Keeping track of tags

[mmmadeli 1]

ETA I apologize if there's already a thread on this - I did a search and didn't come up with anything, but if this has been discussed to death, please just point me in the right direction.

 

I wonder if anyone has any advice for keeping track of how I'm tagging things in my Evernote database. I've been a casual Evernote user for a few years, but only recently started using Evernote pretty regularly to keep track of most of my reference material. I find that one huge barrier to me totally trusting Evernote is that I'm pretty bad of keeping track of my tags. I have a few different major categories of reference materials (recipes, knitting patterns / projects, coupons and promos for online shopping, receipts, etc), and I have set up tags for each one, but I find that I'm not very good at remembering what tags I've chosen for each type of note. For instance, say I'm looking at cookie recipes online and I clip several and tag them as "cookies." A few months later I might be looking at cookie recipes again (this is a lie, I look for cookie recipes every day), but I have trouble remembering whether I should tag them as "cookies" or "deserts" or something else. This either leads to me tagging them wrong or going on a trek through my database to figure out how I'm tagging cookie recipes so I can do it consistently. I find this annoying, which leads to me clipping a ton of things but sort of avoiding processing them, because I know it's going to be a pain in the neck. But that also means I'm not really using Evernote effectively. (An even worse problem, since I'm mostly using tags instead of notebooks, is remembering to include both specific and umbrella tags - like, I have to remember whether I should tag cookie recipe with both "cookies" and "recipes," or "deserts" and "recipes," or "cookies" and "deserts" and "recipes." Inevitably I ***** this up and my database gets all muddled.)

 

I keep thinking I should create some sort of index, or something - a quick reference of how I'm tagging things - but I'm not exactly sure what this would look like. I'm also considering just switching from high-level tags to notebooks, to remove one level of abstraction and make my life easier. Has anyone else had this or a similar problem? Any good strategies?

[ApplianceJunk 23]

For instance, say I'm looking at cookie recipes online and I clip several and tag them as "cookies." A few months later I might be looking at cookie recipes again (this is a lie, I look for cookie recipes every day), but I have trouble remembering whether I should tag them as "cookies" or "deserts" or something else.

Why do you need to tag them at all? Don't the recipe title say cookies in it already or in the receipt note?

 

If so then all you need to do is search for the word "cookie".

 

I keep thinking I should create some sort of index, or something - a quick reference of how I'm tagging things

 

 Maybe you could do it similar to how a cookbook uses a index?

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I can understand your issue, especially with recipes. 

 

I find, with recipes, that you need to be as sparing as possible with tags, but be deliberate.

For example, as ApplianceJunk points out, a lot of recipes may have descriptive titles that will reduce the need for certain tags. So you can try and capitalize on this to reduce your tags. 

 

For me, I try and use tags to categorize recipes that may otherwise be hard to search for. For example, we like to try and eat vegetarian a few nights a week. I use the vegetarian tag on recipes that do not contain meat, something that would be difficult to search for because it would require so many negative search terms. 

 

I have a "cookies" tag too, and I deliberately chose this because I see cookies as distinct from "dessert", a category in which I am more likely to place panna cotta, or trifle, or rice pudding. So I have a dessert tag and a cookie tag, and I rarely get them confused because in my own brain, I understand cookies to belong to a different category from desserts (so this would be "top-down"), and so this distinction is intuitive. Things tagged "cookie" do NOT get the "dessert" tag. I also have chosen to use a cookies tag because many recipe titles don't contain the word "cookie", for example, "snicker doodle" or "gingerbread men" or "Oma's Gingerbread" are plausible titles, none of which contain "cookie", and while the contents of the recipe may contain the word, it isn't a guarantee either. 

 

Cakes is perhaps a more difficult distinction. In my mind, cakes fit the bill as a traditional dessert. However, they are also a very specific category of dessert. This has led me to tag cakes both in the general dessert tag, AND their own cake tag. This suits two cases common to my life:

1) I am looking for a dessert in general, so the dessert tag is effective for browsing a broad set of dessert foods (INCLUDING cakes but EXCLUDING cookies, because of my initial explanation). This would be a situation for example, where I have to provide a non-specific dessert for a potluck, and so something like rice pudding is potentially just as suitable as a cake. 

2) I am looking for cakes specifically, so browsing the cake tag is much more efficient than the entire dessert tag. For example, if there is a birthday coming up, I know I won't be making birthday trifle, so the Cake tag comes in handy. 

