need help with an Evernote usage scenario

[conejo23 6]

So I'm one of those folks who have had Evernote for years but am only now beginning to make heavy use of it. I'm trying to consolidate notes from various sources into Evernote and I'm struggling to figure out the best way to handle one of my usage scenarios. The notes in question currently reside in Notebook from Circus Ponies Software (on a Mac). It's a nifty piece of software, and perhaps it really is the best option for this usage scenario but I'd like to try to find a way to make it work in Evernote.

 

I'm a big Springsteen fan. Have seen him and the band live a few dozen times. Decided a year or so ago to document the shows going back to the first one I saw back in the 70s. What I put into a note for current concerts is a bit different than what I put in those old ones. For the more current ones I've gone to, here's what I put into the note:

 

• Date and location of the venue
• Who I went with
• The setlist
• Reviews I find online of the show
• Pictures I took at the show
• My comments and notes about the show

 

Notebook handles this well. I have a page for each show and I can hide or expand each of those sections as needed. I tried cramming it all into one note in Evernote, but that's just a mess. Looks horrible, makes it kludgy to scroll through and find stuff. I really wish I could "nest" notes under each other, or create Notebook stacks within another notebook stack, but it does not appear I can do that.  That would be ideal. But since I can't, and I don't want every show to be a separate stack (which would really clutter up my notebook list), I'm not sure how to handle this. 

 

One note before I proceed: my plan is to have all of these notes in a stack labeled "Concerts/Shows/Events" and one notebook within that stack is "Springsteen Shows", so all of those notes would be in that notebook.

 

Seems like I have two options here: one is just cram everything into one note, but I think if that's what I have to do I'll just keep this stuff in the other app.  The other option I figured was I just have every element I listed above (like setlist, reviews, pics) as separate notes and I create a tag for the show (e.g., "Springsteen - The Woodlands, TX - 2014"). Then I create a master note for the show and use note links to create almost a table of contents for that show, with a link for each of the elements above.   Then I can later review all this stuff in one of two ways. I can either search on the tag, or I can bring up the master note and find stuff from there.

 

Before I get too deep into this, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something else that would work. Any thoughts or advise would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[jefito 5,589]

To me, it would be as simple as having a note for the show that includes who you went with, set list, notes and comments, and photos you took -- that's really your content and experience of the show. "Springsteen" is a tag (you do see other artists, right?), as is the venue name. Date could be the date created field. And reviews you find online are links, tagged as "Review" and maybe with "Springsteen" and venue tag.

OK, it must be said: You.are.a.geek.

[conejo23 6]

Jeff....hahah, yep.

 

Yeah, I've got one notebook in that stack for Misc Artists and one dedicated to Springsteen simply because I see his shows more than anyone else's, by a mile. 

 

I tried cramming it all into one note, and it was kind of a mess.   This, in my opinion, is a weakness of Evernote, and a strength of Notebook. If I could create collapsible sections where the title of that section of the note displayed but it's contents were hidden until I wanted to see them, then cramming it all into one note would be more workable. But having it all in there just isn't visually appealing to me at all. Makes finding specific content within the note a bit more of a pain.

 

Really wish we could create stacks within stacks.

[gazumped 11,652]

I'd agree with Jeff about the geekness..

 

when you talk about the problem of flipping through this information,  you may have missed one option - take your various main points - 

• Date and location of the venue
• Who I went with
• The setlist
• Reviews I find online of the show
• Pictures I took at the show
• My comments and notes about the show

I'd use these as extra tags for the main show content (tagged 'Show');  "who I went with" can be  list or literal tags - 'Jeff',  'Gaz' etc.  Tag the setlist and Reviews notes with "Setlist" or "Review" plus a tag for the show -eg "20120420 Boston"  Pictures and Comments do the same..

 

Then you can use the "tag:<something>" search to list all the entries for a given show or series of shows - search "tag:19* tag:show" will give you all the 1970's shows forinstance.

 

When you have a listing that you like,  copy and paste that list into another note and you have an instant index to your content!

 

If you plan all this out on stone age paper you can get a set-up that seems right - then you can photograph the plan and save it in a note for future reference...

