The Secret Weapon VS GTD & Evernote for Windows (David Allen)

The Qodesmith · July 17, 2014

Most folks who use David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity system with Evernote have heard of The Secret Weapon by Braintoniq. David Allen and the good people over at GTD have their own setup guide (for $10) where they show you how to set up Evernote for use with GTD - GTD & Evernote For Windows.

I have not purchased the GTD product, but I've seen many forum members here have. How does it work verses Braintoniq's The Secret Weapon? Is it worth the $10? I'd like to avoid redundancy here. I've set up Evernote using TSW technique with some tweaks of my own, but feel it could be better. Wondering if David Allen's guide is substantially different, offering a new or alternative approach, or if they're pretty much the same thing.

gazumped · July 17, 2014

Hi - I've got nothing on a comparison of the various methods, but I will tell you one GTD secret that they both missed. If you find something is working for you, even if sub-optimally, don't spend time comparing notes or tweaking. You can waste far more time playing and comparing than you ever could working inefficiently. Unless there's something basically failing in the method you use, just get on and do the work...

The Qodesmith · July 18, 2014

Hi - I've got nothing on a comparison of the various methods, but I will tell you one GTD secret that they both missed. If you find something is working for you, even if sub-optimally, don't spend time comparing notes or tweaking. You can waste far more time playing and comparing than you ever could working inefficiently. Unless there's something basically failing in the method you use, just get on and do the work...

I appreciate the response, but that didn't answer my question. Let me be the judge of what's an efficient use of my time .

So anybody else have any experience with the 2 methods of using EN with GTD? What's their differences? Which do you prefer and why?

The Qodesmith · July 24, 2014

Anyone else with some thoughts on the topic? I'd really like to know if there's a content difference between the product selling on David Allen's website and the free Secret Weapon pdf.

JohnDM · July 24, 2014

I appreciate the response, but that didn't answer my question. Let me be the judge of what's an efficient use of my time .

ROFL . . . . . you were just talking to one of my personal GODS of Evernote. Gazump knows more about how to organize in Evernote than almost anyone else on here

It might have been Gazump that pointed me to this website a few years back http://ruudhein.com/evernote-gtd

It has been my bible, it was free and I *think* it was one of the sources that David Allen used before he wrote his booklet --Having said that. After 3 years of using Evernote for GTD I second Gazump said regarding methodologies. -- . ..

. .. . . I know .. . .I know .. . . I didn't answer your question either.

Let me save you the time to post . . .I will do it for you . . ."Next"

The Qodesmith · July 24, 2014

I'm not seeing how this is that difficult to answer. Just want some input from folks who have both tried The Secret Weapon AND the Evernote For Windows by David Allen. Trying to see if there's a difference in methodology. I seriously don't understand why this is a controversial question. If you don't have an answer, please, no disrespect, but try and refrain from "just get on and do the work" or "next". Thanks.

s2sailor · July 24, 2014

It's not difficult or controversial. It might just be that no one has tried both and you may have to blaze that trail yourself.

DutchPete · July 25, 2014

It's not difficult or controversial. It might just be that no one has tried both and you may have to blaze that trail yourself.

@ Quest the Wordsmith; Then let this forum know your findings. Remember: if you want input you're most likely to get it if you give something too. In this case you'll have to give something 1st to get something back later

cdagenais · July 25, 2014

I have the e-book you're talking about. And I read some time ago TSW manifesto.

About the GTD Evernote e-book:

It begin with a condensed version of the GTD workflow, with brief explanation of the weekly review, a workflow chart, etc...

The book then explain how to setup Evernote and how to capture item in Evernote. I understand you know how to use Evernote since you use TSW, so there's nothing new here.

The difference is: The GTD ebook structure is based entirely on notebooks, notebook stacks and reminders vs TSW that is based a lot on tags. You basically get a inbox notebook, a next actions stack with a notebook for each context: call notebook, agenda notebook, work notebook etc. this, and the project, support material and reference notebooks.

SO, the real debate between these two system In my own opinion: tags or notebook for organization. The answer isn't clear, since it depends on how big and flexible your system need to be.

I personally use ideas that came from both of these system.

CalS · July 26, 2014

I am a modified TSW user myself, as productive as my discipline allows on any given day, week, or month. If someone were to tell me that the prime difference between TSW and GTD Evernote e-book is tags versus notebooks, I would stick with TSW and do whatever tweaks you need to get comfortable. If that doesn't work, just spend the $10 and see for yourself.

But as gazumped says, you can spend so much time getting efficient you become inefficient. Your journey.

The Qodesmith · July 28, 2014

Thanks to cdagenais and csihilling for actually answering (the not tough at all) question. So basically, the workflow difference is TSW uses tags and the GTD EN e-book uses notebooks. That being said, I feel confident to stick with TSW and tweak it to my liking. Thanks guys.

HeyMalc · August 31, 2014

Hi Quest The Wordsmith - just seen your question about GTD and EN.

I found The Secret Weapon a couple of years ago as well as Rudd Hein, David Gold, David Warn, Darren Crawford, and a few others.

(On my blog I describe how I apply GTD using Evernote, and I also list these, and other, sources.)

As another poster mentions, David Allen's book recommends using a lot of notebooks. I prefer keeping it simple and I use mainly just two notebooks – To do and Filing – and also as few tags as possible.

You are right, The Secret Weapon does have a few deficiencies, not least no mention (when I last went there) of how to deal with projects.

Anyway, the system I have got set up for myself now and is the best time management system I've ever implemented (at last - it's about my fourth go of implementing GTD!)

I'm always tweaking it and "tweaking my time management approach" is one of my ongoing projects. I know another poster says that might be a waste of time – but for me it's not. Firstly, I enjoy it, and secondly it makes me more efficient. I do limit the time spent doing it, however.

For example, I'm currently experimenting with using the Kanban approach of doing tasks – which is a method developed by Toyota. This is basically where you have three columns for tasks; To do, Doing, and Done, and you move tasks between the columns. You can easily make this a little more sophisticated with benefit.

I'm finding that using this approach for the top 30 or so tasks definitely improves my productivity, especially if combined with using the Pomodoro technique (where you work the 25 minutes, and then rest for five. This really improves concentration.).

Good luck and, I say, keep tweaking you time management method - to make it more efficient. Yay!

Malc

Michael Marian · September 11, 2014

I too discovered that the main difference is tagging vs notebooks. I spent the $10 but soon found that I was unhappy with the notion many notebooks and the idea of copying tasks and moving them around. I prefer TSW's approach and reasons why tagging is superior and more efficient, allowing each note to have a unique and specific context. That and you only move a note once, which is to the 'Cabinet' or too a Completed notebook from the Action Pending notebook. The power of viewing your information based on the context you provide through filtering.

TSW soon may bring a 'project' method forward which I would appreciate.

I picked up Brett Kelley's PDF Evernote Essentials and Michael Hyatt's free Toolbox PDF. They provided much insight and many additional options, tools that are available, however, both do not use Evernote for Task Managing or Project Managing. This may be because they have larger teams. Perhaps the reason for Evernote's Business version. Michael Hyatt also promotes the use of Tagging for reasons mentioned earlier. However as I get further into Dave Allen's GTD I am thinking that perhaps if I truly walk GTD, I can actually use Evernote to manage projects and tasks by fully embracing the principles of GTD and truly keep things as simple as possible instead of busying myself with more applications to learn and increased complexity. I want to keep in check the tendency to complexity and the draw to the stimulation of stress which gives the sense of accomplishing much but in the end really just adds drama where it perhaps doesn't need to be. How about quietly getting things done and saving our passion for the celebration afterward and with our family, friends. After all the subtitle of Getting Things Done is "The Art of Stress-Free Productivity". Stress-Free to me means that you're mind is freed up to be in a more creative and productive state and therefore raises the quality of what you actually get done. I may be thrilled with what I have accomplished but unless the client or partners feel the same, then I haven't really got the job done right?

I use Photoshop for images. Just Photoshop. In fact I use many Adobe Applications, but they usually just do one thing really, really well. So I'll end in asking, can we use Evernote alone to manage all our tasks and projects?

DutchPete · September 11, 2014

Hi Quest The Wordsmith - just seen your question about GTD and EN.

I found The Secret Weapon a couple of years ago as well as Rudd Hein, David Gold, David Warn, Darren Crawford, and a few others.

(On my blog I describe how I apply GTD using Evernote, and I also list these, and other, sources.)
As another poster mentions, David Allen's book recommends using a lot of notebooks. I prefer keeping it simple and I use mainly just two notebooks – To do and Filing – and also as few tags as possible.
You are right, The Secret Weapon does have a few deficiencies, not least no mention (when I last went there) of how to deal with projects.
Anyway, the system I have got set up for myself now and is the best time management system I've ever implemented (at last - it's about my fourth go of implementing GTD!)
I'm always tweaking it and "tweaking my time management approach" is one of my ongoing projects. I know another poster says that might be a waste of time – but for me it's not. Firstly, I enjoy it, and secondly it makes me more efficient. I do limit the time spent doing it, however.
For example, I'm currently experimenting with using the Kanban approach of doing tasks – which is a method developed by Toyota. This is basically where you have three columns for tasks; To do, Doing, and Done, and you move tasks between the columns. You can easily make this a little more sophisticated with benefit.
I'm finding that using this approach for the top 30 or so tasks definitely improves my productivity, especially if combined with using the Pomodoro technique (where you work the 25 minutes, and then rest for five. This really improves concentration.).
Good luck and, I say, keep tweaking you time management method - to make it more efficient. Yay!

Malc

KanBan is a system that was indeed developed by Toyota & subsequently adopted by many different industries. It was originally designed for a production/assembly environment & then adapted to different environments.

The most appropriate KanBan app for doing tasks seems to be Trello.

HeyMalc · September 11, 2014

KanBan is a system that was indeed developed by Toyota & subsequently adopted by many different industries. It was originally designed for a production/assembly environment & then adapted to different environments.

The most appropriate KanBan app for doing tasks seems to be Trello.

