kilavos

I agree with s2sailor. Most of my 50-70 shortcuts are saved searches (time-based or topic-based or a combination of both (e.g. projects uncompleted ="tag:project* todo:false" or appointments current week = "reminderTime:week -reminderTime:week+1 -tag:"XYZ"). It would be great to structure those shortcut list by style.

Correct, that is my intention. Let me explain in short how I handle thousands of notes in daily work. There are two steps: (1) selection and then (2) sorting Selection - mainly by using favorites 1.1. favorites with tags e.g "project_2015_compname_partname" = topic-based 1.2 favorites with search e.g."-remindertime:day+2 remindertime:day-7 todo:false" = time/date-based 1.3 favorites with search e.g. "tag:XYZ_offer todo:false" 1.4 and combinations of these... Sorting - preferably (default) sorting by creation date = chronological (current on top) The reason is very simple: selection a project I'm interested in the activities in chronological order, different e.g. alphabetical sorting would not make any sense. So (nearly) never there is the need for other sorting than creation date (exception my yesterday explanation). That might be different if someone has notes with e.g. person/comp. names in the title and wants an alphab. sorting from A... to Z... Thus said it's obvious that I had to modify the creation dates of emails which have been received/sent within a period of 2-3 years and imported together in one process and get current creation date by EN.

Thanks for your proposal. That was my hope that there is a way within EN Win - but obviously there is not. Therefore I did the job with a keyboard macro tool as you suggested - I used Perfect Keyboard and it worked fine. Although it requires some special arrangement as - having the notes related in a separate table e.g. mail_temp in order to get proper selection like "August 2015" referring to the "Date received" within the note/mail. Sorting by creation date (when starting the process all notes have current date by importing action). - then run a macro in Perfect Keyboard like Xtrl+Shift+i - tab - tab - next - 08 - next - 2015 - ENTER - ESC - TOP this will change the creation date to XX.08.2015 ... TOP focus the next note to handle which now is on top of the selection continue by manual shortcut or loop process in the macro - then sync and change sorting to title - modify the day manually (sorting by title does not change the view during this action) Repeat this with all relevant months/years (adjust the macro!) - took about 2 hours for 500 notes Including the day in this precedure would - from my point of view - take much more time but can be performed as well.

OS = W10 Is there a way to modify the creation date of a group of notes (=selection) in a single step? For instance 17 notes - creation date should be 02.05.2016 for all of them...

A very useful new feature, which works as follows: Hit "Snapshot" will change window, mark the region to shapshot and - while marking - press Ctrl-Btn (copies to clipboard) Change to Evernote (or other app), position cursor and press Ctrl+v will insert the content of the clipboard This way you have the chance to position at a certain place after copying and/or insert several times.

Never fear! There are logical reasons for the excistance of more than one notebook, they are for different purposes. Therefore there is no war but discussion in understanding the differences between tags and notebooks. See the brilliant explanation of JTMichaelTX on 2016/04/03 page 3 An example for the use of tags I dealt with this afternoon: I checked some documents stored in Evernote dealing with insurance of car, household, liability etc. I use 3 kind of tags: (1) kind of insurance e.g. insu_car (2) insurance company e.g. comp_safe (3) agent e.g. comp_Fischer or pers_Fischer. All docs in 1 notebook. By this means I can get all documents to (1) or (2) or (3) or a combination of all those tags. As you please and whatever you need (At the moment I'm frustated yet as Evernote V6 prerelease does not support tags with prefix - means doesn't find "Fischer" if it's not at the beginning of the tag. But that is not an argument against tags but against my naming or the change in V6. Hope this will be the same as in V5.)

This is correct, of cource. I very much apologize for this slipshod piece of work. Some months ago I did some analyzing on the exb database using the SQLite prog. The note_attr has fields like notebook, notebook_uid and tags which indicates that it is a query/view with the table notes and related tables. And not a single-standing table. Do you have more information about htis matter? Even though it is "not relevant (except for technical constraints) in how a user decides to organize their notes using Notebooks and Tags" as you already mentioned. I agree.

That's a good question, 4 weeks after starting this topic. Not very profound or momentous, only a reminiscence to "black humor". And a way to attract attention.

