...newbe - how do i create search w multiple criteria

[Ethan417 1]

Hi

 

i am new to Evernote

 

i have the following structure for when my tasks are do

 

.When

  1-Today

  2-Next

  3-Soon

  4-Later 

  5-Someday

 

i also have a tag completed

 

how do i create a search that enables me to do the following

 

 1-Today or 2-Next or 3-Soon or 4-Later or 5-Someday and none of these should have the tag completed

 

thank you so much 

 

-Ethan

 

 

 

 

[jefito 5,589]

how do i create a search that enables me to do the following

 

 1-Today or 2-Next or 3-Soon or 4-Later or 5-Someday and none of these should have the tag completed

 

 

Straight up, as presented, there's no way. Evernote cannot, in general, mix OR (the "1-Today or 2-Next or 3-Soon or 4-Later or 5-Someday" part) and AND (the "completed" part) searches. See the Evernote Search Grammar, and look for the "any:" modifier.

 

What you *could* do is make tags:

.When

  when-1-Today

  when-2-Next

  when-3-Soon

  when-4-Later 

  when-5-Someday

 

and do a search like "tag:when-* -tag:completed", which translates into "all notes that have a tag beginning with "when-" and do not have the tag "completed"".

 

You might also search the forum for "GTD", as that sounds like what you're doing, and there are folks trying to do that in Evernote. They may have a better take on this task than me.

[Ethan417 1]

Thank you

[CalS 5,280]

I use the solution that Jeff details with the exception I substitute ! for when, so it is !1-Now, !2-Next, etc..  Quicker to type and added benefit that the GTD notes are at the the top of the list when you sort by Tags in any of the views.

[lisec 283]

If you don't care about what priority the note had before it was completed, then just tag a note with the completed tag and remove its number tag. Then you could always search for (and save the search): any: tag:1 tag:2 tag:3 tag:4 tag:5  

[lisec 283]

btw, this could be a useful tip (if you work in Windows):

Enable your shortcut bar (Tools > Options > Navigation > Shortcuts related options...show in toolbar )

Put your tags on the shortcut bar (right click on your tag in the tree and select "add to shortcuts")  then you can click on the number quickly to get all your relevant notes.  You can also click on more than one of the tags in the tree or in the shortcuts by holding down Ctrl as  you click. This will automatically be set to "All" in the search, but you can then just go change the "All" to "Any" in the drop down.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, lisec said:

If you don't care about what priority the note...remove its number tag

This works for for me.  For tasks completed in the past, I can't see a use the "1-Today" tag

>> Then you could always search for (and save the search): any: tag:1 tag:2 tag:3 tag:4 tag:5

To improve the OP's task processing I'd suggest a change in identifying task notes 

1. Identify tasks with     tag: Task
2. To search for outstanding tasks      tag:Task -task:Completed

Personally, I dropped the When tags and switched to actual dates; stored using the reminder feature

 

[lisec 283]

3 minutes ago, DTLow said:

This works for for me.  For tasks completed in the past, I can't see a use the "1-Today" tag

>> Then you could always search for (and save the search): any: tag:1 tag:2 tag:3 tag:4 tag:5

To improve the OP's task processing I'd suggest a change in identifying task notes 

Identify tasks with     tag=Task

To search for outstanding tasks      tag:Task -task:Completed

 

Good and simple, but you do lose priority, which is the point of 1, 2, 3.

Maybe combine both ideas: name the tags task1, task2, task3 then you can just search for tag:task* -tag:completed to get all incomplete tasks while nonetheless preserving priority.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, lisec said:

you do lose priority, which is the point of 1, 2, 3.  (re: switched to actual dates; stored using the reminder feature)

Search parameters

1-Today       remindertime:day
3-Soon         remindertime:day -remindertine:day+5    (I'm guessing "soon" means in the next 5 days)
4-Later         remindertime:day+5
5-Someday -remindertime:*

2-Next         I am familiar with the GTD Next Action and have a NA Tag; I identify the NA when I complete a task

 

[CalS 5,280]

I have a PhraseExpress hotkey which adds _Completed mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm XM to the note after which I delete the !task tag.  _ prefix to facilitate the search process.

In my use case I don't care what the priority was after task completion.  And there are some notes which get completed that don't always have an !task tag (eg those items which are date specific).  So _Completed works there as well.  FWIW.

[lisec 283]

27 minutes ago, CalS said:

I have a PhraseExpress hotkey which adds _Completed mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm XM to the note after which I delete the !task tag.  _ prefix to facilitate the search process.

