How to organize random notes?

[SahilC 13]

Hello EN community!

 

How do you guys organize random notes with evernote?

 

One reason I loved Google Keep was the glance-ability of it. A few important notes would be front and center, whenever I needed to see them. With evernote, most of my notes seem to be hidden in their respective notebooks, and I only really see them if I think about going to the notebook to see them.

 

So Question 1: How do you manage notes that you want to keep in front of you at all times?

 

Question 2: How do you manage random notes? (like a quick, random list that you may need later, or an important item that you may need to see later)

 

Question 3: How do you manage expenses, etc? I've heard that excel is really good at that, because at the end, you can just add up all the tables to see a final amount. Things like that.

 

I'm really loving evernote for bigger things like taking notes, managing expenses, etc, but I haven't fully understood how to manage these two little things as of yet.

 

Thanks so much!

[jefito 5,589]

Notes that I want to see all the time: I use reminders; these will appear in a sub-list atop the normal note list (reminder notes appear only when they match the current search filter). They are also arbitrarily sortable (i.e., you can move them around)

 

Random notes: use tags to make categories that have meaning to you. Filter on the tag, there are your notes.

 

Expenses: use a tool that fits (i.e. can do math), like Excel. Evernote cannot, though you can have an Excel spreadsheet as a note attachment.

[Sentinel 195]

For Expenses, I have an Excel spreadsheet in one Note entitled "2014 Expenses".  I have my headers labeled as I need.

 

With each expense receipt, I scan it, place it in a Note, entitle the Note: Receipt 1 |  Amazon  |  Earbuds  |  2014.  

Then I open the Note with the spreadsheet, log my receipt expenses, save, Close the Note.

 

Each additional receipt, I repeat that process.  At the end of the year, my expenses will be totaled for me. I can then, if I wish, Merge all the receipt Notes together in one Note entitled:  2014  |  Expenses  |  Receipts

 

That is one example of doing it.  In regards to the creation of the receipt Notes, that process is automated with an Applescript as I save the scanned receipt  to a particular Folder directly from my scanner.

 

Hope this helps.

[Analyst444 182]

SahiC - Here are a couple other ideas for your Q1 and Q2.

 

Idea 1 - Create a tag and assign it to all Notes that you want to keep in front of you at all times. Create a "Saved Search" for that Tag. Add the "Saved Search" to the Shortcuts list. Click on the item in the Shortcuts list when you want to see all your frequently referenced Notes.

 

Idea 2 - Assuming you are using a Windows or Mac EN version, open all such notes. Reduce the size of their windows so that you can see other things on the screen. Arrange the smaller windows in some manner that you find convenient.

 

In regard to expenses, EN does a lot a wonderful things, but adding numbers is not one of them. If you are comfortable with Excel, put your expense information in it and attach the Excel document to an EN Note.

[Sentinel 195]

For Expenses, I have an Excel spreadsheet in one Note entitled "2014 Expenses".  I have my headers labeled as I need.

 

Just sayin'!

[SahilC 13]

Thanks everyone!

 

So for the issue of glance-able notes, I made shortcuts to the most important notes I need. That seems to be a good solution at the moment, but maybe in the future when I have tons of notes I need at a glance, tags might be more useful. Oh yeah, and these notes are all kept in a notebook called "Daily", which is also in my shortcuts.

 

As for the random notes, what you're saying makes sense (tagging, etc). Anyways, if I need that random note, I'd just be able to search for it, right? But the thing is, what notebook would you keep it in? Do you create a notebook called Archive or something, and just dump all that stuff in there? For now I've made a notebook called zArchive (so it goes to the bottom) and I tag and dump those notes there.

 

For the excel stuff - thanks for the ideas! Is the excel like functionality something that's been requested, or is just a feature that EN is not interested in adding?

[SebR 146]

Thanks everyone!

 

So for the issue of glance-able notes, I made shortcuts to the most important notes I need. That seems to be a good solution at the moment, but maybe in the future when I have tons of notes I need at a glance, tags might be more useful. Oh yeah, and these notes are all kept in a notebook called "Daily", which is also in my shortcuts.