_____

Hi Pete - Personally I don't find Trello very user friendly. My favourite kanban tool is Kanbanery for looks and style; but I'm drawn towards Kanbanflow because of the built-in Pomodoro timer – which I find really useful for encouraging focus.

Anyway, different strokes for different folks...

Best, Malc

[Edit 30th September 2014: I am still using the Pomodoro every day - 19 days later - and it's really boosting my productivity. I was never attracted to using a 30 minute timer before – so didn't really get into using the Pomodoro. But being half an hour it really somehow boosts your motivation to get as many half hours done in the day as possible! I recommend you give it a try. And I'm still using Kanbanflow to implement this.]

September 30, 2014

Just wanted to say thanks to all you posters in this thread.

I've been using Evernote sporadically for about a year and everything is a mess. I found GTD just the other day and thought that this must be good to implement in EN. A quick google and presto, found myself here

HeyMalc · September 30, 2014

Just wanted to say thanks to all you posters in this thread.

I've been using Evernote sporadically for about a year and everything is a mess. I found GTD just the other day and thought that this must be good to implement in EN. A quick google and presto, found myself here

A lot of people start of like that with Evernote – using it sporadically. I suppose I've used it for around 4-5 years now and it is literally the centre of my work and private life – I just use it to track and store everything. It's also the way I run my time management – with GTD - and it's the best system I've ever used. I call this "Timology". Other people have written about how to combine Getting Things Done and Evernote such as in The Secret Weapon, mentioned above, and the solution which inspired me, as well as Daniel Gold who has written a well-known book on the topic.

I have written in this post about Timology - how I combine GTD and Evernote.

Good luck with your own implementation – I hope you see it through!

Malc

October 2, 2014

A lot of people start of like that with Evernote – using it sporadically. I suppose I've used it for around 4-5 years now and it is literally the centre of my work and private life – I just use it to track and store everything. It's also the way I run my time management – with GTD - and it's the best system I've ever used. I call this "Timology". Other people have written about how to combine Getting Things Done and Evernote such as in The Secret Weapon, mentioned above, and the solution which inspired me, as well as Daniel Gold who has written a well-known book on the topic.

I have written in this post about Timology - how I combine GTD and Evernote.

Good luck with your own implementation – I hope you see it through!

Malc

I did as many recommend, jumped in with both feet and I implemented the TSW thing for starters and added some of your great tweaks. What I'm wondering now is what do I do with all my OLD tags how do people organize the cabinet notebook?

HeyMalc · October 2, 2014

>I did as many recommend, jumped in with both feet and I implemented the TSW thing for starters and added some of your great tweaks. What I'm wondering now is what do I do with all my OLD tags how do people organize the cabinet notebook?

Hi 242 - congrats on doing that! And thanks for liking some of my tweaks

When I started developing Timology, my time management system, which I was inspired to do by The Secret Weapon, I had hundreds of flipping tags that I had been accumulating since I started using Evernote. (This wasn't 4 to 5 years ago, as I said previously, it was actually 2007. And I had a lot of tags.)

I thought about what I should do and realised that I very often didn't use tags – because the search function of Evernote was so good. I also realised that scores of my tags had only been used for one or two or three notes. So they certainly weren't well used.

So I just deleted the whole lot and started over again.

It was a big step – but I didn't regret it.

Now, I just tag only if I have to - or if I am tagging because the note is within my Timology system. (Some of my "cabinet" notebook – I call it Filing – is general filing, and the rest of it relates to my time management. For example, project support material I will have tagged with a project name, which I preface with asterisk - * - which makes Evernote's search keep them together.)

I'd say getting on for half of my filed Notes have no tags at all. Some of the rest have "Timology tags" to help with time management.

I attach an image of some of my filing items and you can see a number of them are not tagged at all.

I hope this helps, and keep up the good work, using Evernote for time management!

Malc

s2sailor · October 2, 2014

... What I'm wondering now is what do I do with all my OLD tags how do people organize the cabinet notebook?

If you haven't stumbled across this thread yet it gives a lengthy but pretty complete view of both sides of the tagging fence and may give you further ideas.

The Qodesmith · August 23, 2015

Soooo.... I've recently revisited Evernote + GTD, did a quick google search, and came across my own thread! Lol. Anyway, my original question was answered and I'm not interested in looking into David Allen's implementation of GTD with EN (using tons of notebooks). I'm happy with the baseline system that TSW establishes.

As I read some of the posts above (it's been a while since I've been here) I realize that I'm running into the same issue others were having with TSW & EN: projects. @HeyMalc, I read your blog post and indeed, that helped to understand projects a bit more. I have two main tags for projects: .Projects.Active and .Projects.Inactive, both of which I now nest specific project names under. So thank you for that.

I think TSW really needs to be updated, especially the videos. That would be great to have a 2015 version. One thing that I found that TSW instructed to do, but failed to explain, was the tag Read / Review. The structure looked something like this:

.What
- .Projects.Active
- .Projects.Inactive
- Read / Review

My first thought was the Read / Review tag would be useful for articles that I wanted to read but didn't have time to at the moment. Or perhaps a book I'm intending on reading. But couldn't that just be filed under .Pojects.Inactive? If anyone has some insights on the Read / Review tag (or if you use something similar), I'm all ears.

Other than that, I'm tweaking my EN + GTD system to my liking and have recently begun an overhaul of my old tag system as some have mentioned above.

CalS · August 23, 2015

My take was to use a !Read tag for items to be read and a !Review tag as an indeterminate tickler. After a bit I morphed !Review to !Weekly, !Monthly, and !Quarterly. I use these tags to remind me to look at certain notes on the prescribed period. I hit the !Monthly tag and a list of notes appears mostly reflecting things I am trying to improve or change. One of which, for example, would be Drucker's eight practices. It helps to reload concepts for me. FWIW.

John in Michigan USA · September 28, 2015

A nice feature of EN that I hope won't go away is the "Note History" screen which lets you see most changes over time to a note. This is important for auditing in GTD - in the rare cases when something falls through the cracks (even GTD isn't perfect) auditing/history is very helpful to figure out what happened.

However, if you move a note from one notebook to another, the history of that note does not move to the new notebook, i.e. it disappears without warning. So, following TSW you will be able to keep your note history somewhat, at least while you are working on the task, since you use tags to indicate context while the action item note remains stays in the Actions Pending notebook until it is completed or archived. With some of the other systems that use multiple notebooks for action items, the history disappears every time an action item changes context.

So, that is one other consideration when deciding between TSW and other GTD cookbooks for Evernote.

juniorgolf18 · December 7, 2015

I've been using Evernote as a depository for years but have recently been reading David Allens book on GTD. I had tried it before but hadn't read the book so I gave up. Now that I've read the book I'm going to give it a go again and commit..

Now, the decision on which system to use. Tsw, Crawfords, DEG Consulting (Daniel Gold), or other like David Allen's own system.

Is tsw up to date? Has anyone bought the $5 one from DEG? Tag based?

gazumped · December 7, 2015

My general view on GTD systems is that there's no 'one size fits all' solution. The complexity of your needs, the number of people with whom you interact, your preferences, and how much time and effort you have available to maintain a system will indicate whether a very simple, or a very complex solution may be required. My preference is for the simplest solution possible - I want to spend time doing work, not planning it.

Evernote doesn't have a calendar so you may need to integrate a third-party app to provide that function, and lots of us "more experienced" users seem to use apps like Swipes / TickTick / Wunderlist / Any.do - some of which have Evernote integrations, and all of which can have a task linked to an Evernote note.

Following DA's advice to use the bits of GTD that work for me, I just get things down in Evernote or (in my case) TickTick to get them out of my head. They either have a date priority, or they're sorted into 3 categories: Now / Soon / Sometime. I'll deal with today's date priorities first, which normally overlaps with the "Now" category anyway; then down the list of "Soon"s, and if there's any time or inclination left, I get to my "Sometime"s.

I'd suggest you start out as simply as you can, and add extra layers as and when they seem essential to build up your own personalised system.

HeyMalc · December 7, 2015

I've been using Evernote as a depository for years but have recently been reading David Allens book on GTD. I had tried it before but hadn't read the book so I gave up. Now that I've read the book I'm going to give it a go again and commit..
Now, the decision on which system to use. Tsw, Crawfords, DEG Consulting (Daniel Gold), or other like David Allen's own system.
Is tsw up to date? Has anyone bought the $5 one from DEG? Tag based?

Hi Juniorgolf. Sounds like you are exactly I was 3 years ago.

I now have a time management system taking GTD into account, using Evernote, and incorporating some key TSW ideas plus adding more of my own. As Gazumped suggests, 'simple' is good - and it is. In fact, unless you are lawyers like Daniel Gold or David Ward (another person who writes about GTD/EN) I'm not sure a complex system is necessary at all - K.I.S.S.! I've read/bought all the EN systems out there and most of them are more complex than I wanted. In fact, that's true of all the system's I've ever found which could be called "complete time management systems."

TSW - one area you have to augment that is for project handling, which it doesn't cover - or didn't last time I checked a month or two ago. I chatted to Braintoniq, whow made the videos, a few years ago about this, and he said he just hadn't got around to a video on that.

Personally, I think the only way GTD could be applied perfectly would be if you could get 1-to-1 coaching from David Allen, who could clarify exactly how the ideas in the book apply to you. Hmmmh - could be tricky (and/or expensive)

I like the David Allen's philosophy behind GTD enormously but the 'high flown' theory does leave some readers stranded over exactly what method to use to apply it, practically, I know people's circumstances vary tremendously so there's no "one size fits all", but the lack of a stronger practical framework is one of the things that makes GTD inaccessible for quite a few, as a careful reading of the Amazon book reviews make clear.

It certainly was this way did for me for years till I nailed time management using EN. (Like you, I have used it for digital filing for years - in fact, almost since it came out in 2008.)

I have written on my blog many details about how it works for me, especially in one long article - you might want to check. My blog's called heymalc and "Time Management" is in the top menu.

I'm also going to be training my method before long, and it's called Timology. i'm really looking forward to that as I have something which is really powerful for me - at long last - and I think it will help many people. Time will tell on that one - but it's been popular in testing .

