better tagging

[dixy 2]

Hi I need to tag my notes better. I don't tag them at the time instead they get done at the end of the day. It looks like evernote does not provide a way to select a tab and have it appear in a note so I thought I'd try to do it myself.

 

Here's what I think will happen

 

create/open a spreadsheet window which will hold the hierarchical tagging structure.

each tag will be in its own cell and end with a comma.

I will open the note in evenote windows and select to add tags.

I'll then select the spreadsheet window and choose the tag I want  with right click - copy

then select the evernote window and right click paste.

select the spreadsheet window again and repeat for all the tags I need.

 

My expectation is that I will be able to write a macro (3rd part app) do the above so that once the windows are opened and placed in the exact screen locations I only need to select the cell I want and the macro will do the rest.

 

My tagging needs to be extensive and hierarchical. if I have an annotated daily chart then it will be tagged   wealth,financial.trading,charts,analysis,annotated,eurusd,daily,completed,unremarkable  etc

 

does it look like this will work okay?

Are there better ways to do it?

 

thnx

[jbenson2 2,149]

I use a two level hierachical method for most of my frequently used tags. There are no direct connections between the parent and child, but it works nicely for me. Example:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/28840-question-about-tag-levels/#entry155962

 

In my opinion, you will get bogged down with the extensive system you are describing. It comes down to how accurate you want your tag searches to be. 

 

Here are some other methods.

 

Start each note with the date (yyyymmdd). This can help pinpoint a range of notes in a specific time frame.

 

Use a structured and consistent title for all your notes. The intitle: search can be very powerful in finding the notes you want.  In my case, the format I use is: 

YYYYMMDD State City Subject Person

 

Be consistent with your tag naming method. I prefer to stick with all lower case, singular, and no spaces. It looks odd, but my tag for Hewlett Packard is com-hewlett-packard. The lower case and singular name is easy for me to remember. And eliminating spaces in a tag also eliminates the need for quotation marks.

 

Throw some keywords into the body of the text. Mine are at the end of the note. This will help catch spelling variations and topics that do not have a tag.

 

Also, use the Evernote search capability liberally. Practice using the different search grammar techniques. Both the standard type of search (water) and the negative search (-water) can find an amazing amount of information.

[Analyst444 182]

Dixy, I'm not sure what benefit Excel would provide in the procedure you described in your post. Why not just keep your hierarchical Tagging structure in a Note in EN?

 

Regardless, I think you can avoid establishing a separate place for your hierarchical Tagging structure, if you develop a well-designed scheme for your Tags. Here's an example.

 

Establish a keyword (or unique letter) for each Tag. For the sake of the example, I'll use the letter "L". After the key word, include a digit (1, 2, 3, etc.) that indicates the level of the Tag in your hierarchy. After the digit, include the value you want to give the Tag, say "Dogs". So, a first level tag for "Dogs" would look like this: "L1Dogs". Here's an example of another  first level tag: "L1Cats".

 

Tags in the second level of your hierarchy might then look like this: "L2Collie", "L2GermanSherpard", "L2SCheshire".

 

When you assign a Tag to a Note, use one Tag field for your level 1 hierarchy value and another Tag field for your level 2 hierarchy value, etc. The value of using a keyword or letter (like "L") for you Tags is that when you start typing L1 or L2 into the Tag field in the Note, EN will reduce the list of Tags to those which match the value you started typing. You can then assign the Tag by merely clicking on its value. (No copying or pasting needed.)

 

The other value of this Tagging structure is that you will be able to do a search on "L1Dogs" to get all Notes that have that Tag or "L1Dogs L2Collie" to get that set of Notes. - - - And if by chance, one of your level 2 Tags appears in different level 1 hierarchy, you can just search for "L2Whatever" and find Notes with that Tag, regardless of the level 1 that they are in.

 

Of course, it your hierarchy is not too large and/or your memory is good enough, you will not need the keywords or digits.

 

I've tried this on the Windows version of EN. It works fine. I can't say for the Mac, iOS, Android, or other EN versions.

 

Give that Tagging structure (or some variation, thereof) a try and see if it meets your needs.

[dixy 2]

Thanks Both 

I will try out each stye for a while and find something which suits. Both are better solutions than the one I had so you guys have helped alot.

cheers

Dix

[dixy 2]

Would it be possible to see a complete list of  tags. Maybe via PM if it's not appropriate on the wider forum. A screenshot or two of a tag list may save me from reinventing the wheel. and... A. I'm really lazy and B.OCD about structure, so nothing ever gets done when I design stuff myself lol!

thanks

[jefito 5,590]

You claim that your "tagging needs to be extensive and hierarchical". How can you be so sure about that? What defines "extensive"? Why do you need the tags to be hierarchical?

 

Your tags should reflect what's important to you; what someone else uses may not be any good to you. Start slowly and think about your organization, rather than investing a whole lot of time up front trying to come up with the perfect structure; you will almost certainly change things around after awhile, according to your usage. You don't need to come up with the perfect solution right away. Remember, what works for one person may not work for you. Some people have large numbers of tags, and may need more effort to manage them than those with smaller numbers; don't go there unless you find that you need to.

