(Archived) Opinions sought - when to use notebooks versus tags

[Richard Feynman 7]

Realizing this is a highly subjective question, I'm curious how others decide when to use notebook stacks to categorize content versus using tags. For example, once could create a stack such as:

Reference (stack)

- Health (notebook)

- Science (notebook)

Or one could simply create a notebook called

Reference (notebook)

and then use tags to categorize all reference information.

Or for that matter Health could be a stack with notebooks beneath it.

Bottom line:

1. Do you have a consistent technique

2. If you do I would enjoy hearing about it.

It would even be fun to see screenshots though I suspect that for privacy reasons that won't be possible for many. Speaking of which, last question:

3. Are there any notebooks samples or screenshots users have shared or posted anywhere here?

[gazumped 11,652]

I'm still writing my own process guide for sorting data, which will include notebooks, tags, titles and keywords; but as a quick rule of thumb I think we should aim for everything in one main notebook with suitable tags and titles. My incentive to move away from that is purely to generate cleaner and qucker searches. The more information you have in your database, the more likely it is that several web page/ cutting/ comment/ documents will contain any search word or phrase you can think of. I found forinstance that after a while my fairly extensive library of press cuttings (about various subjects of interest) were polluting searches on any subject. So now the cuttings have their own notebook. I also don't want to see stuff related to closed projects or old jobs unless I'm making a special effort, so a couple of items have their own Archive notebooks. All new data (except cuttings) goes into my central database still, and I can search that database with reasonable certainty that my results page will be manageably short, and will contain the item(s) I need. Sometimes it doesn't, and my first look is to add or edit tags to highlight the item I need.

I expect this sort of maintenance to be a more or less continuous process (by experience from past databasii) and no doubt it will throw up other items that need their own space. But not too many I hope.

[Owyn 457]

I agree in principle with gazumped. But, tend to have a few more notebooks.

There was an excelllent discussion recently on this and related topics.

PS: I found the above url by searching in my Evernote database for "evernote misc". It turns out that searching for "gazumped" would have worked as well.

PPS: I personally would use a "Reference" tag in the example cited.

[Owyn 457]

Oh, and my organizing principles?

- I'm lazy. Be efficient.

- KISS

- Less is more.

- If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

- If you fix it, don't break it.

[megsaint 441]

I use a fairly small number of notebooks (about 10-12) and lots of tags. I don't use stacks at all. And the reason is very simple: they didn't exist when I started using Evernote and I have not particular need to change how I'm organizing things as it works for me. However, I very much prefer a non-hierarchical filing system. I don't arrange my tags in trees so I feel no need for sub notebooks (which is what stacks really create). There do seem to be a lot of folks who want a very Finder/Explorer type nested folder structure. I find I spend too much time trying to figure out which folder to put things in with that sort of set up. With tags, I just add as many or few as seem relevant at the time (and change them as my needs change) and dump the note into, usually, my main notebook.

The other reason for possibly not relying on stacks is that (correct me if I'm wrong) they haven't been deployed across all platforms yet. I use Evernote on Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows 7. I tend to minimize my use of features that aren't available on all of them.

[gazumped 11,652]

Oh, and my organizing principles?

- I'm lazy. Be efficient.

- KISS

- Less is more.

- If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

- If you fix it, don't break it.

Totally agree

[jbenson2 2,147]

1.) The only reason I use a notebook stack is to hide some slow moving notebooks that contain local advertisements, trivia, and miscellaneous stuff (example: my quarterly dumps of my Neat Receipts into Evernote). I have not found any other benefits yet.

2.) My opinion is the key difference between a notebook and a tag is:

• Notebook: broad subjects (employment, personal, leisure)
  Tag: more specific (project names, name of doctors, retail store names, cut-the-cord issues)
  

[Owyn 457]

I tend to use a lot of transient notebooks for active tasks.

Work flow is:

Start a task which I know is going to generate a lot of notes.

Create a notebook for that task.

New item shows up in "Inbox", ie. Evernote default folder, which is task related.

Quick review of item. Cleanup title. Move to task's notebook.

Periodically cleanup tags for all notes in notebook. At the minimum I should be able to find all these notes, and preferably, just these notes WITHOUT using notebook in search.

When task is complete, do final cleanup and move all the notes in this notebook to some other higher level notebook.

Remove task specific notebook.

A business related example might help.

A "Network Review" is starting now for "Some Client".