All the best with using EN to apply the GTD.principles. As gazumped says, it very much depends on what you need to do during the day, and if/how you use a computer.smart phone. But for a 'solopreneur', for example, or anyone else wearing multiple hats this approach can be a lifesaver.

Do hit me up with any questions or comments.

All the best

Malc

CalS · December 7, 2015

@juniorgolf18,

Per the previous two posts, best to roll your own based upon your view of tasks (and or projects) and their management. So much depends on the granularity of your tasks and projects and how you thing about the work.

Personally, I lump tasks into two groupings, those with dates and those without. I use the reminder functionality in EN and saved searches (Today, Late, Next 7 Days, etc.) to manage dated tasks.

I think the tag structures native to TSW and GTD with review cycles for action and shuffling up the priority queue are a good way to handle tasks without deadlines. I only use the When (preceded by an !) and the Who (preceded by an =) tags specifically in my method. Tags for What just kind of happen and I found Where tags to be of no use to how I work. Sometimes a task in the TSW pool will get a reminder date if it's priority increases past !Now. The !Now doesn't necessarily mean get it done today for me, sometimes things happen. I only use tags and reminders, no specific notebook usage for any of this.

I also use FollowUpThen to send me an email reminder twice a day to review my TSW tags and my !Today search. I seem to process email interrupts best. All my task management resides in EN so just one place to go whether it is desktop, phone or tablet. FWIW.

juniorgolf18 · December 8, 2015

Thanks for the replies guys.

Have any of you used zendone?

juniorgolf18 · December 8, 2015

I've been using Evernote as a depository for years but have recently been reading David Allens book on GTD. I had tried it before but hadn't read the book so I gave up. Now that I've read the book I'm going to give it a go again and commit..
Now, the decision on which system to use. Tsw, Crawfords, DEG Consulting (Daniel Gold), or other like David Allen's own system.
Is tsw up to date? Has anyone bought the $5 one from DEG? Tag based?
Hi Juniorgolf. Sounds like you are exactly I was 3 years ago.

I now have a time management system taking GTD into account, using Evernote, and incorporating some key TSW ideas plus adding more of my own. As Gazumped suggests, 'simple' is good - and it is. In fact, unless you are lawyers like Daniel Gold or David Ward (another person who writes about GTD/EN) I'm not sure a complex system is necessary at all - K.I.S.S.! I've read/bought all the EN systems out there and most of them are more complex than I wanted. In fact, that's true of all the system's I've ever found which could be called "complete time management systems."

TSW - one area you have to augment that is for project handling, which it doesn't cover - or didn't last time I checked a month or two ago. I chatted to Braintoniq, whow made the videos, a few years ago about this, and he said he just hadn't got around to a video on that.

Personally, I think the only way GTD could be applied perfectly would be if you could get 1-to-1 coaching from David Allen, who could clarify exactly how the ideas in the book apply to you. Hmmmh - could be tricky (and/or expensive)
I like the David Allen's philosophy behind GTD enormously but the 'high flown' theory does leave some readers stranded over exactly what method to use to apply it, practically, I know people's circumstances vary tremendously so there's no "one size fits all", but the lack of a stronger practical framework is one of the things that makes GTD inaccessible for quite a few, as a careful reading of the Amazon book reviews make clear.

It certainly was this way did for me for years till I nailed time management using EN. (Like you, I have used it for digital filing for years - in fact, almost since it came out in 2008.)

I have written on my blog many details about how it works for me, especially in one long article - you might want to check. My blog's called heymalc and "Time Management" is in the top menu.

I'm also going to be training my method before long, and it's called Timology. i'm really looking forward to that as I have something which is really powerful for me - at long last - and I think it will help many people. Time will tell on that one - but it's been popular in testing .

All the best with using EN to apply the GTD.principles. As gazumped says, it very much depends on what you need to do during the day, and if/how you use a computer.smart phone. But for a 'solopreneur', for example, or anyone else wearing multiple hats this approach can be a lifesaver.

Do hit me up with any questions or comments.

All the best

Malc

Just read through your blog post. Very cool. Seems a lot like TSW I've seen. Just wondering how updated or outdated theirs is.... Your's looks quite functional.

I like Daniel Gold's Client handling and I may adopt that but start with tsw and yours which to me seem quite alike. Am I wrong?

As a newbie, I may not recognize the differences, so what are the main differences or tweaks with yours a TSW?

HeyMalc · December 8, 2015

Hi JG

Zendone: Every to-do list manager I check out - and I've checked out a lot - adds an extra level of complexity. Using Evernote is just so simple and syncs nicely to your device. 'Nuff said! Having said that, it is sometimes nice to supplement EN. For example, if I've got loads of urgent/semi urgent to dos - more than I usually have - I sometimes dump a load of them into Kanbanflow which helps me work through them, It's because I find that a visual representation of that number of to dos sometimes helps. When it's helpful I use it - maybe 10% of the time. Horses for courses...

+++

I wrote that article nearly 3 years ago, just after finding TSW, which suddenly made me realise I could use my favourite storage solution - Evernote - to apply time management efficiently. I was immediately stoked!

I still use TSW's idea of 4 x 'W tags', and 6 x similarly named When tags (actually, I use 7).

I've since developed my own handling of projects and filing, which TSW only touches on. This has gone through multiple iterations over the years, but the joy of using EN is that you can keep it simple. And I try to make each iteration simpler. "The fewest clicks possible" is my guide.

Maybe that's why I find TSW's reliance on Tags is overdone. TSW shows many notes tagged with 3 or 4 tags. It's thought to help see notes from different contexts: I rarely find that much tagging useful enough to justify the extra time taken. Maybe it's just that "tags lite" is quicker for me... and maybe you'll like having Notes heavily tagged. To me it's just extra clicks and extra overhead.

I also like to delete my When tags from a note when the task is completed. TSW leaves the When tags on, as you can see from TSW 03, 3:35, where you can see there are 187 notes tagged 1-Now, but only 5 showing when Action Pending is highlighted. The other 182 must be in Completed, which is showing 366 Notes. So, at least at that time, he was just plonking Completed Notes into Completed Notebook with the When tag still on.

Deleting the When tags after a task is finished makes viewing my tasks tagged "Today" (TSW's "1-Now"), or any of the other When tags, a one-click affair. Easy!

The way TSW shows it, you'd have to hold Ctrl and click Action Pending then click the When tag. And to do this on mobile you'd (currently) have to create a saved search for each Action Pending+When Tag and select that. Ouch! Whereas I can do that on mobile easily because I just need to select one tag. Deleting a When tag is one extra click, it's true: but for me, the benefits make it really worth while.

I also find the TSW coverage of handling email strange. It seems to like moving a large proportion of emails over to Evernote and I don't really understand that (TSW 07). Maybe the ones he shows have already been manually sorted to screen out spam and newsletters - and it's just the remaining ones he moves to EN? It still looks like a large number of notes created. I think it's quicker to do more sorting out of your emails when they are in Outlook.

I use a 3-Inbox system to manage email, which saves me a ton of time (and stress) and I only find myself moving or sending a few emails to EN.

TSW also shows the act of "merging notes" in half a dozen separate places in the vids as if that's a really useful thing. I find I never merge notes, as a. It often messes up the formatting in a way which is takes longer to correct, than it does to cut and paste in the first place, and b. You end up with important stuff low down in the note, and have to scan right down the badly-formatted note to see it. I prefer to have the important stuff right at the top, and support info below. So I don't do that!

I've always been interested in managing my time efficiently and my own personal method incorporates ideas from pre- as well as post- Evernote. TSW has influenced me a lot, but other sources who use Evernote have been helpful too. I acknowledge a dozen of these in my article, including this informative forum thread!

Cheers

Malc

juniorgolf18 · December 8, 2015

Hi JG

Zendone: Every to-do list manager I check out - and I've checked out a lot - adds an extra level of complexity. Using Evernote is just so simple and syncs nicely to your device. 'Nuff said! Having said that, it is sometimes nice to supplement EN. For example, if I've got loads of urgent/semi urgent to dos - more than I usually have - I sometimes dump a load of them into Kanbanflow which helps me work through them, It's because I find that a visual representation of that number of to dos sometimes helps. When it's helpful I use it - maybe 10% of the time. Horses for courses...

+++

I wrote that article nearly 3 years ago, just after finding TSW, which suddenly made me realise I could use my favourite storage solution - Evernote - to apply time management efficiently. I was immediately stoked!
I still use TSW's idea of 4 x 'W tags', and 6 x similarly named When tags (actually, I use 7).

I've since developed my own handling of projects and filing, which TSW only touches on. This has gone through multiple iterations over the years, but the joy of using EN is that you can keep it simple. And I try to make each iteration simpler. "The fewest clicks possible" is my guide.

Maybe that's why I find TSW's reliance on Tags is overdone. TSW shows many notes tagged with 3 or 4 tags. It's thought to help see notes from different contexts: I rarely find that much tagging useful enough to justify the extra time taken. Maybe it's just that "tags lite" is quicker for me... and maybe you'll like having Notes heavily tagged. To me it's just extra clicks and extra overhead.

I also like to delete my When tags from a note when the task is completed. TSW leaves the When tags on, as you can see from TSW 03, 3:35, where you can see there are 187 notes tagged 1-Now, but only 5 showing when Action Pending is highlighted. The other 182 must be in Completed, which is showing 366 Notes. So, at least at that time, he was just plonking Completed Notes into Completed Notebook with the When tag still on.

Deleting the When tags after a task is finished makes viewing my tasks tagged "Today" (TSW's "1-Now"), or any of the other When tags, a one-click affair. Easy!
The way TSW shows it, you'd have to hold Ctrl and click Action Pending then click the When tag. And to do this on mobile you'd (currently) have to create a saved search for each Action Pending+When Tag and select that. Ouch! Whereas I can do that on mobile easily because I just need to select one tag. Deleting a When tag is one extra click, it's true: but for me, the benefits make it really worth while.

