Using Evernote as a diary

[Howard cohen 1]

I have been using Info Select as a diary for years. Its outline format allows me to have nested headlines like this:

 

    2014

        January

           1/01/14

                Note text for an entry

                Note text for another entry

            1/02/14

                etc.

 

Any ideas on how to use Evernote like this?

 

[cwb 225]

You don't say which platform.
On iPad/iPhone the closest might be EverLog.
You can create templates to format your entries.
The title can be algorithmically set with variables for your formatted choice of layout.
You can have that diary template concatenate into the same note, or create one new note per day (it automatically aggregates subsequent entries into the same days note and then automatically starts a new note on the next days entry, formatting the title with your desired title/date format).
And you could then optionally multi-select a range of them and merge into one note.

[Howard cohen 1]

I use Evernote on my Windows 7 PC at home, via a browser at work, and on my Ipad, iPhone, and Android phone.

 

Thanks for your suggestions. However, this would appear to create one note per day, which could work, but then the notebook would be for a month or a year. I would prefer to have separate levels or notebooks for each year and then by month, with the notes being for days. If each notebook was a month, it would get problematic sorting through many notebooks to get to a specific month and year, but I might try it.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I use Evernote on my Windows 7 PC at home, via a browser at work, and on my Ipad, iPhone, and Android phone.

Thanks for your suggestions. However, this would appear to create one note per day, which could work, but then the notebook would be for a month or a year. I would prefer to have separate levels or notebooks for each year and then by month, with the notes being for days. If each notebook was a month, it would get problematic sorting through many notebooks to get to a specific month and year, but I might try it.

Hi. I have one notebook. I title my daily journal yymmdd journal day (140205 journal wednesday). If I want January, i search for intitle:1401*. Why over-complicate things with notebooks?

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=367

If you want to organize the notes with more granularity, I recommend tags.

[megsaint 441]

You should also do a search of the forums for other threads on the subject. There have been some really great ones, including one that explained how someone made great use, on an iPhone of Drafts and IFTTT.com.

Best of luck.

[cwb 225]

If that's a reference to EverLog Howard, that's up to you. It will also happily add to the same note forever.

I just find that it's trivial to merge notes into one after the fact. But it's a significant effort to split one note into many if you change your mind.

I agree with grumpy that it's so easy to find these in desired groups with a title search when you've been consistent.

But even more so I like when I don't have to think about it.

I just type and hit post in EverLog.

It keeps track of where to put the note, wether to start something new, and puts a consistent title in place with the day, week, month, year.

Plus for good measure adds tags (2014, journal, personal or business).

Then gives me simple buttons and widgets to capture other metadata without having to type anything.

So the format is all predictable and I can get at anything later on with a well crafted search.

I find even when I'm going to do a bunch of work in Evernote on the desktop, not related to journal entries, it saves so much organizing time if I just start it in Everlog just to tag and title it, then continue on in Evernote.

[ZZZ 135]

I have been using Info Select as a diary for years. Its outline format allows me to have nested headlines like this:

 

    2014

        January

           1/01/14

                Note text for an entry

                Note text for another entry

            1/02/14

                etc.

 

Any ideas on how to use Evernote like this?

 

Just to be clear, EN does not support the type of hierarchies that Info-select does, EN allows only one level of nesting for Notebooks.  If you want to use EN you'll need to come up with a different paradigm.  However I don't think it should be hard, as long as you're willing to change it slightly.  You might want to use one notebook for each year and then tags for months...lots of ways you could do it.

[Don Sakers 98]

I keep my journal as one-note-a-day -- I have 14,300 notes with entries as far back as the late 1950s (scanned copies of birth announcement, immunization records, etc.)

 

I've been consistent with titles (Journal YYYYMMDD Sun/Mon/etc) and have seldom had trouble finding what I want with Evernote search. My platforms are Mac/iPad/iPhone/Web.

 

I've found folders for month/year/decade to be superfluous.

[apexadam 5]

Thanks Don.

I'll try this.

[C6REW 416]

I keep a diary, but do it Notebook.

 

My company is SWI and this is how the Diary Notebooks look:

 

SWI - Diary

  Diary - 2012

  Diary - 2012 - Completed

  Diary - 2013

  Diary - 2013 - Completed

  Diary - 2014

  Diary - 2014 - Completed

  Diary Archive

 

I keep diaries in separate Notebooks as it makes it easier to just search in over one Year. I am dealing with 15,000 customers and may want to search for information in one year. For example I am currently organising diaries to send to customers, I can easily see if I spoke to a specific customer by searching within the year. I know this can be done other ways, but as an example this makes life easier for me.

 

When we get to 2015, I will put 2012 in the Archive Notebook giving it a tag of Diary - 2012 Completed. Well the truth is, I would if it would work in the Business version of Evernote. Currently it doesn't, but I am hoping they will sort it, sometime!

 

If it is not obvious, when a Note which is a task within a diary Notebook has been completed it gets moved to the Completed Notebook. Meaning I can always see how many Notes or diary entries I am working on at any one time.

 

Works for me!

 

Best regards

 

 

Chris