Notebook: "Work - 2011Q3 - Some Client - Network Review

Tags: "Work" "2011Q3" "CLI-Some_Client" "PRJ-Network_Review"

Rollup Notebook is "Work - 2011"

Notebook stack is "Work"

[Richard Feynman 7]

1.) The only reason I use a notebook stack is to hide some slow moving notebooks that contain local advertisements, trivia, and miscellaneous stuff (example: my quarterly dumps of my Neat Receipts into Evernote). I have not found any other benefits yet.

2.) My opinion is the key difference between a notebook and a tag is:

• Notebook: broad subjects (employment, personal, leisure)
  Tag: more specific (project names, name of doctors, retail store names, cut-the-cord issues)
  

The challenge for me with EN is adapting to it's limitations. I'd find tags 10x as useful if I could create a few columns or fields with special attributes. As an example, a name field. Then I could use tags in a much more targeted way. I really don't want to use tags for name fields (i.e. doctor in your example).

I know there is a 250 notebook limit. Is there a tag limit? Do you stack your tags since it sounds like you use a lot of them?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I know there is a 250 notebook limit. Is there a tag limit?

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=20719&p=87023&hilit=10%2C000#p87023

[jbenson2 2,147]

I know there is a 250 notebook limit. Is there a tag limit? Do you stack your tags since it sounds like you use a lot of them?

I believe the tag limit is 10,000

Yes, I do stack my specific "child tags" under broad "parent tags". I have about 750 so I have a long way to go. An example:

• Company
  
  • Com-Amazon
    Com-ATT
    Com-Blackberry
    Com-Blue-Cross
    

• Family (*just my immediate family members)
  
  • Fam-JLB
    Fam-DLB
    Fam-BEB
    Fam-WPB
    

However, half of my tags are used for a special purpose. I am a political junky. I use Evernote tags for hundreds of local, national and international political issues, political acronyms and the names of politicians (80 Democrates, 63 Republicans, 37 Pundits) and 22 international leaders. It helps a lot due to the odd spelling.

For instance, different media (depending on the country they print it) use different spellings for Gaddafi?

• Moammar Gaddafi
  Muammar Gaddafi
  Moammar Gadhafi
  Muammar el-Qaddafi
  Muammar al-Gaddafi
  So I just one tag for the variety of these different spellings: tag:"Gaddafi Muammar". That one tag will find all notes with all of the 5 different spelling variations.

For you healthy young bucks, the name of your doctor is probably easy to remember. But as you move from location to location and get older, the number of doctors increases dramatically. Evernote does a good job in piecing the names from the past together.

.

[Owyn 457]

Just for the record:

The maximum number of tags per user is 100.000. A note can have up to 100 tags.

/Peter

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=27752&p=117285#p117285

[jbenson2 2,147]

Owyn, thanks for the clarification on the number of tags per individual note.

100 tags for one note = fingernails scraping across a chalkboard

[Richard Feynman 7]

Thanks for the answers. Only 100 tags per note ? jbenson, I'd love to see your EN file (not seriously asking). You sound like you're really disciplined about your tagging and input method. It's a little challenging for me because in my case I'm using EN for what I like about it, but having to adapt my work to it for all the things it it doesn't do. As an example tags would work a lot better for men if it employed Delicious type tagging (FF add-on) which I find incredibly powerful and useful. But I know the "how tags should work" is a common discussion here.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Thanks for the answers. Only 100 tags per note ? jbenson, I'd love to see your EN file (not seriously asking). You sound like you're really disciplined about your tagging and input method.

Yeah, 100 tags would be too much even for me. Your comment got me to do a quick review of my tags. I swapped over to to the List View, killed the Left Panel (F10), then stretched out the Tags column.

Most of my personal notes contain 3 or less tags. Just like the normal folks in this forum.

Even the more complicated political commentary website captures usually average under 6 tags. (the basic issue, a couple locations, with 2 or 3 politicians)

The note that had the most number of tags (a total of 10) was pulled from this website:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43474045/ns/politics-white_house#

- Afghanistan

- Boehner John

- Fed-Justice Dept

- Gaddafi Muammar

- Holder Eric

- Israel

- Libya

- Obama Barack

- War Powers Act

- White House

By the way, I don't spend much time determining what tag to assign. When I initially capture the note, I will make a stab at the most obvious ones. I have a large group of saved houseskeeping searches that I use once a month to find missing tags for issues, places, and people. I use the bulk marking option (Ctrl Alt T) to assign a tag to all the selected notes with a single click. Over the long term, this helps find and tag notes that slipped through the crack. It is not as tedious as it sound, thanks to the Evernote hotkey "Find in Evernote" which I renamed to F5 ( >Tools >Options >Hot Keys).

.

[jefito 5,589]

The simple answer is: Use notebooks when you have to; use tags otherwise.