(Archived) For going paperless...any concerns about jumping in?

[Dennis 0]

I'm thoroughly enjoying Evernote, with the Premium version. I've adapted my own David Allen/Getting Things Done system to Evernote. Wow! I'm off to a great start after just a little work upfront to implement tags and notebooks. I especially like how adaptable the tags are to create and later change. I've limited the number of notebooks, and have a standardized tag naming convention, and am trying to keep things simple.

Now that I see the benefits of Evernote and how intuitively/well it works (near flawlessly, from what I can see) I'm considering trying to keep my office paperless if possible.

Are there any reasons (other than the monthly limit on uploads) why I shouldn't start scanning everything in my inbox or on my desk (and forwarding emails to Evernote) that I might want to read/find later...and then toss the paper version?

I have a desk top full of papers, business cards, receipts, a large file of "to read" items, a stack of professional newsletters that come in and I want to save, and a large file of miscellaneous "reference materials" that I am keeping for future information. I also get lots of emails from listservs, etc., that I want to save for future reference...but may never ever look at again. I also have various items that need to be saved for a future date (e.g., travel itineraries and meeting agendas), or letters/memos/email attachments to act upon now/soon.

A related question is: are there any tips to make sure that my Evernote reference notebook doesn't become unmanageable in the future...I don't know why it would but I'm asking anyway.

Thanks! Dennis

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I have a desk top full of papers, business cards, receipts, a large file of "to read" items, a stack of professional newsletters that come in and I want to save, and a large file of miscellaneous "reference materials" that I am keeping for future information. I also get lots of emails from listservs, etc., that I want to save for future reference...but may never ever look at again. I also have various items that need to be saved for a future date (e.g., travel itineraries and meeting agendas), or letters/memos/email attachments to act upon now/soon.

A related question is: are there any tips to make sure that my Evernote reference notebook doesn't become unmanageable in the future...I don't know why it would but I'm asking anyway.

That's exactly what I use EN for, in addition to other things. IMO, EN is perfect for these things. The interesting thing is too, even if I had all my papers/articles/etc neatly filed & stowed away, it's still much faster to find the info in EN!!! I have EN open on my desktop pretty much 100% of the time the computer is on (which is 24/7.) That way, if I find an article on the internet or a photo of something I want to save or whatever, it takes a few seconds to pop it into EN.

Are there any reasons (other than the monthly limit on uploads) why I shouldn't start scanning everything in my inbox or on my desk (and forwarding emails to Evernote) that I might want to read/find later...and then toss the paper version?

I haven't found any reason to keep the originals. You can always print a copy out again from Evernote, should you need one.

As far as making things easy to find, I use descriptive titles & even add keywords to the note. Sometimes I'll even add misspelled keywords. IE, if the note is about Bill Shafer, I will also add a keyword of "Shaffer" (or any other variations of the spelling you may be more familiar with) so I don't have to remember exactly how he spells his last name, in order to find all notes pertaining to him.

One thing I would suggest though, is to not get rid of the source documents until you know you have at least one good backup on another physical hard drive/thumb drive/web backup service/etc. That way, if something happens & I need to pull from a backup, I have one. (That's why you want the backup on another physical location - if your original database & the backup one are on your G drive & the G drive takes a dive...chances are both copies are history.)

Also, I don't use EN for my sensitive documents like copies of taxes, pay stubs, etc. I do scan those & shred the originals, but I keep those on a Truecrypted drive...but that's a whole other thread.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm off to a great start after just a little work upfront to implement tags and notebooks. I especially like how adaptable the tags are to create and later change. I've limited the number of notebooks, and have a standardized tag naming convention, and am trying to keep things simple.

Also - IMO, this is very good. I think sometimes people think they have to tag every note, so they end up with a zillion tags. IME, I'm finding if you use titles & keywords judiciously, you can find a handful of notes (out of thousands) in a few seconds. But tags are better for looking at a list of notes. IE, I might change the title of a receipt to "breakfast at Mimi's with Dave". A search on the words of breakfast, Mimi, Dave would find only those receipts that had those three words in the note/title. If there were more than one, I can quickly find the correct one by looking at the creation date. However, if I tagged it as 'receipt', 'work', then I could do a search on those two tags & find all receipts that are related to work. I have many notes that are not tagged at all.

[Dennis 0]

One thing I would suggest though, is to not get rid of the source documents until you know you have at least one good backup on another physical hard drive/thumb drive/web backup service/etc. That way, if something happens & I need to pull from a backup, I have one. (That's why you want the backup on another physical location - if your original database & the backup one are on your G drive & the G drive takes a dive...chances are both copies are history.)

Also, I don't use EN for my sensitive documents like copies of taxes, pay stubs, etc. I do scan those & shred the originals, but I keep those on a Truecrypted drive...but that's a whole other thread.

That helps. Encryption and online backups are two important topics for using EN as a paper replacement and permanent storage. I have seen a lot of threads referencing online backup e.g., Jungle Disk (don't think I've seen many other services referenced in this forum) and also Truecrypt but can't find anything comprehensive in the forum about how best to implement encryption and online backup for EN files.