 

Also, tags are not the only way to find your notes: you may find that can use general text search as well just as easily.

 

And trying to manage your tags in an external program like Excel will just lead to grief; you will need to manage them in two different places. Don't do that to yourself.

[dixy 2]

You claim that your "tagging needs to be extensive and hierarchical". How can you be so sure about that? What defines "extensive"? Why do you need the tags to be hierarchical?

 

Your tags should reflect what's important to you; what someone else uses may not be any good to you. Start slowly and think about your organization, rather than investing a whole lot of time up front trying to come up with the perfect structure; you will almost certainly change things around after awhile, according to your usage. You don't need to come up with the perfect solution right away. Remember, what works for one person may not work for you. Some people have large numbers of tags, and may need more effort to manage them than those with smaller numbers; don't go there unless you find that you need to.

 

Also, tags are not the only way to find your notes: you may find that can use general text search as well just as easily.

 

And trying to manage your tags in an external program like Excel will just lead to grief; you will need to manage them in two different places. Don't do that to yourself.

 

Thanks Jeff.

I've tried the "develop it as you go approach" and after a few years of paid-up service and 7000+ notes I'm left with nothing more than a big scrapbook that I occasionally open and say "wow" I forgot I evernoted that and that and that etc!! But so far as real functionality I'm still using folders, mindmaps, word documents, excel, scanned docs dropbox and pogoplug!!!! oh and paper...lots of paper!

 

I just bought a new tablet and it came with a new EN subscription so I thought I'd start again but this time properly (or my version of). I don't want to create tags on the fly anymore. I want a list already done that I can choose from easily and immediately. Sure I need to add to the list but not as often as allowing my notes to fit in an already defined structure.   I've been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt several times on my own 'ad-hoc' and as they say "if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got".   So I thought I'd try a little something different this time.  Seeing someone else's complete list would give me a different perspective on how to approach it.  Jbenson's and analysts' posts have already given me approaches different to those I would have come up with myself.

cheers

Dix

[jefito 5,590]

I've tried the "develop it as you go approach" and after a few years of paid-up service and 7000+ notes I'm left with nothing more than a big scrapbook that I occasionally open and say "wow" I forgot I evernoted that and that and that etc!! But so far as real functionality I'm still using folders, mindmaps, word documents, excel, scanned docs dropbox and pogoplug!!!! oh and paper...lots of paper!

What's interesting about this is that you had already built up your tag vocabulary; i.e., the words that you use to describe your note collection. I would think that at some point, you might just take that as a starting point for thinking about how to really organize things: organize your rag list into meaningful trees (if that's your thing), and so on. In my case, my need for new tags has slowed dramatically: my home account has ~200; my work account is still growing, and in that case I tend to make new tags for larger projects (though for day to day bug tickets -- I'm a software developer -- those get tagged generically).

But it's good to get other ideas too.

[dixy 2]

 

I've tried the "develop it as you go approach" and after a few years of paid-up service and 7000+ notes I'm left with nothing more than a big scrapbook that I occasionally open and say "wow" I forgot I evernoted that and that and that etc!! But so far as real functionality I'm still using folders, mindmaps, word documents, excel, scanned docs dropbox and pogoplug!!!! oh and paper...lots of paper!

What's interesting about this is that you had already built up your tag vocabulary; i.e., the words that you use to describe your note collection. I would think that at some point, you might just take that as a starting point for thinking about how to really organize things: organize your rag list into meaningful trees (if that's your thing), and so on. In my case, my need for new tags has slowed dramatically: my home account has ~200; my work account is still growing, and in that case I tend to make new tags for larger projects (though for day to day bug tickets -- I'm a software developer -- those get tagged generically).

But it's good to get other ideas too.

 

Yes I agree. I've also realized that in fact I do NOT want an extensive list. Actually I want a concise list. You mention 200 personal and more for work I'd like <200 for everything! I guess too many tags is really my problem. So I'm changing my approach from creating the tag list anew and instead looking over my last notes and asking "what note types are a priority to find?" I'll define my tagging around those and be as concise as possible to ensure I can always get to those types. Then I can expand the list by priority(next most useful to find) for the remaining/new notes.  Your comments have been very useful - thanks

[jefito 5,590]

My personal list would be smaller if I didn't keep around a number of tags that I use for test scenarios (because I try things out that other forum users say they have problems with) and other experimental tags that I might suggest as ideas for others but wouldn't use for myself, such as Unicode symbols that could be useful, such as ★, and other one-offs. I could use a separate account for these, or clean up old detritus, I know, but I'm lazy . Even so, ~150 tags doesn't seem like a lot for 4400+ notes, give that estimates of native English speaker vocabulary size is probably >10,000 words, and a significant number of mine are names of things (like computer languages, specific events, etc.).

 

I also almost never deal with an entire list of tags, but usually depend on remembering my categorizations and/or dropdown menus with typeahead, etc.

 

My work account is smaller than 200 currently, for sure, but will grow over time for reasons noted. It's a bit of a different use case.

 

Overall, it sounds like you have a plan, so tag on & good luck.