As already explained I have 3 notes with titles "Task today", "Task weekly", "Task monthly". They are tagged with "periodical". And this tag is set a shortcut and positioned on top of the shortcut list. A click to this shortcut is sufficient to list these 3 notes. In there I have a table with column "topic", checkbox, "description". At one glance you keep track of the jobs which have to be done daily, at the end of the week, at the end/beginning of the month. The topics do normally not change, they are static. Therefore I handle this by tag and not by reminder Example with Task daily: Online banking, Check meetings, work on orders etc... You might check this note at the beginning and at the and of a day.

no sorting of the reminder list : I confess, that I lost sight of this option. Anyway. My sorting ist due to reminder date and this is part of my philosophy: When set a reminder date this is equivalent with priority. notes with reminders in a fortnight have less priority than those of actual week. And if priority of a note changes - I modify the reminder. That might be a rough system concerning priority but - in comparison with your way of manually sorting - somewhat more pragmatic. I don't see the need of a tight priority listing (no 1,2,3 ...). Priority grouping answers the purpose. In the moment a group of notes is listed (Today!!) you have the chance to decide what are the most important ones.

Thanks for this detailed description of your workflow handling jobs with reminders and notebooks. I don't know Agile Methodology but will inform in the near future. At the moment I'm involved in some difficult preparations which will need my attention till the end of April - therefore I only try to give you some idea how I do this job, you mght be able to evaluate Pro & Cons. One question only: how does this manually sorting of the note list work ? I'm not able to disable sorting (title, creation date etc...reverse sorting order). Might be Windows (10)? My way to manage this: (1) I do 95% of my work in Evernote with 1 notebook only, rest is local and for archive purpose. (2) I use a couple of shortcuts=favorites to manage notes refering to tasks and/or date. ------- TASKS -------- (= title of a note, set as shortcut) tasks--7 till today+1 = "-remindertime:day+2 remindertime:day-7 todo:false" (saved search) tasks undue = "todo:false" tasks partly undue = "todo:true todo:false" task - without date = "todo:false -remindertime:*" tasks - completed = "-todo:false todo:true" --------- DATES ------- date - -30 till today = "remindertime:day-30 -remindertime:day" date - today + 1 = "remindertime:day -remindertime:day+2" date - act week = "reminderTime:week -reminderTime:week+1" date - next week = "reminderTime:week+1 -reminderTime:week+2" date - act month = "reminderTime:20160401 -reminderTime:20160501" (has to be modified each month) date - 2 months = "reminderTime:20160401 -reminderTime:20160601" date - act year = "remindertime:year -remindertime:year+1" date - act year done = "reminderDonetime:year -reminderDonetime:year+1" date - next year = "remindertime:year+1" date - all = "remindertime:*" There is some overlapping but that's not a problem. This works with checkboxes and reminders (tasks have both, dates have reminder only). The first shortcuts in every group are used more often=daily, others for controlling purposes only sometimes Sorting is done by creation day, reverse sorting order. New notes get a checkbox and/or reminder. date of reminder sets the priority according to my rating Work on a note is finished by marking the checkbox (or not) and modifying the reminder (or set done) (e.g. this note will be listed somewhere next week... or never, if the the job is done) That's all. Last point: "I'm currently using a 'Today' notebook to plan what I intend to do each day in the morning." I have 3 notes (task daily, task weekly, task monthy) with have the tag "periodically". And this tag is as a shortcut on top of the list. (The notes contain a table with items to be done daily etc.) You probably realize that I do most of the organization using the shortcut list (tags, searches, notes). This has to be arranged once only and then used every day. I'm a lazy guy, I know.

Arguing for reminders vs bucket-tags does not implicate the specific day, but split the bunch of notes for work on somewhere in the future into smaller pieces. Regarding different relevance in time and importance. Some should be done next week, some with lower impact might wait a month etc. Viewing 10 notes at a glance vs 50 or more ...

That's exactly what I'm arguing for all the time. (I have been using tags for decades in different progs) What I still do not understand is this item "pseudo notebooks". They are obviously just tags with prefix NB ?- in this case it seems to me like a vehicle introducing the NB again.