 

In the end, my recipe notebook has only a few tags:

main

side

apps (appetizers)

vegetarian

winter (used for recipes that use ingredients available during winter)

bread  (this is for both recipes, and notes on my improvised bread baking)

dessert

cake

cookies

family (family recipes, mostly scans of recipe cards)

breakfast

 

There would never be a note tagged JUST "vegetarian" or JUST "winter" or JUST "family", but this allows me to do the following:

tag:main (displays all main dishes)

or

tag:main tag:winter (displays all main dishes with winter-avilable ingredients)

or

tag:side tag:vegetarian (Displays all veg side dishes)

or

tag:dessert (Displays all desserts)

or

tag:dessert -tag:cake (displays all desserts except cakes)

or

tag:dessert tag:family  (only displays desserts tagged family)

 

If I need to get anything more specific than this, usually the title or note contents are sufficient, lets say I want a pork main with winter vegetables:

 

tag:main tag:winter pork

 

Odds are slim that there is a recipe for pork that doesn't contain the word pork SOMEWHERE! 

 

I don't think any recipe could ever have more than.... 4 tags. I think the only case I could see is:

main winter family vegetarian

though I don't think in the entire history of my (german) family there has ever existed a vegetarian meal, so perhaps this combination would never materialize. 

 

So I have over 300 recipes and 11 tags that basically capture any of the necessary categories I need that a content search wouldn't accommodate. All 11 tags are largely conceptually distinct (for me) though not all of them are mutually exclusive (dessert and cake for example). I find it isn't too hard to manage and keep track of these 11 tags. Ever now and then I mess up or I tag something "mains" instead of "main", or "snack" (which is not part of my tagging scheme) instead of "app" but those are easy to resolve in the rare cases where they do happen and not terribly troubling left unresolved. If I found myself frequently tagging things "snack", then perhaps I'd consider either renaming the app tag, or creating a new tag "snack". 

 

Hope this helps! 

[mmmadeli 1]

 

Why do you need to tag them at all? Don't the recipe title say cookies in it already or in the receipt note?

 

If so then all you need to do is search for the word "cookie".

 

hah...I probably should have mentioned that I'm juuuust a little bit neurotic, and it makes me twitchy when things aren't organized just so.

 

 

 

So I have over 300 recipes and 11 tags that basically capture any of the necessary categories I need that a content search wouldn't accommodate. All 11 tags are largely conceptually distinct (for me) though not all of them are mutually exclusive (dessert and cake for example). I find it isn't too hard to manage and keep track of these 11 tags. Ever now and then I mess up or I tag something "mains" instead of "main", or "snack" (which is not part of my tagging scheme) instead of "app" but those are easy to resolve in the rare cases where they do happen and not terribly troubling left unresolved. If I found myself frequently tagging things "snack", then perhaps I'd consider either renaming the app tag, or creating a new tag "snack". 

 

This makes a lot of sense, and I do have some simple tag systems like this. For instance, knitting stuff: every note gets tagged as pattern, project, or tech (for techniques, etc), and if applicable, the type of item - so something could be tagged "pattern:socks" or "project:socks" (or "tech:socks" if it's a sock-specific thing, like turning a heel, but that's less common), and it's pretty clear and I rarely forget how I'm tagging a certain type of item because it's pretty intuitive. So maybe I just need a more simple and clearly-defined recipe tagging system that will stick in my brain better.

[gazumped 11,663]

It is possible to 'stack' tags,  so you could have a generic 'socks' parent tag and socks-pattern / socks-project / socks-tech child tags;  if you review your tagging policy with that sort of structure in mind you might be able to cut it down to a couple of dozen parents with lots of children.  NB that tagging with a 'parent' tag just gets you that tag - there are no relationships implied by the structure other than simplifying the visible listing of tags.  Personally I'm with Scott - I use note titles by preference rather than tags.  I'd call your pattern notes (forinstance) "<yyyymmdd> pattern - socks - turning a heel" - that's <date><generic document type><generic subject><details/ comments>.  It's (at least) as easy to find things in search as it is to use a tag. 

[jbenson2 2,147]

Tags can be very powerful. Evernote made renaming tags and reassigning them, even in bulk, an easy procedure. I've got 1,400 tags and have restructured them a few times. Here are a few tips on how to use tags more effectively. These tips will give you more naming-consistency and will make tag recall easier.