I also find the TSW coverage of handling email strange. It seems to like moving a large proportion of emails over to Evernote and I don't really understand that (TSW 07). Maybe the ones he shows have already been manually sorted to screen out spam and newsletters - and it's just the remaining ones he moves to EN? It still looks like a large number of notes created. I think it's quicker to do more sorting out of your emails when they are in Outlook.

I use a 3-Inbox system to manage email, which saves me a ton of time (and stress) and I only find myself moving or sending a few emails to EN.

TSW also shows the act of "merging notes" in half a dozen separate places in the vids as if that's a really useful thing. I find I never merge notes, as a. It often messes up the formatting in a way which is takes longer to correct, than it does to cut and paste in the first place, and b. You end up with important stuff low down in the note, and have to scan right down the badly-formatted note to see it. I prefer to have the important stuff right at the top, and support info below. So I don't do that!

I've always been interested in managing my time efficiently and my own personal method incorporates ideas from pre- as well as post- Evernote. TSW has influenced me a lot, but other sources who use Evernote have been helpful too. I acknowledge a dozen of these in my article, including this informative forum thread!

Cheers

Malc

Thanks Malc,

Setting everything up now. Thanks for the detailed reply!

You mentioned you wrote several years ago - you should update it - Do you have something separate for your Timeology method?

Or maybe up to date screenshots of the setup --

John in Michigan USA · December 8, 2015

I've been using Evernote as a depository for years but have recently been reading David Allens book on GTD. I had tried it before but hadn't read the book so I gave up. Now that I've read the book I'm going to give it a go again and commit..
Now, the decision on which system to use. Tsw, Crawfords, DEG Consulting (Daniel Gold), or other like David Allen's own system.
Is tsw up to date? Has anyone bought the $5 one from DEG? Tag based?

TSW is IMO a great approach to GTD on Evernote. Many of the other approaches mentioned here to GTD on Evernote look promising, too.

But, be warned. Evernote has many bugs/annoyances that can interfere with "delightful processing" and a smooth GTD experience. Search results are inconsistent, especially (but not exclusively) on phones/tablets in offline mode. The editor flakes out with formatting a lot. Rarely, notes disappear. Lately, EN has been rolling out new features which are interesting but not essential, meanwhile ignoring these long-standing bugs (all reported). Worse, lately they've starting removing a few useful features (especially from widgets) with no warning and no apparent way to get the missing features back!

WMMV.

CalS · December 8, 2015

I tried Zendone a few years back and like Malc, found myself doing things in two places, so I stopped using it.

Some add ons to Malc's most excellent post above, just food for thought.

My When tags are !1-Now !2-Next !3-Soon !5-Someday and !7-Read. You can see I eliminated some tags for lack of use. Also, I preceded the tags with the ! to facilitate tag selection in the dropdown. This also forces them to the top of the tag list on the IOS devices. And sorting by tag after a tag:!* search in list view displays all TSW tags "in order", whatever the context, typically all notes for me..
I added a few when tags for my own use:
- !LM for phone log notes where I expect a call back, !LM is in my shortcuts bar beside !1-Now
- !Weekly for notes I want to review on a weekly basis, I change the reminder date each week
- !Monthly, used the same as !Weekly. Both of these tags are used to remind more of concepts, they aren't for actual tasks.
Like Malc I delete the TSW tags when the item is completed. I created a PhaseExpress hot key that lets me add _Completed date/time to the note, though I don't always use it.
I'm again with Malc on email. I manage email in my mail client and if an email needs to be added to my TSW workflow, I use the @notebook #tag functionality EN supplies to tag it as I send it to EN. (Or the !date functionality if I want to make it a reminder note.) That way once it leaves my inbox it is in EN without any further touches.
I keep all of my tasks in EN. I like the concept of everything in one place.

To be totally transparent, I do use another task app, but only for grocery lists. It is called Wunderlist.. My wife and I can share the list so no excuses for not bringing home the milk. Wunderlist is a great app for simple list processing.

Good luck on your productivity journey.

juniorgolf18 · December 8, 2015

Thanks guys again.

One thing that would be helpful - I've got tags set up etc, would be to walk through your daily process. Like how do you get your today tasks in front of you?

CalS · December 8, 2015

I use two monitors, EN is always full screen on the right in vertical list view (Ctrl-Shift-F5) with the left column hidden (F10). I have added the !1-Now and the !LM tags to my shortcuts bar. I also have two saved searches !Today and !Late in the shortcuts bar.

First thing in the morning I use the !1-Now, !LM tag searches and the !Today, !Late searches and decide what actions to take. Sounds like a lot of clicks but typically not that many notes in any one of them and each search has a different meaning for me. I also do this periodically during the day or after a task is completed. Four clicks and I have quick visibility to all my key tasks. As a backup, I use FollowUpThen to send me an email Twice a day, at 7 AM and 1 PM, sort of a trigger just in case a slew of meetings gets me sideways.

Specifically Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon (sometimes ends up being Saturday) I go through my TSW tags and adjust priorities up or down. Same for dated items. Sometimes this activity might happen more frequently in a week, just depends upon the week.

The above works for me, may not for you. Again, you will no doubt tailor your system to how you work.

HeyMalc · December 9, 2015

Thanks Malc,

Setting everything up now. Thanks for the detailed reply!

You mentioned you wrote several years ago - you should update it - Do you have something separate for your Timeology method?

Or maybe up to date screenshots of the setup --

Mate - the meat of it is in that post

If you have specific questions I'd be pleased to answer them

Malc

HeyMalc · December 9, 2015

Thanks guys again.
One thing that would be helpful - I've got tags set up etc, would be to walk through your daily process. Like how do you get your today tasks in front of you?

Hi JG

Wow - this thread has suddenly got enlivened - cool!

To see my Today tasks is ridiculously easy - all I do is click on Today and there are my today tags.

http://screencast.com/t/JMD6Fkbxx

It's crazy easy! Not like old school time management systems...

I hope that helps

Malc

HeyMalc · December 9, 2015

TSW is IMO a great approach to GTD on Evernote. Many of the other approaches mentioned here to GTD on Evernote look promising, too.

But, be warned. Evernote has many bugs/annoyances that can interfere with "delightful processing" and a smooth GTD experience. Search results are inconsistent, especially (but not exclusively) on phones/tablets in offline mode. The editor flakes out with formatting a lot. Rarely, notes disappear. Lately, EN has been rolling out new features which are interesting but not essential, meanwhile ignoring these long-standing bugs (all reported). Worse, lately they've starting removing a few useful features (especially from widgets) with no warning and no apparent way to get the missing features back!
WMMV.

OK - I've got input here.

Basically, Evernote has tried to get too big for its boots lately in my opinion.

When I use Evernote I don't want to edit spreadsheets, I don't want to see Word documents, I certainly don't want to see PDF documents.

I also don't want to scan my images for words, or do anything else complicated.

It's perhaps admirable that Evernote is trying to do all that stuff. But in my view it's a complete waste of time.

All I want from Evernote is a text editor. A little bit of formatting is fine.

Check boxes – I don't need.

OCR I don't need.

Your handling of PDFs is pants. I don't need it.

Just keep giving me simple notes, with simple formatting – a little bit of bold or italic – and tags.

That's really all I want from you.

If I want a Word document I'll use word.

If I want a spreadsheet, I'll use Excel.

If I want a PDF, I'll use Adobe reader.

Stop trying to get complicated and keep it simple.

Simple is good. That's how Evernote works best, and at that level it is the best ever.

If you look at Evernote corporate news lately, they are having to regroup.

Basically they have tried to overstretch themselves and are having to re-trench. If that means they stop being so clever and stick to the basics, that gets my vote.

Malc

CalS · December 9, 2015

Sorry, Malc, but I differ a bit here. I use EN as my paperless engine so I scan/download just about everything to PDF, 14.5k and counting, so PDF search is a good thing for me. At the same time EN is my task manager which I think exhibits the power of the program. But task management is the smaller subset of what how I use EN.

I agree 100% that things like chat and the store don't seem to make quite as much sense to individual user. But anything related to storage and retrieval of information is good to me. As always, different use cases abound.

juniorgolf18 · December 9, 2015

Thanks guys again.
One thing that would be helpful - I've got tags set up etc, would be to walk through your daily process. Like how do you get your today tasks in front of you?
Hi JG
Wow - this thread has suddenly got enlivened - cool!
To see my Today tasks is ridiculously easy - all I do is click on Today and there are my today tags.
http://screencast.com/t/JMD6Fkbxx
It's crazy easy! Not like old school time management systems...
I hope that helps
Malc

So you just go through your next actions (I believe you name it something different) and if it needs today you tag it today, same with tomorrow etc...

juniorgolf18 · December 9, 2015

Are tags completely independent of notebooks?

CalS · December 9, 2015

Your choice. For me tags are independent of notebooks. Tags drive the process. As a side note, projects get a tag of their own.

Reason being early on I found that fewer notebooks made for easier searches, for me at least. So I have 8 notebooks, 2 of which are Scans and INBOX, so really just 6 that are used to store any of my notes, 3 local and 3 synced. I find it isn't that cumbersome to add/delete TSW tags and I like being able to sort the Tags column in List view if I do a Tag:!* search.

juniorgolf18 · December 9, 2015

Your choice. For me tags are independent of notebooks. Tags drive the process. As a side note, projects get a tag of their own.
Reason being early on I found that fewer notebooks made for easier searches, for me at least. So I have 8 notebooks, 2 of which are Scans and INBOX, so really just 6 that are used to store any of my notes, 3 local and 3 synced. I find it isn't that cumbersome to add/delete TSW tags and I like being able to sort the Tags column in List view if I do a Tag:!* search.

Thanks. I'm starting with just a few notebooks and mostly tags and can add notebooks if need to as need arises.

What I meant about independent tags, in the tsw videos they clicked on a notebook,created a note then added the tags from adding them to the note. I've added then from the left column by right clicking etc... Maybe the way they do it is just easier to add them by hitting enter and repeat. I just wondered if there was a difference.

CalS · December 9, 2015

You are welcome.

If I have multiple tags I just add them in the note header area. Click on "Click to add tag...", start entering the tag name, when the drop down is the tag I want (!1 is enough to get to !1-Now), hit enter, and repeat for however many tags. Easier than using the left panel in my view.

juniorgolf18 · December 10, 2015

The search functions and settting up a saved search are getting me off base.

