...dissertation research notes and GTD - do i need separate instances?

[Ethan417 1]

Hi

 

i am new to EN

 

i am using EN for capturing and storing all my research data for my master's thesis.

i expect that there will be hundreds of notes and a large number of tags - maybe 50 to 100

 

i would also like to set up GTD in EN

i'm worried that if i set up GTD in the same instance of EN that i use for my research project, the space could be become cluttered and unwieldy.

 

what is the best way for me to manage this?

 

if i keep everything in one instance - how should i set it up?

 

if you suggest two instances, how do i create the second instance?

 

thank you so much for your help

 

-Ethan

[jefito 5,589]

Start with one account, and see if you can do both things (I'll bet that you can). If it turns out that you cannot, then it's not hard to open up a new account (you need a separate email for this), and move one or the other set of notes to it. I'm not an expert on GTD, but I understand that at least some of the Evernote GTD'ers use specific tags, and tags are one way to organize your research notes (p.s. 50-100 tags is not a lot). At a minimum, you would probably want to keep your thesis notes in a separate notebook, as that's easier to isolate on.

[CalS 5,280]

I would agree with Jeff, start with a single account.  

 

In addition, I am a proponent of keeping all data in a single instance of EN.  There are use cases where multiple accounts and shared notebooks are the way to go.  But if you are just starting, there is a whole lot less complexity with a single instance.of EN using tags, notebooks and saved searches to manage the data as best works for you.  Particularly if some of your thesis notes find their way into your GTD process.  And when you add other "stuff" to EN having that under one roof will be beneficial.  

 

Real use case, I have my version of GTD and reminders within my EN instance, which is 26k+ notes.  It doesn't become cluttered since tagging is so effective in filtering the notes.  FWIW. 

[Ethan417 1]

Hi Jefito and csihilling

 

thank you for your help - 

 

i was wondering - what is the best way to organize my tags so that the appropriate tags are visible depending on what i am working on.

 

meaning - if i am working on my thesis - i want to see the set of tags associated with my thesis

and when i am working on GTD - then i see the GTD tags

 

thanks

-Ethan

[jefito 5,589]

You can organize your tags into trees, but otherwise there's no way in a single account to show one set or another. Fact of the matter is that I just hide the tag tree altogether most of the time, and use searches and shortcuts to do my note filtering. You can search for GTD on the forums, there's a fair amount of discussion about how to do that, and some web articles as well.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Hi Jefito and csihilling

 

thank you for your help - 

 

i was wondering - what is the best way to organize my tags so that the appropriate tags are visible depending on what i am working on.

 

meaning - if i am working on my thesis - i want to see the set of tags associated with my thesis

and when i am working on GTD - then i see the GTD tags

 

thanks

-Ethan

 

There is one way to do this but it may not be as useful as you need it to be. You can see a list of tags used in any given notebook by entering that notebook and clicking on the little baggage-tags style icon above the list of notes. This shows you all the tags used in that notebook (e.g., your thesis notebooks). You can then click on any given tag (or multiple tags) to drill down to notes with that tag (or that tag + another tag, etc). 

Again, this might not be exactly the functionality you need/are hoping for, but its a feature many people don't know exists. 

[jefito 5,589]

@Scott, yep, I did forget that that's available, but that might suffice for Ethan;'s purposes. It does present a flat tag list, rather than one that shows the tree, but for a short list (maybe the GTD list?), that may not matter much.

[CalS 5,280]

My thoughts.  

1. First, be a minimalist relative to your usage of tags.  
2. Use broad categories for tags with names you are likely to remember.  For example, I keep all of my statements in EN and tag those notes with Statement and CompanyName.  This is a fairly simple way to get at 2,500 notes.
3. Rely on the tag drop down tag list refinement as you type capability.
4. Relative to GTD, I modified for my use a system called The Secret Weapon, http://www.thesecretweapon.org/media/Manifesto/The-Secret-Weapon-Manifesto.pdf.  The linked document is a bit wordy, but in the end I precede action tags with "!-#", (!1-Now, !2-Next, ....).  This sorts them nicely in List view and in tag drop downs.  The web site is http://www.thesecretweapon.org/.
5. Same as Jeff I organize the tags in a tree structure.
6. Same as Jeff I rarely look at my tags based on 1 and 2 above. 

The above is just one view.  There are many more in these forums and a simple GTD and Evernote search will probably give you more than you would ever want to look at.  

[cwb 225]

The other way is to build hierarchy into the tag names themselves.

 

A lot of the GTD tag schemes use a symbol character for grouping.

@ for context, or an ! for an action tag, or a number of prefixes starting with .

 

So just typing @ in the search bar (or the search field of the tags view) will show only your existing GTD context tags.

So there's no having to remember what you're using.  Just type the prefix and select from the list.

 

Likewise you might have thesis tags starting with .Thesis or #Thesis

.Thesis.Meetings

.Thesis.Study.ReadingList

.Thesis.Planning

.Thesis.Lectures.Literature504

 

Just typing .Th in search is likely going to just show all your Thesis related tags, all alpha sorted by phylum.

But because the tags are delimited, I can also search on the sub words.  

I may not remember the exact classname, but I could type: Lectures in the search field, and along with all the other relevant hits in the search results would be a tag listing of every compound tag name with with Lectures in it, so I could pick from:

.Thesis.Lectures.Literature504

.Thesis.Lectures.BritianOnTheAmericanPopularLectureCircuit

 

Whether you want to add additional single word tag modifiers to that is a religious debate.

 

The only guidance I would offer is that this way makes Evernote do the remembering and relevant presentation of already in use tags for you, and suggested format of needed new tags as required.

Start with the minimum required framework, and refactor as needed.

[Ethan417 1]

Everyone thanks for your help

i feel comfortable enough to roll up my sleeves and get started

 

many thanks

-Ethan 

[Wordsgood 526]

Ethan,

Grumpy Monkey (a.k.a. Christopher Mayo) has a website where he posts on many topics, including how he used Evernote as graduate student. Below is a link to his site. I'd recommend you go through it using keyword searches. i.e. Evernote, writing, education, dissertation, etc.

Also search the forum for posts by him and others talking about Evernote and education.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/