Quite so! Not to forget one point: the bucket "Later" grows and grows and grows - sooner or later you loose the survey...Unfortunately it's very easy to have 3 buckets only ("out of my brain"), to make a decision for a precise date needs more precise thinking.

You might be rihgt, it's a crazy talk in a certain way. The problem we are discussing is not a question of the database structure. In this Evernote database the notebooks, notes, tags etc. are just objects, stored in records (rows), the database does not care what they mean or used for. For the front end however it does not mean that all these objects are of equal value. A notebook is not the same as a tag. And a tag is not a reminder or vice versa.

(1) In a case like this it might be considered if Evernote is the convinient tool or not a special project management prog. (2) Evernote: I tried to explain earlier my way of handling a project with diffenrent sub-items. Having different dates just set reminders to the corresponding sub-items.

I doubt that. I'm guessing that Notebook is simply a column in the Note table. Second - you are right. And we now are dipping deeply into the programming structure of Evernore, which works on the basis of SQLight. A single data file (Evernote .exb) which contains all tables, indices, views etc. As you already guessed the notes are all in one single table which has more than 30 fields representing the attributes of the note (uid, title...date_created, notebook_uid etc). Analyzing the exb file you will find more than 20 tables, one for the notebooks (uid, name,...is_local ...), one for the tags (uid, name,...parent_uid,...subtag_count...). Here you find the information for the tag synopsis (e.g. parent_id, subtag_count...). Anyway I think this does not narrow my statements about the synopsis nor the disparity of notebooks and tags.

This is correct (my fault, I did not want to make it more complicated as it is) To complete the analogy between Evernote and MS-Access: Evernote is a database with 1...250 tables (=notebooks), one table (tags) and one table (note-tag-rel) The records in these tables are notes, tags and tag-note-rel. It's necessary to understand that the tables and records do not have the same meaning.

My understanding is different: I tag each note with one or more tags (tag is a flag) tag in my understanding is not time relevant, but data constraint only and of static character (no dropping generally) tags like "!Today" or "Later" are too vague and must be dropped from the note When I have notes with time relevant feature I use reminders and/or in conjunction with checkboxes. Reminders are specially set up for date/time organization and not vague, can be easily changed and set completed. When I have an appointment/job/task to be done on 2016/04/15 at 10am I set a reminder. How to do this with a task? More details of my usage of reminders can be read in an earlier post. Not to forget this item: I sync with android time manager - "Later" would not work.

You will not be surprised that do not agree. It might be correct that nowhere is an extensive explanation what a tag "means". Those users who are familiar with databases and similar progs or work in commerce do not have these problems. Let me explain again what a tag and what the "tag synopsis" means (I use this expression instead of "tag structure" intentionally): (1) A notebook is a database and normally has several records. In Evernote you can have more than one, but not more than 250 databases=notebooks. That means Evernote is a container of notebooks (2) A note is a record in one of these databases (notebooks) and can be of different content (text, pdf, jpg etc an combination). (3) A tag is a note (!) in a special (tag) database in this Evernote container. Only text. The intention of these tags are completely different from the intention of the normal notes: they are only flags and characterize one or a group of notes. This is done by a 3rd database where the relationship between a note and a tag is stored. That means that you have 1...250 databases with notes, only one database with tags and only one database for the tag-note-relationship. It's important to understnd that notebooks and notes and tags are totally different in nature and usage. Now what I call "tag synopsis": Here the user of Evernote can built his own logical structure of the tag database. In this structure you are free to build different levels, logical dependencies of the tags. But it is a theoretical pattern only and does not affect the practical work: if a tag is in level 1 oder 4 oder 5, has no effect or consequence. Just a view of your logical ideas... Now - each tag which is declared by the user appears in this synopsis and can be positoned at a place/level appropriate to the users conception. But - there is no demand that a tag must be used as a flag, it might be note-less. Therefore one can declare non-used tags for organizional purpose only in the synopsis, in this case they get the nature of what I call a category. Get a prefix to inform the user not to use as a tag.