That's handy. I use a hotkey to insert today's date as well, only I use YYYYMMDD format so that I can search for 2017* or 201702* or 2017020* narrowing by year or by month or by 10 days within a month. My understanding at the time I chose that date format was that evernote could only search the beginning of a word and not the middle or end (so I could never search for the year using your format). However, I discovered today that it can search for something after a "/" so that's cool.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, CalS said:

adds _Completed mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm XM to the note after which I delete the !task tag

So  intitle:_Completed replaces the OP's  tag:completed?
Correction: Thc completed text is in the body of the note

Is there a reason for deleting  tag:!task?
edited:  !task represents active tasks

[lisec 283]

42 minutes ago, CalS said:

I have a PhraseExpress hotkey which adds _Completed mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm XM to the note after which I delete the !task tag.  _ prefix to facilitate the search process.

Oh and I forgot to say... I do a very similar thing with my auto-inserted date. I use p.20180224 for the purchase date, r.20180224 for date received, w.20180224 for date watched, that sort of thing. Agree that the prefix is essential for filtering.  Actually, I should have known that you can search for text after a "/" because I always got results when searching for the date even though it is prefixed with p. or w. 

[lisec 283]

8 minutes ago, DTLow said:

So  intitle:_Completed replaces the OP's  tag:completed?

Is there a reason for deleting  tag:!task?

It is no longer a task?

[CalS 5,280]

22 minutes ago, DTLow said:

So  intitle:_Completed replaces the OP's  tag:completed?

Is there a reason for deleting  tag:!task?

Not sure on the intitle, I would do a text -compl* to the search if I were to keep the tags (I add the completed string to the note body).  

Relative to deleting the tag, two reasons.  The note is no longer a task in the real world and when selecting an !task from the tag selection drop down (they are at the top) I only get active !tasks with no extra work.

[CalS 5,280]

49 minutes ago, lisec said:

That's handy. I use a hotkey to insert today's date as well, only I use YYYYMMDD format so that I can search for 2017* or 201702* or 2017020* narrowing by year or by month or by 10 days within a month. My understanding at the time I chose that date format was that evernote could only search the beginning of a word and not the middle or end (so I could never search for the year using your format). However, I discovered today that it can search for something after a "/" so that's cool.

Yeah, it turns out the the / in dates creates "words" of the month, day and year (/ ends up being a space in the search).  I probably should have made my text yyyy/mm/dd but when I created this I based it on the EN Ctrl-; date hot key (which I think is based upon the Windows defaults).  IAC, no biggie at this point since I rarely remember when something actually got done, I remember the it better.  My use case anyway.  FWIW.

Your method is better if you know to look for yyyymm*. 

[lisec 283]

It's a great system for future stuff and I end up using that a lot more for an upcoming task.

20180308 Dad's Birthday

20180312 Dentist Appointment

Then I just search for 201803* and I get everything coming up in March.  When it is recurring, I just change the year to the next year (like birthdays, subscription payments, that sort of thing). Most of my tasks are like that too (of course I keep changing the date on them because I'm such a good procrastinator).

I use my 1, 2, and 3 tags for things I really should get around to doing very soon, next and after that.  Works like a charm. Nothing gets done, but boy oh boy am I organized ;-)

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, lisec said:

That's handy. I use a hotkey to insert today's date as well, only I use YYYYMMDD format so that I can search for 2017* or 201702* or 2017020* narrowing by year or by month or by 10 days within a month. My understanding at the time I chose that date format was that evernote could only search the beginning of a word and not the middle or end (so I could never search for the year using your format). However, I discovered today that it can search for something after a "/" so that's cool.

I switched to yyyy_mm_dd since Evernote doesn't recognize / 

It works in search, but I'm not thrilled with the way it looks
I'll be going back to yyyy/mm/dd
It works in a search if enclosed in quotes

[CalS 5,280]

18 minutes ago, lisec said:

It's a great system for future stuff and I end up using that a lot more for an upcoming task.

20180308 Dad's Birthday

20180312 Dentist Appointment

This is where I use the reminder functionality and various saved searches.  Date specific tasks get reminders, TSW/GTD gets the rest.  Horses for courses of course.  

[lisec 283]

you are missing the most important one: 

!9d ***** it. I'll do it when I get to it.

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

22 minutes ago, lisec said:

you are missing the most important one: 

!9d ***** it. I'll do it when I get to it.

That's in the marked out area, without the *'s.