 

As for the random notes, what you're saying makes sense (tagging, etc). Anyways, if I need that random note, I'd just be able to search for it, right? But the thing is, what notebook would you keep it in? Do you create a notebook called Archive or something, and just dump all that stuff in there? For now I've made a notebook called zArchive (so it goes to the bottom) and I tag and dump those notes there.

I have NBs for topics of specific interest, if the random note matches a topic it goes in, else it goes in the catch-all NB I call .notes (so it goes to the top , just below .inbox my default NB )

[Sentinel 195]

For the excel stuff - thanks for the ideas! Is the excel like functionality something that's been requested, or is just a feature that EN is not interested in adding?

I cannot answer for EN, however, having the functionality of a spreadsheet does not "generally" fit in with how EN markets itself.  So, IMHO, I doubt they are interested in pursuing that anytime soon, or at all.

[SahilC 13]

I have a sub-question, so I didn't want to start a new thread for this.

 

I'm dumping all the notes/articles that I don't need at the moment in an Archive notebook. How do you think I should organize these notes? Tagging seems a little difficult. When you're searching for something, do you even think about searching with tags? Or just search, and have it show up? I'd think that eventually, when you have tons of archived notes, just "searching" for a term would give you tons of results, right?

 

I'd appreciate your inputs!

[jefito 5,589]

Yes. I search using tags all the time. In addition, a normal text search will also search a note's tags and its title for matches, so you don't necessarily need to explicitly do tags searches, though they're useful too.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I have a sub-question, so I didn't want to start a new thread for this.

 

I'm dumping all the notes/articles that I don't need at the moment in an Archive notebook. How do you think I should organize these notes? Tagging seems a little difficult. When you're searching for something, do you even think about searching with tags? Or just search, and have it show up? I'd think that eventually, when you have tons of archived notes, just "searching" for a term would give you tons of results, right?

 

I'd appreciate your inputs!

Why do I need to tag my notes?  Can't I just search for a specific word within a note and it will be (hopefully) found?

I have a lot of notes. Unlike GM, I tend to use more notebooks that are broad categories. (My main target notebook is "everything else".) I also rely heavily upon descriptive titles & keywords along with notebooks & tags to find my notes. I'd guess about 2/3 of my notes have no tags. Of the 1/3 that do have tags, they normally have only 1-3 tags.I do have a tag for model/serial numbers. I also have a tag "software versions" which is dated screen caps of various software versions. This is especially helpful when migrating from one computer to another, upgrading an OS or just upgrading a particular app. I can quickly tell what version I was running & when. I also can quickly find receipts for paid software (and often include a screen cap of their upgrade policy) so I can quickly determine if I will need to pay for a software upgrade or if they let you upgrade free for life. This alone saved me from re-buying the latest version of an app a time or two.Regarding people, I have a tag called "people notes" For me, specifid people (excluding family members) don't require their own tag b/c I can find their notes by including their name in the search. But I may include a keyword that is where I know them from. IE, the name of my husband's company, the name of the company I work for, etc. That way, if I want to remind myself of someone I met when my mother was in the hospital in 2011, I can search on the tag "people notes" & refine the search by including the hospital name.Another tip I've posted about several times is to include misspellings. I know Shafers & Shaffers. So I include the person's name with the correct spelling. But use the other spelling as a keyword. This way I know I'll find the note I'm looking for, even if I forget which way that person spells their name.One reason I use tags is when there is either no unique name to use as a keyword or there are several. IE, I have used a piece of software for about seven years. When I first bought it, it was called NeatReceipts. But I may have typed it as Neat Receipts at times. Then they changed the name to NeatWorks. But again, I may have typed Neat Works in my notes. Then they started going by Neat - too general & not conducive to finding notes that only apply to this software app. So I do have a Neatreceipts tag that I apply to all the notes that pertain the the software app. OTOH, I have also used ACDSee Photo Manager for about ten years. It does not require its own tag since ACDSee is a unique name that I include in all notes pertaining to this software app.I also use nested tags. IE, I have a notebook on computer software/problems/issues. I have a parent tag called "Computer info & problems". Below that is a tag "Computer problems" & below that is (for example) a tag "new & expanded boot disk 20100303" which is applied to all the notes that are relevant to when I used Acronis to backup & restore my boot drive to a new, larger hard drive without having to reinstall the OS & all applications. In this case, the parent tag exists only to organize the child tags. I rarely search only on the parent tag of "Computer info & problems".