• Avoid multiple word tags - or join them with a dash (oatmeal-cookie)
• Keep the tag name simple - use egg instead of spanish-omelet. (put full name in the title or as a keyword in the note itself)
• Stick with the singular version (cookie), not the plural (cookies)
• Use lower case letters for tags, no Upper Case (stay consistent)
• In Windows, take advantage of F3 by typing the 1st and 2nd letters to narrow the list of tags down.
• Review the tag list usage once  a week - if a tag only has 1 or 2 notes, consider deleting the tag and using something that would be more common

* Excellent suggestion by Appliance
"Maybe you could do it similar to how a cookbook uses a index?"

 

My solution for recipes?
I ask my wife.
 

[ApplianceJunk 23]

1,400 tags, wow!

 

I was just trying to rename one of my tags and could not figure it out. After reading your post that they could be renamed I tried it again.

Guess I just did not have the timing down as all I had to do was double click on the name of the tag for it to become highlighted so I could change it. Just like changing the name of any other file on my mac, lol...

 

Avoid multiple word tags - or join them with a dash (oatmeal-cookie)

 

May I ask the reason behind joining them with a dash?

 

I just changed my "to do" tag to "to-do", I'm sure there is a good reason for it, just wondering...

 

Thanks!

[jbenson2 2,147]

1,400 tags, wow!

 

I was just trying to rename one of my tags and could not figure it out. After reading your post that they could be renamed I tried it again.

Guess I just did not have the timing down as all I had to do was double click on the name of the tag for it to become highlighted so I could change it. Just like changing the name of any other file on my mac, lol...

 

Avoid multiple word tags - or join them with a dash (oatmeal-cookie)

 

May I ask the reason behind joining them with a dash?

 

I just changed my "to do" tag to "to-do", I'm sure there is a good reason for it, just wondering...

 

Thanks!

 

The reasons for the dash are to save on key strokes when searching, avoid key combinations, and make it easier to remember

 

To search for the tag to do requires the following term:

tag:"to do"  (11 characters)

vs

tag:to-do  (9 characters)

 

Typing the quotationi mark twice requires more effort - combination of shift and the quote key.  Not the end of the world, but if you use the Evernote search frequently, you don't have to worry about the key combination.

 

And if you only knew the rules I mentioned, then you would remember the correct tag is the last one on this list.

• "To Do"
• "to do"
• To-Do
• to-do

Other people can use other methods. The key take-away point is to be consistent.

 

 

And why do I have 1,400 tags? I gather a lot of political commentaries (local, state wide, national, and international) with Evernote. Tags help me with multiple spelling issues. Even though the British use the same language as most Americans in the USA , there are words that are spelled differently. A tag can be applied to both versions. Now, I am not tagging words like color and colour, but more complex issues. And people's names and titles can make standard searching difficult to impossible.

 

Consider the correct spelling of Gaddafi. It depends on which media you have clipped. The varieties include:

Moammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi

Moammar Gadhafi

Moammar Qaddafi

Muammar el-Qaddafi

Muammar al-Gaddafi

But my single tag "gaddafi" will find all the different versions.

Searching is difficult when the media uses different terms to describe an individual. Many false hits turn up especially when a person has a common name like, Dean, Dayton, Richardson, or Warren to name a few. I can increase my accuracy by searching with the title and/or the full name but it gets difficult, often resulting in multiple false hits.

Do I search for the word Dean or DNC Chairman or Howard Dean

Do I search for the word Dayton or Minnesota Governor or Mark Dayton

Do I search for the word Richardson or New Mexico Governor or Bill Richardson

Do I search for the word Warren or Senator Warren or Elizabeth Warren

A unique tag for each person helps keep the data cleaner and easier to search.

 

[ApplianceJunk 23]

Very interesting and helpful jbenson2, thanks!

[lometogo 13]

Once, I accidentally pushed some key combination which showed my entire list of tags in a large window, arranged by letter...Can anyone tell me how I can accomplish that again?

[jbenson2 2,147]

Once, I accidentally pushed some key combination which showed my entire list of tags in a large window, arranged by letter...Can anyone tell me how I can accomplish that again?

 

That would be a super feature to have. I am not aware of anything in the Windows Client that will perform this.

 

edit: Thanks ApplianceJunk for the answer for Mac users - see his post below

 

There was a 3rd party program called BitQwik (natural language search) which included Tag Hunter. I was able to use that program to export all my tags and usage data to a spreadsheet for a full-blown analysis. Unfortunately, Evernote surprised the developer with some unusual internal code changes that effectively stopped BitQwik.

