(Archived) Evernote time tags

[Dacadey 0]

Hi!

Being a user of GTD and Evernote at the same time, I am wondering whether it is possible to add time tags to the notes made in Evernote.

E.G.

I make a note "buy HDD", I add the tag "errands", but I would also like to specify the date when I will be going to do it - let's say 20/10/2012. So, is there any way to do it? Obviously not manually, creating 365 tags is really annoying thanks!

[jefito 5,598]

Evernote does not support due dates at this time. I don't think that time tags will do it, for the reasons that you cite. You could override your note's Created date, set it to a date in the future. You can then use a search of "tag:errand created:day" to find errands that are "created" today or later.

[Dacadey 0]

. You could override your note's Created date, set it to a date in the future.

Can you please tell me how to do this?

Actually, what I think would be a great solution (and quite a simple one to implement) is next to "add tag" in the note section make something like "add time tag", and when you press it, a simple calendar pops out and you choose the date.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

. You could override your note's Created date, set it to a date in the future.

Can you please tell me how to do this?

Actually, what I think would be a great solution (and quite a simple one to implement) is next to "add tag" in the note section make something like "add time tag", and when you press it, a simple calendar pops out and you choose the date.

Hi. I use Evernote in a similar way, but with the date and time in the title (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernote-organization.html). One benefit of doing it this way is that you can work with your notes on the iPad and iPhone, which do not yet allow you to edit metadata like the created date.

[jefito 5,598]

. You could override your note's Created date, set it to a date in the future.

Can you please tell me how to do this?

You didn't say which Evernote client you are using, but I use the Windows client.

• Select the note that you want to modify
  
• Ensure that the Full note Info panel is deployed by pressing F8 until you see thee Created and Updated date displays, right under the note title
  
• Click on the Created date control, and set the date
  

Actually, what I think would be a great solution (and quite a simple one to implement) is next to "add tag" in the note section make something like "add time tag", and when you press it, a simple calendar pops out and you choose the date.

I'm struggling to see how a tag whose name was a date/time would be of much general use. You can't make much use of it in searching, for example. I think that GrumpyMonkey's suggestion of augmenting the title is better, but even that has limitations with respect to searching. Created date actually has search support (though as noted elsewhere in the forum, its implementation has some flaws).

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

. You could override your note's Created date, set it to a date in the future.

Can you please tell me how to do this?

You didn't say which Evernote client you are using, but I use the Windows client.

• Select the note that you want to modify
  
• Ensure that the Full note Info panel is deployed by pressing F8 until you see thee Created and Updated date displays, right under the note title
  
• Click on the Created date control, and set the date
  

Actually, what I think would be a great solution (and quite a simple one to implement) is next to "add tag" in the note section make something like "add time tag", and when you press it, a simple calendar pops out and you choose the date.

I'm struggling to see how a tag whose name was a date/time would be of much general use. You can't make much use of it in searching, for example. I think that GrumpyMonkey's suggestion of augmenting the title is better, but even that has limitations with respect to searching. Created date actually has search support (though as noted elsewhere in the forum, its implementation has some flaws).

My system doesn't work as well for ranges of dates, but it isn't all that bad. For example, a search for "intitle:1210*" will show all notes for the month of October. It has some important advantages for anyone who meets the following criteria:

(1) Do you move in and out of apps a lot? My system usually results in a unique note name, which will be a huge help if you ever need to move your things out of Evernote into another app in the future. For example, I had to do it this month because of trouble I am having with Evernote in iOS, so I exported my notes as HTML, imported my notes into VoodooPad, and every one of them is linked up (VoodooPad interprets any page title as a link), and my personal wiki is ready-made. Something similar is easily accomplished in Notational Velocity as well. Again, this is only for people who tend to move in and out of apps a lot.

(2) Do you have events regularly occurring on certain days of the week (students / instructors)? I keep a daily journal (generated each morning if it doesn't already exist) and title it "YYMMDD journal day of the week" so a search for "intitle:thursday" will turn up every thursday note I have. Try that with Created Date

(3) Do you work on mobile devices? You cannot edit metadata like Created Date on mobile, so if your workflow involves mobile devices, then I strongly recommend against relying on manipulation of the created date.

The Created Date is pretty cool, but I think it is terribly limited until we gain access to the data on mobile.

[flexiblefine 4]

...I would also like to specify the date when I will be going to do it - let's say 20/10/2012. So, is there any way to do it? Obviously not manually, creating 365 tags is really annoying thanks!

I use date tags all the time, and I do my tagging on the Windows and Mac clients. I format my date tags the other way (#2012-10-20 for your example) and I hide them in the sidebar by nesting them under a top-level "Dates" tag. When I expand the top-level tag, there are all my dates sorted in order.

Each day I expand the Dates tag, select the current day's tag to bring up all the notes with that tag, select all, add my "!today" tag, and then delete the date tag from the sidebar.

Then I have "Today at Context" for each of my few contexts so I can go right to my appropriate lists.

[May 268]

(3) Do you work on mobile devices? You cannot edit metadata like Created Date on mobile, so if your workflow involves mobile devices, then I strongly recommend against relying on manipulation of the created date.

You can change Created Date on mobile with third party apps, e.g. TagEver, MoveEver, even Evernote Food (but Food is limited to Food only notes). Also you can batch edit multiple notes in those apps. Note links could also be generated and copy/pasted with Clever app.

It blows me away that small independent third party developers implement all this stuff. They probably don't even profit all that much from those apps either since they're so obscure.

[jefito 5,598]

But they have a built-in potential installation base of 40 million or so...

[Candid 167]

You may also wish to read Daniel Gold's ebook on using Evernote with GTD: http://www.degconsulting.net/evernote.html

He uses a different set of tags to work more directly with GTD's Next Action concept.

You can also see another GTD inspired use of Evernote at The Secret Weapon: http://www.thesecretweapon.org/