Your argumentation - If I understand this correctly - is to show that tags and notebook are the same. And therefore can be used in the same way. Anyway your way of adducing evidence is curious. Either your arguments are wrong or demontrate just the opposite of what you want to show. Examples: (1) "A Note can have, or belong to, only one NB" - the use of the item "have" or "belong" indicates that you do not really know the relationship between a note and a notebook: a note is part of a notebook, but does not "have" one. Same in a database (notebook) like MS-Access with records (notes). That's the reason why a note can only be part of one notebook. You can not drop a notebook from a note (like a tag), but only move (=copy to NB_B and delete in NB_A) (2) Completely different a tag: it's, as already said, a flag only (the content of a tag is not of interest in this actual discussion). You can assign or drop or rename a tag - this does not influence the note. Notebook and tags differ completely - in physics as well in theory. One reason for these misunderstandings is given by yourselve "Like many others, at first I tried to setup Evernote much like my physical world". It'a well-known problem, that it's not easy, even when the differences between theory and practical experience are evident, to modify one's theoretical understanding. (never ending story: neoclassical economics/monetarism versus keynesianism...)

O.k. - let us build a szenario: (1) some preliminary work: generate some searches/shortcuts like (I hope you get the syntax) TasksTillTomo = "-remindertime:day+2 remindertime:day-7 todo:false" (all task of last week till tomorrow which are not completed) TaskNotCompl = "todo:false" TasksPartCompl = "todo:true todo:false" TaskWithoutDate = "todo:false -remindertime:*" TasksCompleted = "-todo:false todo:true" Now you have a group of shortcuts somewhere in your favorite list (no problem to continue with months, years etc.) (2) now we jump into our szenario: asume the actual date is 2016/04/2 Generate a new note XYZ and put a checkbox on top with following text "completed?" (Now you understand the searches, I hope) (I prefer a combination of reminder and checkbox when it's a task and not only a date) You decide to start this job 2 days later - reminder the note with 2006/04/04 (3) 2016/04/04 arriving - click on TasksTillTomo - and all task with reminder -7 til +1 will be listed, even your note XYZ that means even those notes with unchecked box and reminder within the past 7 day (4) pick XYZ and decide what to do: (a) work and new date e.g. 2016/05/12 > reminder modification 2016/05/12 (XYZ will appear 2016/05/12) (b) only new date, same action like (a) if you want to continue next day - no action necessary (see syntax of TasksTillTomo!!!) you will not even "loose the task due to TaskNotCompl (lists all task uncompleted independent of any reminder) (c) work and complete th task >>> checkbox X (finished !!!) I hope this works with aMac as well as in Windows10. This workflow does not need various notebooks and not even tags, although the notes are tagged, but for different purpose. Now you might enlarge this for - what I call projects - tasks which consist of more than one note e.g. 20 or 30 or 60 notes with text, emails, pdfs etc. A project has several notes and a special note (AAA) for organization (with remarks, note links etc. - this note gets a creation date somewhere in the future and therefore is always on top of the (project) note list). All these notes are tagged with e.g. "project_2016_XYZ_UVW". And this tag becomes a shortcut, so several project shortcuts form a group in the favorite list. Finally the note AAA gets a reminder, let's say 2016/04/15. What will happen on 2016/04/15? Well, click on TasksTillTomo - and note AAA appears in the list. You know it's a project - therefore click the shortcut "project_2016_XYZ_UVW" not far away and you get all notes of this project with the AAA in front. The basis of this workflow only is a group of clever built searches/shortcuts which handle all the dates and checkboxes. Definition has to be done only once, and then use them every day. (only when a project has finished drop the shortcut, the tag still exist and you can reanimate the total project when ever you like.).

That's exactly what I tried to explain ("What does this mean "Now"?.... was not a real but a more rhetorical question): Set (different) reminders to all the tags - some of them get 2016/04/2, others 2016/04/06, some in the "future" get 2016/05/02, 2016/04/09 etc.. Pick the "Now"s with a shortcut "Today" as explained earlier, those in the future will be listed when 2016/05/01 becomes present. It does not make sense, in my opinion, to have 50 ore more tasks in a "soon list" without any time selection done before. You are not able to work on 50 "Now"-tasks, but 20 today, 20 tomorrow etc. And furthermore it's only a click to shortcuts like "TaskThisWeek" or "TaskNextMonth" to list those task belonged to future reminders. You can get access if necessary. Only in this case, if required. Your note "Take clothes for the winter" would get a reminder of 2016/09/01 or similar. No need to see or get listed this note before that date.