For example, I've got a context @calls

How do I set up a search so I can click on @calls and it pulls up all the notes tagged that?

Never Mind - found it in the online help guide - and the false command to find ones without the checkbox checked.

juniorgolf18 · December 10, 2015

And when I create a note/task and tag it, do you always put a blank checkbox in each task you create so you can search for "false"

DTLow · December 10, 2015

I don't find the checkbox to be a reliable indicator of tasks. I use checkboxes in all sorts of notes, for example shopping lists.

I use a tag (!Actionable) to indicate tasks.

And yes, the task note will probably contain one or more checkboxes.

CalS · December 10, 2015

I don't use check boxes unless there are multiple items to do in a note. Typically the note represents the action so either the existence of an !tag or a reminder date means it is a task. Per my previous post the existence of _Completed in the body of the note lets me know that the note was once a task since completed. Though I only use that when I really care about the completion date, typically it doesn't make any difference to me. I suppose one could have a !9-Done tag if one wanted to track completed TSW items, just not my cup of tea. As a side note I use the _Completed because it makes the search specific, _ is as searchable special character.

In your example above I would just remove the @Call tag from the note after the call was completed. Perhaps using Ctrl-; to put a time stamp in the note with whatever notes/follow ups (maybe check boxes here) from the call.

But again, my way may not feel right to you, just providing some input. Sounds like you are beginning to feel your way through the process. Feel free to keep asking questions and provide your own insights.

HeyMalc · December 10, 2015

The search functions and settting up a saved search are getting me off base.

For example, I've got a context @calls

How do I set up a search so I can click on @calls and it pulls up all the notes tagged that?

Never Mind - found it in the online help guide - and the false command to find ones without the checkbox checked.

I think you are over-complicating it! To find all Notes tagged @Calls, simply click on the @Calls tag in the left pane. No search necessary - EN's built in filtering does the job in one click.

Similarly, to filter by more than one tag - eg to find all Notes in the Filing Notebook (if you've got one of those) tagged with the tag "Project xyz", click the Filing Notebook, press Ctrl, and click the second tag, Project xyz. Then you are filtering by 2 tags - without having to create a saved search. This works with any number of tags if using a computer. Only if this starts becoming cumbersome, and you are doing that search regularly, is it worth creating a saved search. (Also, you can't select mulitiple tags currently, on a device, so you saved searches can help there.)

As you use it more, this will all fall into place.

Cheers

Malc

juniorgolf18 · December 10, 2015

The search functions and settting up a saved search are getting me off base.

For example, I've got a context @calls

How do I set up a search so I can click on @calls and it pulls up all the notes tagged that?

Never Mind - found it in the online help guide - and the false command to find ones without the checkbox checked.
I think you are over-complicating it! To find all Notes tagged @Calls, simply click on the @Calls tag in the left pane. No search necessary - EN's built in filtering does the job in one click.
Similarly, to filter by more than one tag - eg to find all Notes in the Filing Notebook (if you've got one of those) tagged with the tag "Project xyz", click the Filing Notebook, press Ctrl, and click the second tag, Project xyz. Then you are filtering by 2 tags - without having to create a saved search. This works with any number of tags if using a computer. Only if this starts becoming cumbersome, and you are doing that search regularly, is it worth creating a saved search. (Also, you can't select mulitiple tags currently, on a device, so you saved searches can help there.)
As you use it more, this will all fall into place.

Cheers
Malc

Point taken. I tend to do that. But I'm already seeing benefits of feeling like I'm not missing something.

I feel like I need to clean up how I process today tasks. Sitting in morning and tagging "Today" or "Now" or maybe even end of previous day...

Also, do you have "To-Do" notebook as your default or do you have an inbox as default then move to To-Do if it's actionable or Reference if reference, etc... TSW has 1 I believe that is default catching all.

How do you other guys process that?

DTLow · December 10, 2015

[quote

I feel like I need to clean up how I process today tasks. Sitting in morning and tagging "Today" or "Now" or maybe even end of previous day...

Also, do you have "To-Do" notebook as your default or do you have an inbox as default then move to To-Do if it's actionable or Reference if reference, etc... TSW has 1 I believe that is default catching all.

How do you other guys process that?
Most definitely notebook Inbox as a default, and then process notes from there.
I use EN for so much more than task management.
I use tags instead of notebooks. I only use notebooks when I need them for such things as sharing, or offline.
I do a daily review moving notes out of the Inbox with tagging,
and assigning a date tag to Actionable items,
and updating my Now flagged notes.

juniorgolf18 · December 11, 2015

Ok, this may be a dumb questions - but here goes... I've got everything coming into .Inbox by default - there I'm processing it and tagging, etc... Now where do you put the note ? They are all still in my ".inbox" - Do you let them all stay there or move them somewhere else?

CalS · December 11, 2015

Move it to another notebook. Try to keep the inbox empty as a simple way to see if you have anything to tag. You can do a notes with no tags search but easier to just check the inbox, IMO.

DTLow · December 11, 2015

Ok, this may be a dumb questions - but here goes... I've got everything coming into .Inbox by default - there I'm processing it and tagging, etc... Now where do you put the note ? They are all still in my ".inbox" - Do you let them all stay there or move them somewhere else?

Most definitely move out of .inbox.

After processing my inbox items, I move the notes to notebook I call File Cabinet.

Think of having a paper inbox on your desk. Typically it's not used for storage.

juniorgolf18 · December 12, 2015

OK got it. So after assigning appropriate tags you move it to another notebook that is kind of the in process notes. Then move to completed if you usee that notebook?

DTLow · December 12, 2015

OK got it. So after assigning appropriate tags you move it to another notebook that is kind of the in process notes. Then move to completed if you usee that notebook?

I actually use a generic !Archive tag to flag items that I no longer wish to see in my searches.

It applies to completed tasks, as well as all the other notes I store in EN.

I could use a !Completed Task if I need that classification.

juniorgolf18 · December 12, 2015

OK got it. So after assigning appropriate tags you move it to another notebook that is kind of the in process notes. Then move to completed if you usee that notebook?
I actually use a generic !Archive tag to flag items that I no longer wish to see in my searches.
It applies to completed tasks, as well as all the other notes I store in EN.
I could use a !Completed Task if I need that classification.

I guess what was I was asking was notebook related. When I tag it for action or assign a where tag to it, it's still in the inbox notebook. Do you move it to another notebook after you tag it so the default collection box is non cluttered?

CalS · December 12, 2015

I think David states above he moves it out of the inbox. :-)

HeyMalc · December 14, 2015

I guess what was I was asking was notebook related. When I tag it for action or assign a where tag to it, it's still in the inbox notebook. Do you move it to another notebook after you tag it so the default collection box is non cluttered?

Hi JG [- been away for a while :| ]

I'm gonna disagree with some - I don't have an "Inbox" Notebook in EN because that approach takes more time to manage. For me everything defaults to my To do Notebook.

The reason that saves me time is that half the stuff I send to EN is actually a To do: so it will be in the right place already - I don't have to move it. So for my method to be better, I need to easily be able to identify anything sent to To-Do which is, actually, filing, and move it to Filing (and possibly tag it).

This is easy - once or twice a day I run a filter (it's a saved search) to pull up: "All items in the To-do Notebook which don't have a When tag". I call it my "Tidy Up Filter", or TUF.

Then I know that each one of these filtered notes has either:

- To be given a When (and perhaps other) tag, or

- To be moved to Filing (and possibly tagged).

I wouldn't want to send everything to an Inbox Notebook and then have to move every single item out. That's just more work.

If it somehow pleases a person to see the Inbox NB get emptied, or if they find it improves their compliance in some way, and *makes* them do it regularly, then that's a personal thing and by by all means do it.

But if efficiency is your goal, I think you'll find, as I do, that to be more efficient having the To-Do Notebook as default is quicker and it works out simpler too.

Best, Malc

DTLow · December 14, 2015

It's an interesting view of processing notes and to-do items.

I basically have two notebooks, Inbox and File-Cabinet,

and have two shortcuts called Process-Inbox, and Process-Actionable.

I'll think about consolidating my notebooks and processes; you're right, it will be more efficient.

juniorgolf18 · December 15, 2015

Interesting Malc. Some things I'm debating and/or struggling with....

Today was my first day back in office and using my new system. This morning I added several tasks to my today tag and as I finished them I removed the today tag and moved them to a notebook I named completed.

I'm still struggling with the time between tagging it and completed, when it's still in my default inbox. I feel like I need to move it to a in between notebook like "in process" so it's not completed but not cluttering up my inbox.. not sure yet.

Right now as I think of something I need to do tomorrow, I made a note and tagged its context but when I got to tag the "when", do I tag it "today" so tomorrow when I search for today it's there or do I put it in another tag? I only have today and then 2-next. Maybe I should ditch "today" and go back to 1-now. I think just tagging something today when it's for tomorrow gets me lol.

Thanks for the discussion. I enjoy learning from you guys. Be patient with my questions...

CalS · December 15, 2015

It sounds like you should try keeping a clean inbox and using the !1-Now tag. Give yourself permission to break a couple of rules, give it a go and see how it feels.

If you don't like it you can always change back, it's not that hard to do with EN. IMO, it is best to experiment early on and see what works best for you. I didn't land on my method day 1 either.

juniorgolf18 · December 15, 2015

It sounds like you should try keeping a clean inbox and using the !1-Now tag. Give yourself permission to break a couple of rules, give it a go and see how it feels.

If you don't like it you can always change back, it's not that hard to do with EN. IMO, it is best to experiment early on and see what works best for you. I didn't land on my method day 1 either.