[jbenson2 2,147]

Or just search, and have it show up? I'd think that eventually, when you have tons of archived notes, just "searching" for a term would give you tons of results, right?

 

I'd appreciate your inputs!

 

I have 30,000+ notes and tags help me find the specific notes I am looking for. 

A standard search for a term can generate false positives.

Tags help increase the search accuracy.

 

Examples:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/48008-search-by-tag-or-just-search/#entry244646

[SahilC 13]

Yes. I search using tags all the time. In addition, a normal text search will also search a note's tags and its title for matches, so you don't necessarily need to explicitly do tags searches, though they're useful too.

 

Sometimes I feel like I'd go overboard with tags though. I'll have to just experiment I guess. 

 

 

I have a sub-question, so I didn't want to start a new thread for this.

 

I'm dumping all the notes/articles that I don't need at the moment in an Archive notebook. How do you think I should organize these notes? Tagging seems a little difficult. When you're searching for something, do you even think about searching with tags? Or just search, and have it show up? I'd think that eventually, when you have tons of archived notes, just "searching" for a term would give you tons of results, right?

 

I'd appreciate your inputs!

 

Why do I need to tag my notes?  Can't I just search for a specific word within a note and it will be (hopefully) found?

I have a lot of notes. Unlike GM, I tend to use more notebooks that are broad categories. (My main target notebook is "everything else".) I also rely heavily upon descriptive titles & keywords along with notebooks & tags to find my notes. I'd guess about 2/3 of my notes have no tags. Of the 1/3 that do have tags, they normally have only 1-3 tags.I do have a tag for model/serial numbers. I also have a tag "software versions" which is dated screen caps of various software versions. This is especially helpful when migrating from one computer to another, upgrading an OS or just upgrading a particular app. I can quickly tell what version I was running & when. I also can quickly find receipts for paid software (and often include a screen cap of their upgrade policy) so I can quickly determine if I will need to pay for a software upgrade or if they let you upgrade free for life. This alone saved me from re-buying the latest version of an app a time or two.Regarding people, I have a tag called "people notes" For me, specifid people (excluding family members) don't require their own tag b/c I can find their notes by including their name in the search. But I may include a keyword that is where I know them from. IE, the name of my husband's company, the name of the company I work for, etc. That way, if I want to remind myself of someone I met when my mother was in the hospital in 2011, I can search on the tag "people notes" & refine the search by including the hospital name.Another tip I've posted about several times is to include misspellings. I know Shafers & Shaffers. So I include the person's name with the correct spelling. But use the other spelling as a keyword. This way I know I'll find the note I'm looking for, even if I forget which way that person spells their name.One reason I use tags is when there is either no unique name to use as a keyword or there are several. IE, I have used a piece of software for about seven years. When I first bought it, it was called NeatReceipts. But I may have typed it as Neat Receipts at times. Then they changed the name to NeatWorks. But again, I may have typed Neat Works in my notes. Then they started going by Neat - too general & not conducive to finding notes that only apply to this software app. So I do have a Neatreceipts tag that I apply to all the notes that pertain the the software app. OTOH, I have also used ACDSee Photo Manager for about ten years. It does not require its own tag since ACDSee is a unique name that I include in all notes pertaining to this software app.I also use nested tags. IE, I have a notebook on computer software/problems/issues. I have a parent tag called "Computer info & problems". Below that is a tag "Computer problems" & below that is (for example) a tag "new & expanded boot disk 20100303" which is applied to all the notes that are relevant to when I used Acronis to backup & restore my boot drive to a new, larger hard drive without having to reinstall the OS & all applications. In this case, the parent tag exists only to organize the child tags. I rarely search only on the parent tag of "Computer info & problems".

 

 Thank you!

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Thank you!

You're welcome!

[Candid 167]

One good idea is to use tags for things that are not obvious search material in the note.