 

The Evernote Mac team is trying to recreate an internal version of BitQwik, but no release date has been announced. And it does appear they are concentrating on only natural language search - I have not seen any mention of tag management.

[ApplianceJunk 23]

On my mac it's alt+command+3.

 

You can see for yourself by going to View>Tags and see what it shows for a short cut.

[gazumped 11,663]

Once, I accidentally pushed some key combination which showed my entire list of tags in a large window, arranged by letter...Can anyone tell me how I can accomplish that again?

 

Are you referring to Ctrl+Alt+t ?  That gets you a useful list of tags..

[lometogo 13]

 

Once, I accidentally pushed some key combination which showed my entire list of tags in a large window, arranged by letter...Can anyone tell me how I can accomplish that again?

 

Are you referring to Ctrl+Alt+t ?  That gets you a useful list of tags..

 

No, Ctrl.Alt.T is not it. That feature accomplishes the same thing but in a much less visually appealing way. The facility I found listed them in alphabetical order with a sort-of header for each alphabetical letter.

[gazumped 11,663]

If you click on the Tags heading in the left pane you'll get a full screen listing of all tags.  Not sure whether there's a keyboard option for that.  The page is pretty but you can't copy from it so it's use seems pretty limited.  You can use it to jump to the notes defined by one tag - just double click a tag.

[jbenson2 2,147]

If you click on the Tags heading in the left pane you'll get a full screen listing of all tags.  Not sure whether there's a keyboard option for that.  The page is pretty but you can't copy from it so it's use seems pretty limited.  You can use it to jump to the notes defined by one tag - just double click a tag.

 

That is an interesting suggestion. If I maximize the screen, I can show 38 tags per screen.  I have 1,400 tags so it won't work for me (36 pages long). You can do screen grabs and then merge the notes. Here are 3 screens merged together showing 85 of my tags of acronyms (very useful for government speak).

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/caf375bc-6d60-497d-834a-63c452991064/01c60c003f76823b6f5b7177fee2fa72

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

lomtogo, 

Sorry, I'm on a Mac but does this resemble what you saw?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s25/sh/16c19212-010e-4a77-b73c-21e9face3c6c/49925f9378cfe68e1598bf685bb9a4ad

 

It may look a bit different because it's the Mac client, but I suspect the Windows version has a similar view. 

If you look at the top of the screenshot I linked to, you'll see that you can choose "Name" and "Note Count". When you press ctrl-alt-t, look for similar buttons and select "name". 

[gazumped 11,663]

If you 'stack' tags it would be possible to extend the reach of one screenful considerably - click on a stack and you see the child tags of that stack.  Click the child to see the related note(s).  So 30 stacks x 30 child tags each gets you 900 tags and a potential several thousand notes within a couple of clicks...  I'm a Titles man at the moment but suddenly I feel a need to revisit Tags sometime soon...

[lometogo 13]

lomtogo, 

Sorry, I'm on a Mac but does this resemble what you saw?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s25/sh/16c19212-010e-4a77-b73c-21e9face3c6c/49925f9378cfe68e1598bf685bb9a4ad

 

It may look a bit different because it's the Mac client, but I suspect the Windows version has a similar view. 

If you look at the top of the screenshot I linked to, you'll see that you can choose "Name" and "Note Count". When you press ctrl-alt-t, look for similar buttons and select "name". 

Bingo....That's it! Now, I'm wondering if I was Mac-ing when I saw it...Damn brain injuries..

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

 

lomtogo, 

Sorry, I'm on a Mac but does this resemble what you saw?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s25/sh/16c19212-010e-4a77-b73c-21e9face3c6c/49925f9378cfe68e1598bf685bb9a4ad

 

It may look a bit different because it's the Mac client, but I suspect the Windows version has a similar view. 

If you look at the top of the screenshot I linked to, you'll see that you can choose "Name" and "Note Count". When you press ctrl-alt-t, look for similar buttons and select "name". 

Bingo....That's it! Now, I'm wondering if I was Mac-ing when I saw it...Damn brain injuries..

 

Ha! I don't have a functioning Windows virtual machine at the moment to double check myself but I can only assume that a similar screen is available on Windows!

[jbenson2 2,147]

lomtogo, 

Sorry, I'm on a Mac but does this resemble what you saw?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s25/sh/16c19212-010e-4a77-b73c-21e9face3c6c/49925f9378cfe68e1598bf685bb9a4ad

 

It may look a bit different because it's the Mac client, but I suspect the Windows version has a similar view. 

