Howto: Journal in Evernote - new thread

[southernforge 69]

Hi,

I first posted the below in what is probably an orphaned thread, hence my reposting as a new thread; if doing so goes against forum guidelines, I welcome correction.

Well ... sometimes I forget to record a journal entry for a given day, and want to record it the following day.

With an app such as IDoneThis, it's a very easy thing, just choose the day I want the note associated with, and start typing...

But Journal for Evernote is limited in that you can only make entries for the current day, and no previous days... is that a correct reading of things?

Workaround? (other than me always recording things the day they happen, heh.)

How do you accomplish this, or do you just use a 3d party app?

Thanks in advance!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi. Welcome to the forums. Here is how I use Evernote for my daily journal :

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernote-organization.html.

You can also change the created date if you'd like to do that instead o utilizing the title field. Evernote is pretty flexible that way

Did I understand your question correctly?

[Rutland 6]

I have been using Evernote for a year or so for journals. I have separte notebooks set up for Medical, Pets, Financial, Travel, etc. Journals. Around 75% of my entries are done on the iPhone or iPad, and, like you, I struggle with entries that need postdating (since I rely on Created Date as the Journal entry date). It's disappointing that the i-apps do not allow editing of the created date, so that means I have to wait until I'm back at the desktop or have the laptop open to edit the date (assuming I remember). I've also tried Journal for Evernote and find having everything lumped into a single day less desirable, and, as you say, once again the entry can't be post-dated.

I have tried some stand-alone journal apps, but I really like the flexibility Evernote has (adding web clipping, embedded files, no limit on number of pictures associated with an entry, etc). I have tried Awesome Note, which does sync (sort of) with evernote and allows created date to be edited, but it mucks up the formatting and can't handle things like embedded pdf's. So, I'm still back to wanting to use Evernote as the one-stop shop.

I have also tried the Evernote Food app as a way of journal entries. It's nice because it does allow post-dating (in fact the UI for this is really nice), but it creates a locked entry that can't be edited in Evernote, so I can't move it to the correct notebook. Very frustrating - so close, yet so far.

And, of course, Text Expander isn't supported, so you can't easily add current date/time easily.....

Bottom line is right now I just make the entry and if it needs postdating I flag it with a star and put the date/time in the note. Then go back and clean up later changing the crated date/time using the Mac.

One other thing that I've been struggling with using Evernote for journaling is being able to export/print out a chronological diary. I really got frustrated with the Mac app, but then I found that the Windows version does allow for export of notes as a single HTML file that includes date created, date edited, tags, etc. And, it includes all photos, embedded files, etc. This option, for some reason, is not available on the Mac. I run the Windows version, by the way, on the Mac using Wine.

I know this doesn't help you much. I hope someone has a better solution.

[thermion7 0]

I had a Geocities (remember them?) journal dating back to July 10, 1998.

I was able to recover about half of the entries (yes, they are still out on the web even though the site shut down) and now I am trying to make a single repository for all of the journal entries I have from 16 years.

I downloaded the free Journal App for iphone, and saw that it created a stack called "My Journal" with a notebook called 2013 where it placed new entries.

So I went ahead and created 15 more notebooks in the "My Journal" Stack - 1998,1999,2000 etc.

I started copying the old entry... going to the appropriate year creating a new note and pasting the contents.

Then I titled the entries with a date - "04/10/1998 - Happy Birthday"

Since all of my notes have the same creation date... the title allows me to 'sort by title' to get all the old entries back into chronological Order.

Has anyone else dealt with this challenge? How did you cope?

[southernforge 69]

Hi all. I started this thread almost ago and did not respond to your replies. It appears rude, and I regret that; however, I had surgery that kept me from being as active with Evernote as I would have liked. Thank you for your understanding.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi all. I started this thread almost ago and did not respond to your replies. It appears rude, and I regret that; however, I had surgery that kept me from being as active with Evernote as I would have liked. Thank you for your understanding.

Thanks for dropping by to tell us that. I hope that the surgery went well and your recovery is progressing nicely. We hope to see you around more on the forums!

[southernforge 69]

Thank you! I do plan to be around more - the Evernote apps seem especially useful, but they won't be fully so until I learn more about using them well.

[beholder121 7]

I'm reviving this thread yet again... 

 

I have a windows PC and a chromebook, which filters out most of the app discussed here automatically. I am also pretty comfortable with Evernote itself, because I want to keep a very simple journal: images and fancy formats and emails and reminders and such belong with my projects, not my journal. That's my philosophy for now. 

 

I don't want to keep my complicated ideas in the journal. I will probably still use mindmaps for these and develop ideas separately. The philosophy behind my journal (for now) is the 5Ws: Who (did I meet) Where (did I go) What (did I do) Why (did I do what I did) and When (general daily outline by hours). Because I'm a writer and I spend a lot of time writing anyway and separate time on my projects (also in Evernote) I don't want to repeat these in my journal; I just want the "headlines." Managing headlines like that would probably allow me to keep a daily journal or almost daily journal if I want to. Blurbs of information. 

 

My issue (seems like this is always my issue) is how to categorize things in the journal. I currently have 100+ notes from two years ago which are just a bunch of thoughts in no order. I need to divide them into things that make more sense, and it's going to be challenging, because if I tag things by certain people or, say, something like money or relationships as a tag, it means that 80% of my notes are going to be tagged this way. We're talking about subtags again which is something I mentioned a week ago in a different post. 

 

The idea for now then is to start a week of experiment of daily journaling and see what are the main topics and what tags would fit. My problem is that usually I tend up spending too much time journaling, (I like to ramble in case you haven't noticed) so I'm going to try to put strict time limit on this, which will further aid me also in keeping it a daily habit (because it's quick and simple)

 

So, what are your thoughts regarding this topic?

[Futuregrace 0]

I just do it in Evernote itself now. 

Made a Notebook for "Journal 2014"

Press "Shift Command D" at start of each entry for date stamping it.

Then journal. Add pics, audio, etc. to it. Done.

 

So far it's worked great.