(Archived) Searching vs. categorization

[shahram 0]

I have recently changed the way I use Evernote and would like to know if anyone else has come up with the same solution.

I wrote a short blog about it at http://neseco.com/effectiveness/search- ... v-sorting/

Looking forward to your comments.

//Shahram

[jefito 5,589]

I couldn't figure out from your article what the "new solution" is.

[shahram 0]

Hmm, I guess you are right!

I have stopped using sophisticated categories and taggs.

A handful (12 notebooks) some nested to have the notes separated. Than using the search and attributes to find what I need.

I discovered that I constantly came up with better ways of categorizing and tagging ... Which just made things more complicated and I couldn't remember where I put stuff and how I organized things.

Hence, this change and blog.

Sorry for the confusion, will try to be more clear in the future.

/Shahram

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I do think when people start using EN, they tend to overtag. I know I did. Originally, I might have created a tag for "hearing aids" that I'd apply to all notes pertaining to my mom's hearing aids. But it's not needed. Anything specifically related to my mom's hearing aids is in the notebook, "Mother". I can scan across all notebooks (and I have more than a few thousand notes) on the words hearing and aid (not the phrase) and I get 62 notes. I can then refine the results by sorting by either the created or updated date or the notebook. Sorting by notebook allows me to skip over some of the false positives like a joke someone sent me that included the phrase "hearing aid" or a pdf in the "Everything Else" notebook that contains the words hearing aid but not the phrase. And an accurate title helps me quickly find the specific note I'm looking for. IE this note is the purchase contract & that note is the protection plan/insurance.

[jbenson2 2,147]

I've been using Evernote for a couple years and keep finding new uses for tags.

One of the powerful features of a single tag is that it can be used in place of the need to run multiple searches.

In my notes, the single Tag:Obama will meet the search criteria for:

• "Barack Obama"
  "Senator Obama"
  "President Obama"
  "Obama's cabinet"
  "Obama's strategy"
  Obamacare
  

and avoid wrong search results such as

• Michelle Obama
  Sasha Obama