making a note about the objectives of the fifth lecture of the course. That note would be created as part of the notebook “Work” and would be organized within “Work” via the following nested tags:

“lecture”...”lecture 5”...”objectives”

I’m really having trouble figuring out how to structure information in a way that makes browsing and retrieval of the information minimally difficult.

The whole issue could be solved if tags could be displayed as a cloud, as I mention above, but that doesn’t seem possible with Evernote.

[sterlingz 7]

Hey there. Sadly, what you propose is probably the best way to go about organizing your info with the state of the software at this time. Folders for notebooks and better tag management (including a tag cloud) are some of the most often requested features on these forums, but Evernote is mum about when, if ever, these features might materialize. If you do some basic searches in these forums, you will find lengthy discussions on these subjects pretty quickly.

So the best bet is to proceed as you suggest. I've made the mistake of both too many notebooks, and too many tags, and it makes it difficult to find things sometimes. So a simple organization strategy like you've laid out will serve you well.

Also, I just came across this blog post in another forum discussion - it contains some invaluable searching syntax that will help you find things more quickly.

[jbenson2 2,149]

You're on the right track.

Keep the number of notebooks small for very high level stuff.

Job (current and previous employment)

Personal (family stuff)

Misc (catch all)

Hobbies (fun stuff)

Non-sync'd (stuff not in the cloud)

Try converting some of your tags to smart tags.

Lecture (parent)

Lect5-obj (child)

Lect6-obj (child)

Lect6-names (child)

This would allow you to do a wild card search: Lect* or Lect6*

Another example of organizing your tags:

Company (parent)

Com-IBM (child)

Com-Ford (child)

Com-Target (child)

[steveborgatti 0]

The beauty of notebooks is that if you move something from, say, your "next action" notebook to your "completed tasks" notebook, it disappears from the first and appears in the second. With tags, you have delete the @next action tag and add @completed tag. But notebooks are not very flexible (not nesting; can't mention more than one notebook in a search), so you end up using tags.

If only tags could be grouped like Windows radio buttons so that when add @completed you automatically lose @next.

[danrhiggins 10]

I am hoping for the addition of "smart notebooks" akin to "smart collections" in Lightroom or "Smart Foliders" in Mac OSx Finder or "Smart Albums" in Apple's Aperture. Don't get me wrong. I use notebooks. But because they are limited in nesting depth I am not able to use Evernote for so many things. For example, if I have a Work stack of notebooks and a Customers notebook and can't nest individual customer notebooks within the Customers notebook. What I can do is tag items by customer (and other tags if appropriate). Yes, I can search for those tags and I can save searches. But I want to create dozens of saved searches corresponding to customers and I want them all grouped together into some common structure. I may also want to add Smart Notebooks for "Active" or "Dormant". I would like to be able to use more than just tags but also date-related info (like creation date or modified date) and possibly other note-specific info.

Bottom line is that I would like to be able to use Notebooks and Tags together. Maybe this is really a Saved Searches comment but for me Tags and saved searches tend to go together.

[peterfmartin 221]

Welcome to the forums, Dan. Before seeing this post, I responded to your post in the Mac forum.

I'd recommend starting with this conversation: "How I use tags to replicate nested folders." If you have more questions, please ask away.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

neither tags nor notebooks for me.

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernoteresearch.html

but, i am an odd bird. i think, as a rule of thumb, i would use tags whenever possible, and notebooks only if you absolutely must. the tags are just a lot more flexible for most tasks.

as for teaching, if i were to use notebooks/tags (i don't. i simply title my lectures YYMMDD keywords -- "120426 his 101 lecture 05 birds bees premodern japan"), i would have a notebook for professional and a notebook for personal. in the professional notebook, i would have a tag called "class-his101-2012spring". next semester, i would use the tag "class-his102-2012fall". i don't see much point in nesting tags myself. they sort themselves out fine this way. and, no reason to distinguish between lectures you give and classes you take. whenever possible, i try to avoid making distinctions without differences.

[jimmymac2112 0]

Tags are good - notebooks are good, however I really think you need another layer. Spaces. Furthering the idea by Zumajay... I have personal notebooks and I have work related notebooks. Rarely do the tag groups overlap and yet I have to see a TAG listing of FAMILY, UNCLE BUBBA and VACATION in my work related tags and vise versa. I could get over it if I only had a dozen tags, however I am getting into the 30 or 40 tags so far and building as Tags is a great way to find/filter info.

So I thought having higher level in Evernote, like "spaces" would be a great way to go vs having to use a different user ID. Your advance search could transcend all spaces, however from a metadata and TAG perspective you have autonomy within each space.

You follow?

[jimmymac2112 0]

Tags are good - notebooks are good, however I really think you need another layer.  Spaces.  Furthering the idea by Zumajay... I have personal notebooks and I have work related notebooks.  Rarely do the tag groups overlap and yet I have to see a TAG listing of FAMILY, UNCLE BUBBA and VACATION in my work related tags and vise versa.  I could get over it if I only had a dozen tags, however I am getting into the 30 or 40 tags so far and building as Tags is a great way to find/filter info.

So I thought having higher level in Evernote, like "spaces" would be a great way to go vs having to use a different user ID.  Your advance search could transcend all spaces, however from a metadata and TAG perspective you have autonomy within each space.

You follow?

Alternatively you could have the TAG list be dynamic when you are in a particular notebook (e.g. only relevant TAGS appear when you are in the notebook). Right now (Chrome browser) I go into my WORK notebook and UNCLE BUBBA shows up and he shouldn't.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

i agree that these are possibilities to consider in further developing the tags. as a way to hack/tweak the current system, you might want to try jebenson's method of organizing tags.

[jefito 5,598]

Alternatively you could have the TAG list be dynamic when you are in a particular notebook (e.g. only relevant TAGS appear when you are in the notebook). Right now (Chrome browser) I go into my WORK notebook and UNCLE BUBBA shows up and he shouldn't.

I don't follow your original point, but if you use the "Hide Unassigned Tags" setting, then tags that do not relate to your current search filter (including notebook selection) will not be shown in the tag list.

I'm not sure what "spaces" would bring to the table; it's a little fuzzy as to what they are, how they'd interact with tags and notebooks, and if they actually give you any actual extra functionality.