 

As an example, I'm preparing to teach a subject in the fall and as a part of that I've been viewing videos of talks given on the subject in various workshops. I take notes in Evernote. But rarely does that note indicate I was taking note of a video. So I created a video tag for those notes. 

 

You can also use a tag to pull out a specific target from a large pool. So in my recipes I have notes tagged with potato even though Evernote would find every recipe that mentions potatoes. Why? Because I have a lot of recipes (over 3000) and a lot of recipes with potatoes in them don't have the potatoes as a starring ingredient. So when I want a dish with potatoes as the star then I use the tag to search. 

[SahilC 13]

One good idea is to use tags for things that are not obvious search material in the note.

 

As an example, I'm preparing to teach a subject in the fall and as a part of that I've been viewing videos of talks given on the subject in various workshops. I take notes in Evernote. But rarely does that note indicate I was taking note of a video. So I created a video tag for those notes. 

 

You can also use a tag to pull out a specific target from a large pool. So in my recipes I have notes tagged with potato even though Evernote would find every recipe that mentions potatoes. Why? Because I have a lot of recipes (over 3000) and a lot of recipes with potatoes in them don't have the potatoes as a starring ingredient. So when I want a dish with potatoes as the star then I use the tag to search. 

 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you!

 

I just hope that some time in the future, my notes don't get lost  because I tagged/organized them poorly. 

[jbenson2 2,147]

Occasionally, I will do some housecleaning and look for notes with no tags, or not tagged correctly. This increases the accuracy of my search results and reduces the chance of lost notes.

 

1.) Search for notes with no tags

-tag:*

 

2.) Search for notes not tagged correctly. I do this sporadically for specific items. For example, I might be working on my notes that contain information for my vehicle registration. (In Minnesota, that is the Driver & Vehicle Services). To be sure they are all tagged correctly, I would run a search of all my notes looking for:

DVS -tag:DVS

 

and a 2nd search for

"Vehicle Services" -tag:DVS

[SahilC 13]

Occasionally, I will do some housecleaning and look for notes with no tags, or not tagged correctly. This increases the accuracy of my search results and reduces the chance of lost notes.

 

1.) Search for notes with no tags

-tag:*

 

2.) Search for notes not tagged correctly. I do this sporadically for specific items. For example, I might be working on my notes that contain information for my vehicle registration. (In Minnesota, that is the Driver & Vehicle Services). To be sure they are all tagged correctly, I would run a search of all my notes looking for:

DVS -tag:DVS

 

and a 2nd search for

"Vehicle Services" -tag:DVS

 

Ohh, I get it. And so all of these notes tagged DVS are dumped in an archive-like notebook?

[jbenson2 2,147]

 

Occasionally, I will do some housecleaning and look for notes with no tags, or not tagged correctly. This increases the accuracy of my search results and reduces the chance of lost notes.

 

1.) Search for notes with no tags

-tag:*

 

2.) Search for notes not tagged correctly. I do this sporadically for specific items. For example, I might be working on my notes that contain information for my vehicle registration. (In Minnesota, that is the Driver & Vehicle Services). To be sure they are all tagged correctly, I would run a search of all my notes looking for:

DVS -tag:DVS

 

and a 2nd search for

"Vehicle Services" -tag:DVS

 

Ohh, I get it. And so all of these notes tagged DVS are dumped in an archive-like notebook?

 

 

No, I prefer to keep just a few notebooks - personal, employment, leisure, politics, miscellaneous. I do not use a notebook for archived information.

 

The search finds all notes that are missing the criteria I want. I will then verify that it should have the tag, and add the tag. It will temporarily "disappear" from my search findings. It disappears because it no longer meets my search requirements. I will move on to the next note in the list and repeat.

 

By the way if I find a false positive, I usually ignore it. But sometimes I will edit the note to prevent confusion in the future. For example: if the text contained DVS but it did not relate to the Minnesota DVS, I would add a space or change it. 

 

DVS might become DV S

or

DVS might be edited to Dynamic Voltage Scaling

[SahilC 13]

Alright, thanks for all the help! I'll keep experimenting as I go along. Hopefully I get into the flow before my note collection grows too large