The recent posts of Neil Ruitlegde, DTLow and JMichaelTX cover several items, I try to explain my view. "There are advantages and disadvantages to any tag naming convention / structure. It really comes down to whether you like to view your tags as folders / categories or actual tags. Both are valid" What we call "tag structure" is, in my eyes, misunderstood. In effect it is a structure of terms which can be used as categories and tags, the structure has a logical function. This is undependent of the naming of these items, with oder without prefix etc. But these terms are no folders, not at all !!! That is a great misunderstanding. (notebooks are folders) In conclusion: "tag structure" is for logical purpose. It can consist of categories and tags. And these tags are flags assigned to a notes in order to characterize their content..Nothing more and nothing less. "The Secret Weapon method of using tags to establish a workflow makes no sense to me though (e.g., "1-Now", "2-Soon", "6-Waiting"). Why would I establish a workflow with tags, when any given item can only exist in one state at a time and there are only a handful of states... NOTEBOOKS are perfect for this. I use notebooks in conjunction with reminders to establish a workflow, and tags to categorize information. Once a tag goes on, it doesn't change, but a note will move from notebook to notebook. If I tried to do this TSW way, I'd have to constantly add/remove tags and worry about accidentally missing a tag." Secret Weapon... I'm not a friend of manifestoes, they tend to be rigid and inflexible, in particular when somebody is implementing them point by point. Anyway...Might be this is one reason that you move notes from notebook to notebook, remove tags etc. Although it's very easy to handle all this completely different. First misunderstanding is the use of tags. There is no need to remove a tag from a note. A note, which refers to a person or any other item, has a tag e.g. "Rutlegde" or/and "EN_tag". This is valid for today, next week and 2020. No need to remove ... If you like to have this note or a couple of notes in focus at a certain date, give them a reminder (not Now, not Soon, not Later). Create some searches/shortcuts like Today="remindertime:day -remindertime:day+2" or ThisWeek="reminderTime:week -reminderTime:week+1" etcetcetc. This reminder is a special tag=flag which can be modified (new date) oder killed or set as completed. You might add checkboxes (in a note) and in conjunction with reminders create other shortcuts like TaskLast Week="-remindertime:day+2 remindertime:day-7 todo:false" or TaskNotCompleted="todo:false" OR TasksPartCompl="todo:true todo:false" etcetcetc. This enables you to handle every job needed in your workflow. When a reminder, assigned to a note, is "completed" or killed or a box is checked this note is out of your focus automatically : that's what you intend. There is no need to move (means: copy to notebook B, and delete in notebook A) a note to another notebook. Not to forget shortcuts - but that's another story... "Agreed, the Now/Soon/Waiting states are mutually exclusive and could be notebooks." I do not agree. What does it mean "Now"? Today, tomorrow? Or Soon? Next week, next month..." Or Waiting? How is this controlled? Control "Waiting"-notes every day? No - do assign an exact reminder to a note and get it in the focus at that day/time by shortcut as explained - and than decide what to do: do the job or modify the reminder or kill the reminder... This moving from notebook to notebook reminds to old fashioned behaviour which makes sense if one has real documents. In Evernote we indeed have virtual items they is no need to move them from place to place. "In my system, use of the ".NB." prefix achieves the following:" I do not understand these "pseudo notebooks" and the related tags. "Forces ...at the top...of any selection" - I do not see the connection to "pseudo notebooks"? If I have notes which high relevance they are tagged with "!important" (bisides other tags). And this tag is permannently in top position of my shortcuts/favorite list (If you like you can drop the exclamation mark). Notebooks are places where notes are stored in. Categories are logical terms only. Tags are flags. ...

You are right, thanks, and It's curious: Via this dropdown or Ctrl+F5, Ctr-F6, Ctrl+F7 one can switch over to these different views of the note list (vertical with details is new for me, sorting very easy now). Or just switch with F5 only - and get different results depending on the default (vertical or horizontal) in the beginning. A good example, tells me that trial and error can achieve very useful results.