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Newbie seeking enlightenment!


mastersj

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Hi all,

 

I've been lurking for a while and feel that it's finally time to come out of the darkness and introduce myself.

 

I'm John, Married to Abby from Norwich in England. I stumbled across evernote a couple of years ago when Abby and I were planning our wedding. I'm an IT geek by trade so found this to be an awesome way of collating / collecting things for the Wedding in a space that was easily accessable.

 

After we got married, I really left Evernote gathering cobwebs. I've just been laid up ill for about a month now and discovered it again as a very welcome distraction - it was either this or I'd start watching daytime TV - and if there is anyone from the UK here, you'll appreciate the desire to stay as far away from Jeremy Kyle reruns as possible :)

 

So, that brings me up to speed with where I am now. I'm a bit lost to be honest. I've got myself in a bit of a mess and I don't really want to "play around" any more and mess things up further. I'm looking for some help, feedback and advice on my current notebook structure. (see attached image)

 

notebooks.png

 

What I'm trying to achieve is that nirvana of a single repository for everything home and work related. Is this achievable or too complex a task to manage if it was possible to implement?

 

I make use of the email upload facility, although I've always struggled to get the notes to automatically go anywhere other than the default inbox, untagged and lonely!

 

Also, I've recently discovered the web clipper, which is great, and the IFTTT website so have a couple of recipes running from that.

 

Anyway, before I rattle on for way too long, thank you in advance for any helpful pointers anyone can give me!

 

Regards

 

John

 

PS: Is there a "meet up" culture with evernote users? If so, is there an active UK group?

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

OK, I'll pop a view in.  I think the consensus of the forums, as well as my own opinion, is that there really is no 'best way' to organise your information in EN.  It is *your* information, so EN provides a reasonably flexible structure for organising things the way you want.  In short, if you are able to grasp mentally the structure you show above, then it is the right structure for you!  Some people use lots of notebooks, others lots of tags, while some have a 'flat' structure and rely on the search to find what they need.  It all depends whether you are inherently a 'browser' or a 'searcher' or some combination of the both.

 

I can help more definitively with the emailing to EN issue, however!  See this article from the knowledgebase.  Basically, you can add keywords to the subject line of an email to your custom EN address as follows:

  • '@' followed by an existing notebook name (e.g. @Insurance will direct the emailed note to the 'Insurance' notebook)
  • '#' followed by an existing tag name

It is not possible to create notebooks or tags via this method.  If the name does not exist the note will go to the default notebook and/or be untagged.

 

Hope this is of benefit.

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You might want to look at David Allan's book "Getting Things Done" for organizing ideas.  One way to do this using EverNote Tags is given at the http://www.thesecretweapon.org web site.

 

Merlin Mann also has a web site http://www.43folders.com that has additional information on ways to organize information.

 

Julie Morgenstern also has a number or personal productivity books about organization and time management.  Her web site is http://www.juliemorgenstern.com/.

 

You can also search the forums for terms such as GTD and 43 folders for what has been posted here.

 

Remember, these are *suggestions* for how you might want to work.  It will have to fit to how YOU want to work.

 

Just don't go overboard on productivity  http://vooza.com/videos/productivity-porn-test/

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Mastersj - I offer 2 comments that might help you get more response from the experts who monitor posts in this forum.

 

  • You say you got yourself in "a bit of a mess" with your Notebook structure. I scanned your list of Notebooks. It looks OK to me, not my cup of tea, but it could work. What is it that you don't like about it? If you offer more detail, that might prompt more responses.
     
  • What makes you think you haven't achieved a version of "nirvana" that works for you. Some details may be helpful.
     
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  • 4 weeks later...

349 views and not a single opinion?

 

Im in a mess with my EN too so was interested in seeing the response. 

I ended up searching online a while ago, and found an interesting review comparing EN with OneNote. He basically said he felt one wasnt better or worse than the other, just work completely differently, so it depended on what works for us. He also said he uses both and syn's both on his phone and computer. So I tried that planning to use One Note for Plans, goals, projects etc, and the other one for General organisation. But I cant get my phone OneNote to work so I got into a worse mess lol.

 

I realise this isnt useful, just sharing.  

 

I was incredibly impressed with the way you set up your EN the way it looks. Unless thats how it looks in mac. 

 

I think this is my first time posting in here too. You inspired me   :)

 

Helen

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  • 11 months later...

Your notebook structure looks fine to me.  As David already mentioned above Evernote is a highly customizable tool and the only "right way" to organize it is what is right for YOU.

 

How I organize my Evernote notebooks might not work at all for you and honestly in the last year I had to do a reorganization as it had stopped working for me.  

 

What helped me get my notebook and tag structure in a format that now works well for me was to plan it out on pencil and paper FIRST...kind of like a flow map.  I made a list of what notebooks I HAD TO HAVE and what were not as important.  Turned out for me the ones that were not as important turned into "tags" in to a generic notebook kinda like the one you named "stuff".  All the ones I deemed critical got their own notebook and that system has been implemented in my EN account and is working nicely for me.  

 

That doesn't mean I will not re-work the whole thing again someday as I am quite sure things will change in my life and cause me to do just that.  But for now it's working nicely. 

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