Yes, I re-read the Secret Weapon document and it seems they don't try or advocate trying to clear the inbox or Action Pending they call it. They just tag and if you use searches to find now, etc and contexts then you won't even care if it's got messages or notes in there. Thanks

CalS · December 15, 2015

Which is fine. But, for me, when you have local notes that are tasks and synced notes that are tasks they can't be in the same notebook. Also I email stuff to EN sometimes tagged and sometimes not (TSW tags or otherwise). Maybe I'm just lazy but I'd as soon "clear" the inbox as do a notes without tags search. The procewss just "feels" better to me. That and a !1-Now tag search gets me work no matter what notebook the task/note is in.

juniorgolf18 · December 17, 2015

So here's a real situation I just ran into --

I take notes or share notes from Books I'm reading via Kindle App to Evernote. I had them in a Notebook Stack called Book Notes - then had a notebook for each book they were on. So, now I tagged those notes with a new tag "Book Notes" and removed the notebooks. So now they are just hanging out in my Actions Pending/inbox with no notebook. They have no action, just there if I want to go back and look at or reference.

So, what would I do with them? Move them to Completed and just search by tag when I want to review them? Or maybe in the reference or cabinet notebook??

This would be the same with other notes I might collect on ideas, marketing, etc, etc... What notebook do they reside in now that I've tagged them? Actions or inbox doesn't seem appropriate

DTLow · December 17, 2015

I have a notebook called Filing Cabinet; that's where mostly all my notes go.

Actions/pending or whatever are simply tags.

The only reason I setup other notebooks are for such things as sharing, or off-line.

CalS · December 17, 2015

20 minutes ago, juniorgolf18 said:

So here's a real situation I just ran into --

I take notes or share notes from Books I'm reading via Kindle App to Evernote. I had them in a Notebook Stack called Book Notes - then had a notebook for each book they were on. So, now I tagged those notes with a new tag "Book Notes" and removed the notebooks. So now they are just hanging out in my Actions Pending/inbox with no notebook. They have no action, just there if I want to go back and look at or reference.

So, what would I do with them? Move them to Completed and just search by tag when I want to review them? Or maybe in the reference or cabinet notebook??

This would be the same with other notes I might collect on ideas, marketing, etc, etc... What notebook do they reside in now that I've tagged them? Actions or inbox doesn't seem appropriate

Everything you put into EN doesn't have to be a GTD/TSW note. to David_Low's point add another notebook for all other items, or maybe two or three if you want to control sorts a bit.

juniorgolf18 · December 17, 2015

11 minutes ago, David_Low said:

I have a notebook called Filing Cabinet; that's where mostly all my notes go.

Actions/pending or whatever are simply tags.

The only reason I setup other notebooks are for such things as sharing, or off-line.

My main notebook is Actions Pending like TSW suggests in setup. From screenshots it looKS like they have hundreds of notes in that notebook. The default one.

Maybe I'll just leave them in there. Instead of adding a step or notebook

juniorgolf18 · December 17, 2015

4 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Everything you put into EN doesn't have to be a GTD/TSW note. to David_Low's point add another notebook for all other items, or maybe two or three if you want to control sorts a bit.

True. Good point.

DTLow · December 17, 2015

>>My main notebook is Actions Pending like TSW suggests in setup. From screenshots it looKS like they have hundreds of notes in that notebook. The default one. Maybe I'll just leave them in there. Instead of adding a step or notebook

I went to TSW and watched the videos on setup and processing. I see they suggest creating a notebook called Cabinet, and when encountering a note that wasn't an action, they moved it to the Cabinet notebook.

HeyMalc · December 17, 2015

3 hours ago, juniorgolf18 said:

My main notebook is Actions Pending like TSW suggests in setup. From screenshots it looKS like they have hundreds of notes in that notebook. The default one.

Maybe I'll just leave them in there. Instead of adding a step or notebook

Hey there - I like simple. And my system, developed over 3 years (since realising I could use EN for time management - thanks braintoniq) is simple. So here you go:

- I have 2 Notebooks, where almost all the notes I add during the day, go.
- My default NB is To-do
- I have a saved search I call the "Tidy Up Filter" - which is essential for my simple system.
- I find "Actions Pending" to be a red herring - it creates extra work and I don't see a single benefit.
- I rarely use "Completed". It's extra work. I almost always delete, or move to Filing.
- I don't have "Inbox" because - you've guessed it - it's extra work. I use the To-do NB, plus running the Tidy Up Filter regularly - one-click.

When I add a note, the default NB is To-do.
- If adding Filing directly to EN, I add it correctly to the Filing NB
- If adding Filing via an app/utility, if it lets me easily add tags, I do that. (Eg Outlook Add to Evernote button, browser Add to Evernote button)
- If adding Filing via a utility that doesn't easily let me add tags (eg via email to my EN email address) I ("incorrectly") let it go to To-Do for later tidying up. (Quicker for me than learning the email syntax as I don't use it that often, plus it avoids the inevitable mistakes.) I can be certain that these notes will get picked up by my Tidy Up Filter later, for tagging/moving to Filing NB.
- If hurriedly adding a To do to the To-do NB (eg I am in a meeting and it would be rude to take too much time), I don't both tagging it because I KNOW the Tidy Up Filter will pick it up later as it doesn't have a When tag.

Once a day, twice a day, when on a bus, when in a queue, at my Daily Review, when on Hold on the phone, etc, etc, I run the Tidy Up Filter on my computer, or on my phone and tidy up the notes. This is my "ongoing housekeeping task" which keeps my system tidy.

**Tidy Up Filter (TUF)**
This filters out: "All notes in the To-do NB without a When tag". (To create the TUF, each of your When tags has to be listed separately in the syntax. Just do it manually, then save it as a search. This saves search will then be synched to your devices so you do it on a device in one click.)

This filter takes advantage of my "rule" that: "Every Note in the To-do NB MUST have a When tag."

Using my system, if a Note in the To-do NB has NOT got a When tag, there are only two possibilities: it either:

- Needs a When tag (and maybe other tags), or
- It needs moving to the Filing NB (and maybe other tags added)

Job done.

No-one has been able to convince me that I need either an Actions Pending NB, and Inbox, or that I need to move all Completed to dos to a Complete Notebook.

I suggest all of these are red herrings, and I recommend having just a To-do Notebook, a Filing Notebook, and a Tidy Up Filter.

I have modified this system many, many, many times to strip out unnecessary layers of work and I suggest the average person does not need to be any more complicated than this. (If you are a lawyer like Daniel Gold, or David Ward, maybe you do need more complexity. That's not most of us.)

I own 2 businesses including a $500k health business with 6 staff. I have 7-8 projects on the go at any one time. I get 150 emails a day. I am treasurer of one organisation I belong to, and Social Subcommittee Chair of another. I see my 3 daughters at least once a week, and my partner and I have 4 or 5 holidays or mini-holidays a year. I have what can only be called a "busy" social life.

The system I describe manages all this brilliantly, using only what I regard as being essential: a computer, Evernote, a smart phone and Outlook for PC.

I welcome comments because they may help me improve my system. Fire away!

I hope this post helps someone , my greatest wish being that it strips away the complexity which it's tempting to add when using Evernote, but which adds to the time management burden, rather than making the whole process slicker. As I said, I like "simple".

Malc

juniorgolf18 · December 17, 2015

8 hours ago, HeyMalc said:

Hey there - I like simple. And my system, developed over 3 years (since realising I could use EN for time management - thanks braintoniq) is simple. So here you go:

- I have 2 Notebooks, where almost all the notes I add during the day, go.
- My default NB is To-do
- I have a saved search I call the "Tidy Up Filter" - which is essential for my simple system.
- I find "Actions Pending" to be a red herring - it creates extra work and I don't see a single benefit.
- I rarely use "Completed". It's extra work. I almost always delete, or move to Filing.
- I don't have "Inbox" because - you've guessed it - it's extra work. I use the To-do NB, plus running the Tidy Up Filter regularly - one-click.

When I add a note, the default NB is To-do.
- If adding Filing directly to EN, I add it correctly to the Filing NB
- If adding Filing via an app/utility, if it lets me easily add tags, I do that. (Eg Outlook Add to Evernote button, browser Add to Evernote button)
- If adding Filing via a utility that doesn't easily let me add tags (eg via email to my EN email address) I ("incorrectly") let it go to To-Do for later tidying up. (Quicker for me than learning the email syntax as I don't use it that often, plus it avoids the inevitable mistakes.) I can be certain that these notes will get picked up by my Tidy Up Filter later, for tagging/moving to Filing NB.
- If hurriedly adding a To do to the To-do NB (eg I am in a meeting and it would be rude to take too much time), I don't both tagging it because I KNOW the Tidy Up Filter will pick it up later as it doesn't have a When tag.

Once a day, twice a day, when on a bus, when in a queue, at my Daily Review, when on Hold on the phone, etc, etc, I run the Tidy Up Filter on my computer, or on my phone and tidy up the notes. This is my "ongoing housekeeping task" which keeps my system tidy.

**Tidy Up Filter (TUF)**
This filters out: "All notes in the To-do NB without a When tag". (To create the TUF, each of your When tags has to be listed separately in the syntax. Just do it manually, then save it as a search. This saves search will then be synched to your devices so you do it on a device in one click.)

This filter takes advantage of my "rule" that: "Every Note in the To-do NB MUST have a When tag."

Using my system, if a Note in the To-do NB has NOT got a When tag, there are only two possibilities: it either:

- Needs a When tag (and maybe other tags), or
- It needs moving to the Filing NB (and maybe other tags added)

Job done.

No-one has been able to convince me that I need either an Actions Pending NB, and Inbox, or that I need to move all Completed to dos to a Complete Notebook.

I suggest all of these are red herrings, and I recommend having just a To-do Notebook, a Filing Notebook, and a Tidy Up Filter.

I have modified this system many, many, many times to strip out unnecessary layers of work and I suggest the average person does not need to be any more complicated than this. (If you are a lawyer like Daniel Gold, or David Ward, maybe you do need more complexity. That's not most of us.)

I own 2 businesses including a $500k health business with 6 staff. I have 7-8 projects on the go at any one time. I get 150 emails a day. I am treasurer of one organisation I belong to, and Social Subcommittee Chair of another. I see my 3 daughters at least once a week, and my partner and I have 4 or 5 holidays or mini-holidays a year. I have what can only be called a "busy" social life.

