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Consolidating To Dos


EKlem

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I create a new folder for every topic, hence I have To Do's in each of the 50 folders. Is there anyway to consolidate (tag ?) the To Do items into one To Do folder. This way I could go to the main To Do folder and see everything I have to do not withstanding which folder it is in. Once I did it, the item would be deleted from the main To Do page but would stay in the original folder and would be marked as done. Help!

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In Evernote, there are notes, notebooks, stacks, and tags. No "folders", though it's generally understood that a "folder" is the same thing as an Evernote notebook. In any case...

Some rules:

  • A notebooks is a collection of notes, but cannot contain other notebooks or stacks.
  • A stack is a non-empty collection of notebooks (no notes or other stacks).
  • A note belongs to exactly one notebook.  
  • A notebook belongs to either one or zero stacks.
  • Tags are labels that you can apply to notes, regardless of which notebook they belong to. A tag may be placed on multiple notes, and a note may have multiple tags.

A simple structure might look like this:

Stack 1

  • Notebook 1
    • Note 1, tag "Todo"
    • Note 2, tag "Complete"
  • Notebook 2
    • Note 3, tag "Todo", tag "Waiting"
    • Note 4

Notebook 3

  • Note 5, tag "Todo"
  • Note 6

If you tag todo items with the tag, say, "Todo", then if you filter your notes by the "Todo" tag, you'll see all of your todo items, no matter which notebook they live in. So from the above, filtering on the "Todo" tag should give you the following list (so long as you've specified no other filters):

  • Note 1, tag "Todo"
  • Note 3, tag "Todo", tag "Waiting"
  • Note 5, tag "Todo"
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18 hours ago, EKlem said:

I create a new folder for every topic, hence I have To Do's in each of the 50 folders. Is there anyway to consolidate (tag ?) the To Do items into one To Do folder.

What is your specification for a "To Do item"
My specification is a note with tag:!ToDo
The notes remain in what ever notebook

To consolidate To Do items, I use search tag:!ToDo
- I use modified searches to exclude Completed; exclude Future Dated; ...
- Get familiar with the search feature and use it to produce note lists
  The feature is documented at https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828    
- For easy access, save your searches; create shortcuts

>>marked as done

A done tag would work
I use the Reminder feature for this; it has a done date/status field (also start date)

>>I create a new folder for every topic

Not a great practice, but workable if all your notes are single topic     
Check out the Tags feature

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19 hours ago, EKlem said:

I create a new folder for every topic, hence I have To Do's in each of the 50 folders. Is there anyway to consolidate (tag ?) the To Do items into one To Do folder. This way I could go to the main To Do folder and see everything I have to do not withstanding which folder it is in. Once I did it, the item would be deleted from the main To Do page but would stay in the original folder and would be marked as done. Help!

You don't necessarily need a tag.  You can access all your open To Do's via an All Notes search with the term todo:false.  When you check the box(es) in the note it will disappear from the list.  Easy to create a saved search and put it on your shortcuts bar.

FYI, todo:* returns all notes with open or closed TO Do's and todo:true returns all notes with closed To Do's.

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43 minutes ago, CalS said:

You don't necessarily need a tag.  You can access all your open To Do's via an All Notes search with the term todo:false

Nice tip, but that's only if you use checkboxes for to-do items -- which is a common case, I'd guess, but not universal.. 

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Yeah,  my perception was the OP was referring to To Dos versus reminders.  IAC, if reminders then reminderorder:* -reminderdonetime:* gets you the same answer.  Still don't necessarily need a TO.Do tag.  🤷‍♂️

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58 minutes ago, CalS said:

You don't necessarily need a tag.  You can access all your open To Do's via an All Notes search with the term todo:false.  When you check the box(es) in the note it will disappear from the list.  Easy to create a saved search and put it on your shortcuts bar.

FYI, todo:* returns all notes with open or closed TO Do's and todo:true returns all notes with closed To Do's.

 

12 minutes ago, jefito said:

Nice tip, but that's only if you use checkboxes for to-do items -- which is a common case, I'd guess, but not universal.. 

My process for Tasks is not checkbox based
I use checkboxes in all sorts of notes

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5 hours ago, CalS said:

You don't necessarily need a tag.  You can access all your open To Do's via an All Notes search with the term todo:false.  When you check the box(es) in the note it will disappear from the list.  Easy to create a saved search and put it on your shortcuts bar.

FYI, todo:* returns all notes with open or closed TO Do's and todo:true returns all notes with closed To Do's.

Thank you for responding (so cool). However, how do you get a list??? I went to All Notes searched the term todo:false and it pulled up 15 notes that had the box which means I have to scroll through the 15 notes to find the todo box - items. It would be amazing if the todos could be consolidated on one list and then I would save the search. Please tell me that is possible. Thanks Again 

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56 minutes ago, EKlem said:

It would be amazing if the todos could be consolidated on one list

This is not an Evernote feature.   
As you found out, the product generates lists of notes

There are work-arounds available for consolidation, but more work is required.   
For example Taskclone, scripting on a Mac, ...

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43 minutes ago, EKlem said:

Please tell me that is possible. Thanks Again 

No can do, sorry.  There are enhancement requests on the forum you can up vote if you like. 

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