(Archived) New Notebooks

[macbuz 0]

I'm a little amazed that creating new Notebooks is a Menu Bar item or alternatively created with a modifier key.

Aren't Notebooks the central organizing scheme? The top level of organization? Seems to me there would be a Toolbar icon for new Notebooks, or perhaps I'm missing something. I'm a new user so maybe that's the problem, maybe something I haven't figured out yet.

Thanks for any clarity.

[jefito 5,589]

Notebooks are the way that you partition your collection of notes, but i'd say that tags are the central organizing theme. Regardless, generally speaking you're going to create a lot more notes than notebooks, so you optimize that operation.

[macbuz 0]

I see. sort of. I guess as being new to EN I find myself creating quite a few new NBs but have to admit I'm creating more Notes than NBs. I'll have to do get more accustomed to tags too.

[jefito 5,589]

Honestly, I feel that that if you don't get the hang of tags in Evernote, you'll not be using it effectively. I actually have a only a small number of notebooks -- my account is for personal use, and I mainly use tags for organization. I think that if I had a different use case, like business, where sharing is possibly more important, I might use more notebooks.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I agree with Jeff that you want to wean yourself away from notebooks. Not that you can't use them, I have several. But IMO, you need to learn to use tags, accurate titles & keywords as well. Also, when people are new to EN, they seem to tend to overtag, IMO. See this post.

[jbenson2 2,147]

I see. sort of. I guess as being new to EN I find myself creating quite a few new NBs but have to admit I'm creating more Notes than NBs. I'll have to do get more accustomed to tags too.

Be careful. Many new users create too many notebooks. I've got over 10,000 notes in just 7 notebooks. examples: Personal, House, Work, Leisure, Miscellaneous.

[macbuz 0]

Ok, I see I have to rethink my organizational 'style', I'm just used to having many (folders / notebooks).

I guess for an example then ... Instead of having a notebook for Mac OS I could have a notebook - Computers and tags for MacOS. In this example I'm not sure what a higher category for Computers would be. Likewise, software, printing, networking and on and on would be tagged.

This will take some getting used to.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Ok, I see I have to rethink my organizational 'style', I'm just used to having many (folders / notebooks).

I guess for an example then ... Instead of having a notebook for Mac OS I could have a notebook - Computers and tags for MacOS. In this example I'm not sure what a higher category for Computers would be. Likewise, software, printing, networking and on and on would be tagged.

This will take some getting used to.

I believe you are on the right track. A notebook for computers might be too limiting however. In my case, I put anything relating to computers, software purchases & licenses, tech answers, mobile phone info, cable TV, internet, and Evernote info into a single notebook.

[jefito 5,589]

I generally think of tags as adjectives that describe the note content. They need not form a strict hierarchy, since some tags may apply equally well in several areas. I just try to think about how I'd search for a note when I apply tags.

For example, thinking about computer software yields two tags "computers" and "software". I have tags for the applicable OS, so "windows", "linux", etc. And I am a programmer, so I have "development", plus a few for specific languages: "c++", "python", "javascript", etc. The "computers" *is* at the top-level of my tag tree, but I don't use it all that much, since if I am dealing with a note about software, that's pretty much about computers anyways (though I am not wholly consistent about it) -- it's mainly for organization.

So, for example: Microsoft Word: "windows" "software". Evernote is an interesting case, because it spans OS's, but mainly I use Windows so it's "software" "windows" "productivity" for most Evernote-related notes ("productivity" isn't kept under "computers").

And so on, and so on. Ultimately, it's largely a matter of individual taste / style.

[macbuz 0]

Yeah - well - I appreciate the replies here. Thinking I have the 'gist' of EN but still a long way to go. I can already see the advantage to fewer NBs.