The system I describe manages all this brilliantly, using only what I regard as being essential: a computer, Evernote, a smart phone and Outlook for PC.

I welcome comments because they may help me improve my system. Fire away!

I hope this post helps someone , my greatest wish being that it strips away the complexity which it's tempting to add when using Evernote, but which adds to the time management burden, rather than making the whole process slicker. As I said, I like "simple".

Malc

What is the difference in your ToDo notebook versus the Actions Pending I am talking about? It seems they are the same, you just call it Todo versus Actions Pending or Inbox. It's the default notebook where everything goes first then processed out from there. Am I missing something?

I see what you are doing with Filing - I think - it's where you move your action item/note to after applying appropriate tags...? Then you just delete it when finished instead of adding a completed tag or moving to a completed notebook. I think that is a personal preference - I will keep mine in a completed notebook - that way they don't pop back up in my saved searches but I can find them later if need to go back and check a date etc...

I like the tidy up idea - good to clean up strays...

DTLow · December 17, 2015

>>- I have 2 Notebooks, where almost all the notes I add during the day, go.
- My default NB is To-do

To-Do and Not-To-Do sound so Shakespearen.

This restricts your action items to a single notebook. I have various shared notebooks for team projects, and they also have to-do items.

HeyMalc · December 18, 2015

18 hours ago, juniorgolf18 said:

What is the difference in your ToDo notebook versus the Actions Pending I am talking about? It seems they are the same, you just call it Todo versus Actions Pending or Inbox. It's the default notebook where everything goes first then processed out from there. Am I missing something?

I see what you are doing with Filing - I think - it's where you move your action item/note to after applying appropriate tags...? Then you just delete it when finished instead of adding a completed tag or moving to a completed notebook. I think that is a personal preference - I will keep mine in a completed notebook - that way they don't pop back up in my saved searches but I can find them later if need to go back and check a date etc...

I like the tidy up idea - good to clean up strays...

Hi

>What is the difference in your ToDo notebook versus the Actions Pending I am talking about? It seems they are the same, you just call it Todo versus Actions Pending or Inbox.

Yes, it sounds the same. However, it contains my current To dos - and that's all. So if I click on Today (= 1-Now) I can see all my Today tasks, without having to select a Notebook too, or a saved search, because once my Today task has been done, I remove the today tag. It seems that TSW doesn't do this - he just (in the vids at least) moves a completed 1-Now task to Completed, leaving the 1-Now tag on it. That means he cannot, in the future, click JUST on 1-Now to see current 1-Now tasks, which, with my system, I can, saving clicks, which I like to do. You can see that from this image from Video 8, 1:30 attached. He has 75 tasks tagged !-Now and some of these are in Action Pending, and some in Completed. So clicking on just the 1-Now tag in TSW is not helpful as it shows you 75 notes (see image) whereas if I click on my Today tag, I see just the 6-10 tasks I want to be aware of (and hopefully complete) today.

>It's the default notebook where everything goes first then processed out from there.

No, my To dos don't have to be "processed out", because they are already in the right place. This saves a step compared to adding them to an Inbox Notebook.

>I see what you are doing with Filing - I think - it's where you move your action item/note to after applying appropriate tags...

No, Filing is my digital filing, separate from my To dos. This filing might have a What tag, for example, if it's source material for a particular project. If not, I prefer not to tag Filing if at all possible: but sometimes it needs a tag to help me find it again.

Moving it to a Completed NB is fine it that suits you. But I'd delete the When tag for the above reason. It also depends how many Notebooks you have. If you make extensive use of Notebooks then you'd probably find yourself doing extra clicks in some of your searching/filtering. Whereas with my system, using just To-do and Filing, I can just do 1 click - on "Notes" - then do any filtering on all Notes.

I hope I am being clear. My goal is always to save myself clicks. I spend so much time using Evernote, that I might repeat a particular operation 20 or more times a day. So saving 1 click in that operation is a real time-saver, and that's my goal.

Good luck!

Malc

CalS · December 18, 2015

FWIW, I put the !1-Now tag on my shortcuts bar and one click brings up all of those notes, across all notebooks.(7 of them now). And I do it this way because not all of my tasks are in my prime synced notebook, items related to taxes and the like. Also, the bulk of my notes have not been task related, probably only 5% of the 27k notes. A different use case I suppose impacts notebook usage.

HeyMalc · December 20, 2015

On 12/18/2015 at 6:23 PM, csihilling said:

FWIW, I put the !1-Now tag on my shortcuts bar and one click brings up all of those notes, across all notebooks.(7 of them now). And I do it this way because not all of my tasks are in my prime synced notebook, items related to taxes and the like. Also, the bulk of my notes have not been task related, probably only 5% of the 27k notes. A different use case I suppose impacts notebook usage.

Interesting. I haven't much use for shortcuts yet but I'll keep it in mind as you find it useful. .

DTLow · December 20, 2015

3 hours ago, HeyMalc said:

Interesting. I haven't much use for shortcuts yet but I'll keep it in mind as you find it useful. .

I think shortcuts are a very important feature in using Evernote. I use it mostly saved searches, and as in the above example for quick access to tags.

I use the shortcuts section in the sidebar. It gets synced between my Mac and IPhone.

LIKE THIS

CalS · December 20, 2015

Just FYI, I show the shortcuts in the toolbar area, mostly because 99% of the time I have the left panel hidden (F10). I keep the most used shortcuts to the "left" so that they appear on the home screen on IOS, makes it a bit quicker there (one press for !1-Now).

HeyMalc · December 21, 2015

12 hours ago, csihilling said:

Just FYI, I show the shortcuts in the toolbar area, mostly because 99% of the time I have the left panel hidden (F10). I keep the most used shortcuts to the "left" so that they appear on the home screen on IOS, makes it a bit quicker there (one press for !1-Now).

Yes - I like that! On IOS if you keep the respective names short, you can see about 6 Tags and 6 Shortcuts on the Home Screen, if you select "Show Detail" in the options.

Also, I hadn't found in EN documentation that you could create a Shortcut to a Saved Search. Being able to get to a bunch of Tags / Shortcuts /Saved Searches from the Home Screen is a good benefit. Thanks.

M

.

CalS · December 21, 2015

HeyMalc,

You are welcome. Yup, the max characters in any of my first six shortcuts is 6.

Rgrenader · December 26, 2015

On 7/18/2014 at 5:22 PM, Quest The Wordsmith said:

I appreciate the response, but that didn't answer my question. Let me be the judge of what's an efficient use of my time .

So anybody else have any experience with the 2 methods of using EN with GTD? What's their differences? Which do you prefer and why?

gazumped has a point. Whatever system you are using in EN is working. You waste a lot of time looking for the "next best thing" rather using the system that you have. That, IMHO, is the genius of Evernote: the app does not force us to use a predefined system, but lets us create our own.

mruseless · December 27, 2015

Hi Malc,

I've been using a heavily modded version of TSW for about 2 years now. I started with the full TSW system but eventually migrated to using notebooks instead of tags. Why? 2 reasons. First, up until recently, tags have not always sync'ed reliably. There were several incidents over the past couple years where I had to rebuild my database because tags stopped syncing. If you've been able to avoid this, fantastic. I still don't know what was causing it but IIRC EN support told me it was a known bug. That was some time ago so it may be fixed by now.

The second reason was speed. I found it very tap intensive on the iPhone to move tasks from 1-Today to 2-Next to 3-Later and back again. It's not enough to simply add the new time tag, you also have to remove the old one. Perhaps you are better than I am about always completing what you set for yourself as 1-Today. But in my work life things are very hectic and I often find myself having to move things forward and back depending on what my colleagues and clients drop on me. How do you deal with this?

DTLow · December 27, 2015

On December 21, 2015 at 8:21 AM, csihilling said:

Yup, the max characters in any of my first six shortcuts is

I too discovered that on the iPad, the tags were displayed truncated and also without my carefully designed hierarchy.

As much as I hate shortcuts (I can never remember them), I used ! ? @ to indicate !What ?Who @Where tags. At least it gave me one level of hierarchy.

DTLow · December 27, 2015

>>migrated to using notebooks instead of tags.

I'm the opposite, using tags instead of notebooks

It avoids a filing issues; such as I have a note - which notebook should I put it in - if it fits two notebooks, should I use copies of notes. Also, I have shared project team notebooks, each containing to-do items.

Your point is valid about it being easier to move a note between notebooks than to use tags. And it does eliminate you having conflicting tags, and removing old tags.

I haven't experienced your tag syncing problem. That would be a disaster for me. I have problems with my notes becoming corrupted on the iPad; resolved by reinstalling from the cloud.

mruseless · December 27, 2015

19 hours ago, David_Low said:

It avoids a filing issues; such as I have a note - which notebook should I put it in - if it fits two notebooks, should I use copies of notes. Also, I have shared project team notebooks, each containing to-do items.

I should clarify a little bit... I have a notebook called "Archive", where all filed materials go, and I do use tags. The notebooks I use for TSW are only for time based categories: 1-Today, 2-ThisWeek, 3-Later, 4-Someday, and 5-Waiting. Since a particular task can have only 1 of these categories, there's no problem with having to make copies of notes.

I still use tags for things like people, projects (sometimes but I'm not consistent), etc.

CalS · December 28, 2015

6 hours ago, David_Low said:

I too discovered that on the iPad, the tags were displayed truncated and also without my carefully designed hierarchy.

As much as I hate shortcuts (I can never remember them), I used ! ? @ to indicate !What ?Who @Where tags. At least it gave me one level of hierarchy.

Similar, I use !When and =Who, no @Where tags. My first shortcuts are shown below, obviously the ones I use the most (!LM is the left message tag). They show leftmost on my PC shortcut bar and are are all visible as is on the IOS top screen, in two rows. I tend to do the bulk of the tag manipulation on my PC, ot so much on IOS. Works for me anyway.

HeyMalc · December 28, 2015

On 12/27/2015 at 4:40 PM, mruseless said:

Hi Malc,

I've been using a heavily modded version of TSW for about 2 years now. I started with the full TSW system but eventually migrated to using notebooks instead of tags. Why? 2 reasons. First, up until recently, tags have not always sync'ed reliably. There were several incidents over the past couple years where I had to rebuild my database because tags stopped syncing. If you've been able to avoid this, fantastic. I still don't know what was causing it but IIRC EN support told me it was a known bug. That was some time ago so it may be fixed by now.