Could you elaborate either in this thread or in a new one especially for Windows EN version? Why is JungleDisk a preferred option? Seems like you have a good way of doing encryption/backup.

Also, for backup: if Scansnap scans are done into EN on more than one computer (e.g., home and office) should EN and the scans be backed up for both computers online? I expect the answer is yes, that the synchronization of EN over various computers still leaves the scanned documents either on the original hard drive, or on the EN servers.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Dennis, I'm not ignoring you. I am happy to elaborate on this topic but haven't had the time to devote to this, yet. Hopefully in the next couple of days...

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hi Dennis, sorry for the delay...

Could you elaborate either in this thread or in a new one especially for Windows EN version? Why is JungleDisk a preferred option? Seems like you have a good way of doing encryption/backup.

For many years, I used Quicken's online backup. AFAIK, that was the first one available that was in a reasonable price range for a home/home office user. But the capacity of what I was paying for meant I could only upload only the most critical info & I continued to use tapes, then Zip disks, then CDs, then DVDs to backup the documents, photos, MP3s, etc that I couldn't fit into the Quicken backup. Jungle Disk was the second "reasonably priced" (for home/home office user) that I'd heard of & it was MUCH cheaper than Quicken. And...you don't pay for a set amount - you can use as much space as you want or as little space as you want & you only pay for what you use. I ended up being able to upload all my stuff (except for movies, which take a LOT of space) for a few dollars less than I was paying Quicken. My data is encrypted on their servers, so if anyone were to hack their servers, the likelihood of them decrypting my data is pretty slim. JD allows you to set up different "buckets" with different encryption or none at all & also has web access. I use these features to transfer files to servers at work, that are configured to disallow downloading of files from the internet. I have JD set up as a trusted site. I then upload the files to my JD account from my home computer. Sign onto the server & download the files from the JD account. And since I have work files set up in a different bucket on JD, if anyone at work were to replicate what I'm doing, they still can't get to my personal data which resides in a different bucket.

I've been with them for about 3-4 years now & have never had a problem, so I stay. Now, there are many more services but that's why I am partial to Jungle Disk.

Also, for backup: if Scansnap scans are done into EN on more than one computer (e.g., home and office) should EN and the scans be backed up for both computers online? I expect the answer is yes, that the synchronization of EN over various computers still leaves the scanned documents either on the original hard drive, or on the EN servers.

I tend to be overly cautious, but if it were me, I'd probably backup the images on both computers as well as the EN database. Another option would be to store all images on a single computer. IE, if you scan things at work & drop them into Evernote, you could copy/move the originals on the hard drive to the home computer via something like Dropbox/LiveMesh/Sugarsync or even a thumb drive. That way, you would only need to backup the images on one computer. I know some people would say if you've got the files in EN (and you're backing up your EN database) then why backup the source images from the hard drive? Honestly, I'm not sure why. I guess it comforts me to know I've got them if I'm not able to use Evernote. Or if the EN service is down (God forbid!) and I'm away from home, I can Logmein into my home computer & get them either from the hard drive or the EN database on my home computer (which is also my work computer since I'm a full time telecommuter.)

[Dennis 0]

Makes sense to me. That is very helpful to know, and much appreciated. I'm using EN constantly now...it is wonderful.

Here's a related question for someone, with a slightly different concern about backup: If by some chance everything is backed up on JD, and then one day EN is not available ever again(heaven forbid!) would those backed up files be sufficient to start over with my database? Or are they only good if I can use EN to do an export of some sort?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

You do need the Evernote program to export your notes. But if you're using the Windows client you can continue to use that w/o the EN servers and you should be able to export the notes that reside in your database. Heck, you can continue to use the program, if you choose. It's just that it functions like a stand alone program. Of course the services provided by the EN servers (OCR'ing to index images & PDFs) would not be available, but the EN program search is still pretty powerful. Plus, of course, you'd only be able to access the data on the computer it's located on & not with iPhone/web service/etc. The only thing that may be a problem is if the EN servers were unavailable & the EN program wasn't installed on your computer. Even if you have a copy of the program & try to install it, I think it requires you to log in & connect to the EN servers at least once before you're able to get into the program. (Hope that makes sense.)

(Sorry, Dave...this seems kind of like talking about what you're going to do when someone dies while they are in the room.)

BTW, I also keep copies of my programs on the computer & back those up to JD, too. My approach to offsite backups is would I be able to recover all my critical information if my house blew up/caught fire/etc.? What would I need if I had to start from scratch with a brand new computer & only my Jungle Disk backup? Of course I hope that would never happen, but it does happen to other people every day.

I'm glad to hear you're loving Evernote! I love it too & honestly don't know what I'd do without it now!

[Dennis 0]

Thanks!That makes sense, although like you I would always hope that EN will be available. Using EN is the first time that I have actually felt good about creating reference files and saving my projects in one place without the organization and process getting in the way. Applies for both my personal and business information.

Next step is to get Jungle Disk backup set up.