If you look at the top of the screenshot I linked to, you'll see that you can choose "Name" and "Note Count". When you press ctrl-alt-t, look for similar buttons and select "name". 

 

That would be great in Windows. Unfortunately, it does look a lot different in Windows.

The development teams for the different Evernote OS march to different drummers.

 

Full size screen grab of Windows ctrl-alt-T

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/8c28405b-3a10-479c-b535-063d53d819a8/88da5e18430f83817c757fe27d03ebad

 

Standard size screen grab of Windows ctrl-alt-t

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/78d56e4f-efee-4e11-9996-61f2b1112e4d/da717e565e305eb33ff1ddae72aea6e9

[jbenson2 2,147]

If you 'stack' tags it would be possible to extend the reach of one screenful considerably - click on a stack and you see the child tags of that stack.  Click the child to see the related note(s).  So 30 stacks x 30 child tags each gets you 900 tags and a potential several thousand notes within a couple of clicks...  I'm a Titles man at the moment but suddenly I feel a need to revisit Tags sometime soon...

 

I use the Parent / Child structure "stack" extensively to make it easier to manage my tags.

By the way, I am also a Titles man as well. The intitle: search feature is super.

[gazumped 11,663]

Hmmn.  That's the view when you click the Tags header in the left pane.  Each tag entry on the page already shows the number of notes connected to that tag.  There's also a drop-down at the top of our window to choose All Tags / My Tags / Personal Tags,  and a 'show notes' option I missed before.  Select all the tags you want and this shows you the resultant search hits.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Hmmn.  That's the view when you click the Tags header in the left pane.  Each tag entry on the page already shows the number of notes connected to that tag.  There's also a drop-down at the top of our window to choose All Tags / My Tags / Personal Tags,  and a 'show notes' option I missed before.  Select all the tags you want and this shows you the resultant search hits.

 

Good find Gaz !

It's not Ctrl-Alt-T, it's actually the Tags Icon in the Left Panel.

I've never seen that before. Probably because I just upgraded to version 5.0 last month.

Also I keep the Left Panel closed to maximize the real estate for my notes.

 

I'll have to do some searching to figure out the difference between My Tags and Personal Tags. (couldn't find any mention in the Knowledgebase search for Personal Tags)

[gazumped 11,663]

I'm going to have to get myself organised like Grumpy and put some stuff in a blog to avoid repeating things,  but I have said before that I start my general notes off with titles and avoid tags.  It's only when I search and find too many irrelevant hits that I start changing titles,  adding keywords and - eventually- tags so I can jump straight to my stuff next time.  I think now that having found this page I'll start using it like a 'saved search' index so I can jump back to results immediately.  It seems like a great resource - much more playing research required I think...

 

And yes - what's this 'personal tags' of which we speak???

[jbenson2 2,147]

Gaz, be careful with this new feature. It looks like there are some problems with it.

 

I'll submit a Support Request for this bug and post the response.

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/c80b85c0-15b0-4002-b6a4-f1b8432a72e4/54380acfbb45f297c30874878492e0c8

[gazumped 11,663]

Curiouserer and curiouserer - the right-scroll works fine for me..  but it's typical that there's obviously a problem for some users.  I think I have as many tags as you (if not more) though it's depressing to see how many show (1) as the number of notes...  I have a lot of tidying- (sorry) curating-up to do!

 

I'll definitely be interested in the response from Support tho.

 

[jbenson2 2,147]

Curiouserer and curiouserer - Yup.

The right scroll works ok for me if I close down all the children tags and only look at the parent tags.

 

Ticket# 296011 - Cannot scroll when viewing tags

 

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Edit: I have not found anything about Personal Tags yet.

The difficulty in searching is that the two individual words are used everywhere.

I even searched the Evernote API for the word personal.
Could not find anything relating to tags using the word personal.
http://dev.evernote.com/doc/reference/Types.html#Struct_Tag

 

But I did find some comments from EdH:

In his 5th point, he mentioned personal tags in his post back in September.
http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/42628-evernote-for-windows-502-beta-1/#entry227963
 

[mmmadeli 1]

Thanks so much to whoever first mentioned nested tags!! That helps me tremendously, not only to see how my groups of tags work, but also to see areas where my organizational system is poor. 

 

Is there a way to quickly add a tag to large batches of notes? For instance - suppose I had a bunch of "child" tags ("cookies", "main", "side", whatever) but no "parent" tag ("recipes"). Short of going into each child tag individually, is there a quick way to add the parent "recipes" tag to every recipe I have?