The second reason was speed. I found it very tap intensive on the iPhone to move tasks from 1-Today to 2-Next to 3-Later and back again. It's not enough to simply add the new time tag, you also have to remove the old one. Perhaps you are better than I am about always completing what you set for yourself as 1-Today. But in my work life things are very hectic and I often find myself having to move things forward and back depending on what my colleagues and clients drop on me. How do you deal with this?

Hi MRU -

First, I have (happily) not had a problem with tags synching. It's always worked hundred percent. That's not to say Evernote has always worked hundred percent: once I had to ask them transfer the whole caboodle to a completely new Evernote account - new email addy and everything – which they did, to get things working again. But that's the only issue I've ever had.

As far as changing tags, you are right. To change a tag – for example from today to tomorrow (or in the secret weapon, from now to next) means you have to remove one tag and add another.
On the iPhone this takes around five or six clicks.
It's doable. But, ideally, I prefer to save this sort of fiddling about for when I'm on my computer.
It's easier when on a computer: it's doable when on a device.
So, it all depends on how often you are on your computer.

In any case, it's still easier than any other system I've ever found.

Malc

mruseless · December 28, 2015

Good points. I'm in the middle of reading your blog post describing your system. Some good stuff in there that I may utilize.

One thing I've noticed since I've used both tags and notebooks at various times, is that it's not really much faster using tags (for time categories like 1-Today). The reason is because any time saved on moving things from notebook to notebook is gained back when creating new tasks, since you can just create them in the proper notebook, no tagging needed. So both systems seem to be a wash from a clicks perspective.

HeyMalc · December 28, 2015

41 minutes ago, mruseless said:

Good points. I'm in the middle of reading your blog post describing your system. Some good stuff in there that I may utilize.

One thing I've noticed since I've used both tags and notebooks at various times, is that it's not really much faster using tags (for time categories like 1-Today). The reason is because any time saved on moving things from notebook to notebook is gained back when creating new tasks, since you can just create them in the proper notebook, no tagging needed. So both systems seem to be a wash from a clicks perspective.

Surely, it takes a click to save in a particular Notebook, whereas if everything goes to To do NB that's one fewer clicks...

Also I like a lot - having everything that needs sorting out in the To do NB. It's either a To do that needs a When tag: or a filed item that needs possible tagging plus moving to Filing NB.

I think this is a Plus.

Cheers:)

Malc

mruseless · December 28, 2015

20 minutes ago, HeyMalc said:

Surely, it takes a click to save in a particular Notebook, whereas if everything goes to To do NB that's one fewer clicks...

Also I like a lot - having everything that needs sorting out in the To do NB. It's either a To do that needs a When tag: or a filed item that needs possible tagging plus moving to Filing NB.

I'm not so sure that it's fewer clicks, as you stated before, it depends on the details of the way you use Evernote. Let's say you are out and about, and a task pops into your head that you want to capture. You only have a few seconds to capture it (sitting at a red light, perhaps). If I read your system right, you would open your Todo NB, create a new note, then later run your tidy-up search, then tag it with a When tag. For me, I just open FastEver, and create a new note in the correct When NB. done. No further fussing needed.

As far as having all Todo's in a single NB, I'm resistant to that idea. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of the tag problems I've had.... but I also like being able to look though one "When" NB at a time during my Weekly Review (I know, I can do this by clicking on a single tag in the tag list). Back when I used to use When tags, I found it to be very annoying to change tags. If I removed the first When tag, the note would drop out of the list. Then I'd have to go searching for it to re-tag as a different When. Eventually I overcame that by building a habit to always add tags before deleting any.

I may go back to tags and give your method a try for a while, see if I can overcome my tag mistrust issues .

HeyMalc · December 28, 2015

2 hours ago, mruseless said:

I'm not so sure that it's fewer clicks, as you stated before, it depends on the details of the way you use Evernote. Let's say you are out and about, and a task pops into your head that you want to capture. You only have a few seconds to capture it (sitting at a red light, perhaps). If I read your system right, you would open your Todo NB, create a new note, then later run your tidy-up search, then tag it with a When tag. For me, I just open FastEver, and create a new note in the correct When NB. done. No further fussing needed.

As far as having all Todo's in a single NB, I'm resistant to that idea. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because of the tag problems I've had.... but I also like being able to look though one "When" NB at a time during my Weekly Review (I know, I can do this by clicking on a single tag in the tag list). Back when I used to use When tags, I found it to be very annoying to change tags. If I removed the first When tag, the note would drop out of the list. Then I'd have to go searching for it to re-tag as a different When. Eventually I overcame that by building a habit to always add tags before deleting any.

I may go back to tags and give your method a try for a while, see if I can overcome my tag mistrust issues .

I'm sure your system is working for you: and you are open to change and will no doubt find changes that suit you!

Yes, you are right: I am well in the habit of deleting the existing When tag LAST! After you've deleted it first and then have to hunt around for about 20 times, you get the hang if what order to do things in! haha. It's the same when changing Notebooks: if you are checking the To do Notebook and want to change some tags as well as changing the NB to Filing, you change the NB LAST.

Still, that's only a habit (or two)....

One reason I like ONE To do NB is that I can search all my To dos by clicking that To do NB, then adding my extra tags I am filtering on. Whereas if using multiple NBS I have to Ctrl click on each one, then click on the extra tags I want to filter on.

Of course if you don't do that, it's not an issue. But I do that fairly often.

Vineyard Paul · April 21, 2016

I prefer TSW to GTD EN.

Cheers

VP

DTLow · April 21, 2016

On 2016-04-20 at 8:16 PM, Vineyard Paul said:

I prefer TSW to GTD EN.

There were good points in each, and greatly influenced my workflow.

One thing missing in TSW is making use of Evernote's Reminder feature.
Reminder dates are much more useful than the manual Now/Soon/Later process proposed by TSW

I use a shortcut pointing to a saved search that identifies all current tasks identified by tag/reminder date.

Vineyard Paul · April 22, 2016

23 hours ago, DTLow said:

There were good points in each.

One thing missing in TSW is making use of Evernote's Reminder feature.

For me, this replaces the Now tag. I use a shortcut pointing to a saved search that identifies all current tasks identified by reminder date.

I use a calendar (Google) for reminder and other dates.

I thought the GTD method was to separate the two (dates live in a calendar, tasks live in a list)? I could be wrong

Works for me

DTLow · April 22, 2016

On April 22, 2016 at 8:19 PM, Vineyard Paul said:

I use a calendar (Google) for reminder and other dates.

I use Apple Calendar - I like the view of my events in a grid form, and notifications are better.
I use Cronfy Calendar Connector to sync my EN-Reminder and Calendar events.

Back to the "Now" task list.
I was able to get Evernote Reminders to populate my Current Task list
I couldn't figure how to drive this from the Calendar.

The benefits
- I do the task and date assignment at the same time
- I future date tasks and they will automatically trigger on the required date
- Reminders can be marked as Done, recording the completion date
This allows them to automatically removed from my "Now" list

>>I thought the GTD method was to separate the two (dates live in a calendar, tasks live in a list)? I could be wrong

For me, the GTD method is to segment your task list into a workable size, allowing me to focus on the "Current" and "Next Action" tasks.
There are various ways to do this.
- an Evernote tag called 01-Now
- an Evernote Reminder date
- ....

mruseless · April 22, 2016

Interesting idea, I had not thought to use reminders to create 1-Today tasks. I may give this a try.

What is the search syntax for finding reminders? And does it work the same way on Mac and Windows (and iPhone)?

CalS · April 22, 2016

14 minutes ago, mruseless said:

What is the search syntax for finding reminders?

https://dev.evernote.com/doc/articles/search_grammar.php

And yes it works the same on Windows and IOS in my experience, can't talk to Mac. Also, it is better if you put frequently used saved searches in the shortcut bar.

DTLow · April 22, 2016

19 hours ago, Vineyard Paul said:

2 hours ago, mruseless said:

What is the search syntax for finding reminders? And does it work the same way on Mac and Windows (and iPhone)?

There's a link to the search syntax below in my signature
This is a sample of the search I'm using for Current Tasks
reminderTime:* -reminderTime:day+1 -reminderdonetime:* -tag:!Archive

I used a saved search, and it works on my Mac and iPad; I assume it will be ok on Windows too.

mruseless · April 22, 2016

Thanks!

Interesting, I have the search syntax saved into Evernote and looked at it before writing my post.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828

Search by reminder is not listed on that page.

I've found stuff like this before, places where the EN staff has multiple pages that have inconsistent information.

Thanks again

John in Michigan USA · April 22, 2016

Search for reminders was BADLY broken for a while...then it got better for a while...recently the same bugs (or variations on them) have started coming back. I used to submit detailed bug reports, but it is clear no-one competent acts on them. Offline search is still to this day badly broken in the Android client.

GTD is all about having a trusted system -- when you mark something a certain way (i.e. set a reminder or tag with 1-Now) it is supposed to be something you can take to the bank. EN used to be a trusted system to me. But it no longer is. Too many bugs like the once I've described.

The Secret Weapon VS GTD & Evernote for Windows (David Allen)

Recommended Posts

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

gazumped 11,658

Link to comment

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

JohnDM 122

Link to comment

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

s2sailor 2,186

Link to comment

DutchPete 247

Link to comment

cdagenais 22

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

Michael Marian 4

Link to comment

DutchPete 247

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

242 5

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

242 5

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

s2sailor 2,186

Link to comment

The Qodesmith 15

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment

John in Michigan USA 129

Link to comment

juniorgolf18 8

Link to comment

gazumped 11,658

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment

juniorgolf18 8

Link to comment

juniorgolf18 8

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

juniorgolf18 8

Link to comment

John in Michigan USA 129

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment

juniorgolf18 8

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

HeyMalc 29

Link to comment

CalS 5,280

Link to comment