I have destroyed my evernote need help organizing it

[lisbeth 4]

I have been using Evernote for years LOVE IT I have made all my friends and my family download it. And they love it as well.

I have unfortunately/fortunately used EN as my second brain and it has saved my behind on an infinte number of occassions

So what is my problem? My evernote looks like the inside of my brain. I know there are apps like Clearly which helps capturing web sites without the "other stuff" is there an app that allows for organization by:

Pages/thoughts/pics from mobile

" Computer

" iPad

" etc

Is there any organizational app that allows for EN to be cleaned up of old stuff that isnt needed anymore?

I have searched the boards but didnt find anything any help is greatly appreciated

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

This is what Evernote's tags are for. There is a lot of discussion on the board about tags. I would suggest you read them as they can be very helpful. Descriptive titles are helpful too & are also discussed on the board.

[lisbeth 4]

Thanks! I have been using EN for so long that unfortunately I do use it as second brain and tags never became a part of how I utilzed my EN and now I find myself in a quagmire. Do I delete years of and countless notes and start over or do I find something else (not gonna happen I ♥ EN to much) I feel like this is going to be a painful process and I was hoping a developer had created an app for "people like me" who just do "brain dumps" into EN. *singing if I could turn back time* :/

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I think you should start by making a list of the topics you tend to look for. If you've been using it successfully for a long time, then you should have a feel for those topics. I'm not even sure I fully understand what you're trying to achieve since you've been using it (apparently successfully) for so long. Yes, when I scroll down through all my notes, it's a mish mash of various notes, screen caps & camera photos. But when I use the Evernote search function (sometimes along with tags), I'm able to isolate the note(s) I'm looking for. Are you not finding notes you're looking for? Are you finding too many notes when using the EN search?

[lisbeth 4]

Please dont laugh (I know to late) I am trying to organize several projects I am working on and of course as I find my research I just "dump" them into EN.

Because I have been using EN since it debuted I have always used it as a dump now I want to be able to

1) set up notebooks i.e. Project 1

2) send notes, clippings, pics, audio etc and have them go into "notebook Project 1" so I can see them chronologically

3) Be able to extract task from the notes

and me-thinks I just asked for to much :/

Btw thank you so much for responding I truly appreciate it!

[brucequinn 8]

I tried using tags and found I was just as happy with adding the letter z before a key word. For example, the name Williams occurs in many news articles and so on, but zWilliams is always my client Williams. This also lets you tag things without cluttering up your tag list and making it dozens of entries long. Anyway, it works for me. And searching for zWilliams instantly creates the equivalent of a folder for the Williams company. g

I think Lisbeth's point is well taken though. What works well for a couple years - even a good tag method - after 5 or 10 or 12 years, you would have an awful lot of stuff.

I suppose I could use a tag like zTEMP and then every six months delete everything older than a couple months that has the word zTemp in it.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I think Lisbeth's point is well taken though. What works well for a couple years - even a good tag method - after 5 or 10 or 12 years, you would have an awful lot of stuff.

I've been using Evernote since 2008 & have over 50,000 notes. I rarely delete notes. If my searches return too many notes, I do things like add an "archive" tag to them (then add the -tag:archive to my search) or refine the search by created date or sort by updated date. There are many ways to isolate the notes you're looking for.

[lisbeth 4]

@Bruceuuinn: Thanks for all your insight, it looks like I have to "retrain" myself in the way I use EN this is going to be tough...I am also looking into several apps I found on iTunes....none will be the magic bullet but some sound like they maybe useful with organization going forward...as for old notes. I think I may wave the white flag