Congratulations to the winners. I enjoyed viewing the multiple dashboards (got some new ideas), and the questions from those to whom the term dashboard was a new concept. That surprised me, because in the nonprofit world I inhabit, dashboards are a pretty common thing. I have one or more dashboard for almost every digital tool I use. In Google Sheets for instance, I have a Master Dashboard that links to all the other important sheets I make use of on a regular basis (as well as to EN notes that apply to that area). For me, a digital dashboard is like the dashboard in an automobile: It's one place to monitor essential operations. In digital space, the dashboard also serves as a launchpad (or as I like to think of it, a bullet train) to other places.
Someone raised the question of linking from a dashboard to individual notebooks. I do this by simply creating an index page in every notebook, then linking that page to my dashboard. The index page serves as a dashboard inside my notebook (sometimes created by the EN "Table of Contents" feature, sometimes updated manually as I add notes within the notebook). I'm a minimalist, so I don't make my dashboards too involved (and I want them easy to use on mobile), but I also like to make things beautiful to brighten my day, so I add in pictures, quotes, etc. Because I do this as a consistent part of my workflow it is not time-consuming, things evolve organically and are easy organized as needed.
I think the fact that we can create dashboards and suitable set ups in Evernote. This highlights how powerful it really is for every day use. It always amazes me how quickly we'll jump ship from Evernote because of the few things it has struggled with over the years (I did over the "privacy gaffe a few years back" but soon returned), while ignoring the things it does well--even if sometimes it takes a little creativity to set those things up. In an time when everyone is touting modular apps (or software that allows you to create the "apps" you want), we often forget that Evernote was already ahead of the curve--many of us simply failed to recognize it initially, and Evernote did advertise these use cases well. So I for one am glad for the Dashboard contest because it highlighted the multiple and personalized ways EN can be used--even if Dashboards aren't your thing.