[conejo23 6]

thanks for the input, guys. The more I thought about it, the more I thought this is turning into a pain. I'm happy to use technology to its fullest when it makes sense, but I also don't like to overcomplicate things if I can help it. Putting everything into one note WOULD be preferred, but the first time I tried it it was kind of a mess. So I thought about why it was a mess, specifically. In Notebook I had my comments, for example, at the very bottom of the note, the last section. Worked fine there. Here, now I'm scrolling through all these pictures and then the reviews, which are usually somewhat lengthy. So there's all this space/real estate in the note to scroll through to get through everything. Not as much of an issue in Notebook when I can have everything collapsed and just expand the segment of the note I want to see.

 

So I'm doing a test by standardizing the format so all the text stuff is at the front end in a specific order, then photos, and then finally the reviews. I don't want links to the reviews, I want the actual reviews captured as a web archive. In 30 years it's almost certain those links will no longer be valid and I still want the review. So I'm going to try that and see how it works.

 

And there's a possibility I just keep this stuff in Notebook. Maybe it just works better there.

[jefito 5,589]

The suggestion I had in mind was to capture the reviews as an Evernote note (Evernote's web clipper does a good job on most web content), and then link to the note using an Evernote note link.

[conejo23 6]

oh yeah, I was absolutely going to use the evernote web clipper for this, no question. The question is whether I'd put the resulting clip into the body of my note for that show or keep it as a separate note and link to it in my main show note, like I was pondering in my original post above. That's still a possibility. The advantage of having EVERYTHING in one note is it cleans up that notebook. I don't have to do much searching, the titles of the notes are plain and clear, showing the me the show location and year. If I put links to the review clips in my main note, now I have a bunch of other notes in that notebook, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'll probably play with both approaches and see which works better.

 

My original idea above was I'd have all of it as separate notes with the main show note nothing but links to all of it. But I could always split it up, have some content intrinsically in the main note and links to the other stuff.

[jefito 5,589]

The virtue of having a main note with the primary information about a show is that you can get the most important information about that show easily. You them link off to the secondary notes containing secondary information. Up to you to define what is primary and what is secondary. Not sure what "cleaning up a notebook" would mean, except for removing notes that are not germane to the notebook's topic.

The problem with having a link-only main note is that there's no real information in that note, and you need to go splaying off to get anything that's meaty. I see it as a problem, anyways.

Be wary of overthinking this...

[conejo23 6]

thanks, I like the concept of primary vs secondary information. Another way to look at how to structure this. Thanks again.

 

One thing I should add, I'm putting a lot of thought into the ideal way (for me) to handle this not just because I want to make this one particular aspect of my Evernote usage to be thoroughly awesome, but because I suspect once I figure it out for this usage scenario, that will inform and direct how I handle a lot of other usage scenarios.  

[conejo23 6]

so the primary/secondary concept is helping me resolve this, I think. And as I hoped, it's going to help me in future usage scenarios, as well. Here's my thinking:

 

If the info is secondary, then yes, makes complete sense to keep it somewhere else and link it so secondary information is not 'cluttering' a note and detracting from primary information.

 

But that 'somewhere else' should be a place where that info is primary THERE. So I'm simply going to create a notebook in this stack called "Reviews" where I'll put all reviews from shows I go to (just saw Jerry Seinfeld live here in Austin, great show, so that review goes there, too). Then I link to those notes in their primary note and I'm done. All reviews are in one place, tagged, and the primary note has the information I need and links to the secondary stuff. Very cool.

 

Thanks for helping me think this through.

[jefito 5,589]

I'd say you're in a place by now where you can experiment and build your note database, and work and live with it. You may find you need to re-architect after you've played with it for awhile. That's natural.

Just wondering now if there are any Deadheads who are using Evernote to organize their shows. *Those* folks are the obsessive ones...

[Wordsgood 526]

Might be out in left field here, but what about using Word or some other text editing software that allows your to paginate your documents and also have clickable shortcuts (internal in the same document) to jump around to whatever area your want? Like an eBook or wiki kind of set-up, then save a copy as an attachment to Evernote so your file is still safely secured on their cloud for future access?