[jbenson2 2,147]

Thanks so much to whoever first mentioned nested tags!! That helps me tremendously, not only to see how my groups of tags work, but also to see areas where my organizational system is poor. 

 

Is there a way to quickly add a tag to large batches of notes? For instance - suppose I had a bunch of "child" tags ("cookies", "main", "side", whatever) but no "parent" tag ("recipes"). Short of going into each child tag individually, is there a quick way to add the parent "recipes" tag to every recipe I have?

 

Glad to help. (sorry for hijacking the thread down a different topic)

 

The bulk add is easy in Windows.

Select the notes you want via search or Ctrl Click.

The Note Panel should change to something like this:

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/3b3ad58a-5c00-4c73-891f-bc14c9b381ec/c2614d817769fbd7a76c30eeed2762d2

 

Click the "Click to add tag..." button. You can add one tag to all the selected notes, or multiple tags.

[EvernoteScott 0]

The way I manage this for myself is only creating tags for specific content in each notebook. 

 

For Example.... 

 

I have a notebook titled: CONTACTS

 

In this notebook is a list of contact information I want to save for people who I come across in my life.

Each note in the notebook is allocated to one person. 

 

To drill it down even further I have a SET OF TAGS created in that notebook...here is how I created the tags

 

CON Graphic Designer

CON Accountant

CON Lawyer

 

(The CON part of the tag lets me know that this tag is for organizing notes in the CONTACT NOTEBOOK)

 

So...

 

If I wanted to see all of my "graphic designer contacts" at the flip of a switch...all I need to do is click the "CONTACTS NOTEBOOK" then click the "CON Graphic Designer" tag...and they will all show up

 

So...I guess my advice for you is...

 

Create ONE NOTEBOOK titled "COOKIE RECIPES"

 

Then create a tagging structure such as

 

COOK Christmas

COOK Just Because
COOK (other context)

etc etc etc

 

Put all cookie recipes in the "COOKIE RECIPES" notebook...then tag the recipe appropriately with the right tag associated with that. 

 

If you want to see how I have done this in my evernote account, click here to watch the video where I explain it step by step.

If you have any questions, let me know!

[mmmadeli 1]

After a little more fiddling I realized that what I actually needed was notebooks. I was originally using only two notebooks (Inbox and Processed), and trying to do the rest with tags. It definitely was a viable system (and a very popular one, I know), but I think what I learned was that it just doesn't mesh very well with my brain - I need a little more high-level structure than that or I feel sort of chaotic. So I made a few very broad category notebooks ("Crafting," "Food," etc) and sorted my notes into them. It already feels better. Thanks all!

[jbenson2 2,147]

After a little more fiddling I realized that what I actually needed was notebooks. I was originally using only two notebooks (Inbox and Processed), and trying to do the rest with tags. It definitely was a viable system (and a very popular one, I know), but I think what I learned was that it just doesn't mesh very well with my brain - I need a little more high-level structure than that or I feel sort of chaotic. So I made a few very broad category notebooks ("Crafting," "Food," etc) and sorted my notes into them. It already feels better. Thanks all!

 

Congratulations! That's a great compromise. You're on the right track. Evernote is flexible enough to fit a wide variety of users. When you use 1.) broad-category notebooks, 2.) structured descriptive titles and 3.) appropriate tags, you are hitting almost all of the Evernote hot buttons.

 

p.s. Understanding Evernote search grammar could be the 4th item in the list.

[lometogo 13]

Thanks, Gaz, for pointing out the use of the TAG item in the left sidebar. It shows essentially the same screen as the Mac EXCEPT the Mac shows one nice touch: you can order your tags by both name and count. 

 

If the Windows team is lurking, I'd love that same ability in the Windows version.

[gazumped 11,663]

You're welcome - and +1 to that thought!!

[TdeV 88]

I'd just like to point out that I have tags (one per line) called

Custard-Flan-PannaCotta

Cheesecake-CheesePudding

Cupcake-Muffin

Romertopf-ClayBaker

 

because, as far as I'm concerned, I'd like to lump together anything which is similar without consideration for what the person writing the recipe called it.

 

 

I also have tags called

Nut-Almond

Nut-Cashew

Nut-Pecan

 

or

 

Cheese-Appenzell

Cheese-Cow

Cheese-Gouda

Cheese-Hard-Semi

Cheese-Hard

 

because some times I only care that some recipes have nuts (of any kind) in them.

 

HTH