How tags can bring your Evernote to the next level

[@jimgrant1776]

Vlad - Another excellent video. Early in the video, you suggested for people to "create a system" before starting to use tags.. Below is a description of some aspects of my system. Perhaps others may find it useful for their needs. My system conceptually revolves around "Who, What, When, & Where". I largely use tags to implement this. Who - I handle this materially different than you. It looked like you made specific "People"(like Julia Shaw") be sub-tags under "People Types" (like "Authors"). This wouldn't work for me because I have "People" who fall into multiple "People Types". Hence, I have one Tag set named "People" which has many sub-tags (each being the name of a specific person). - - - Also, I have a Tag set named "Groups". It has sub-tags like "Pinocle", "Church", and "R-H-T-G". - - - Also #2, I have a Tag set named "Organizations" which has sub-tags that are companies, charity, hospitals, etc. - - - This approach to tag sets allows me to assign tags to Notes with multiple "People", "Groups", "Organizations", etc. all at the same time, without overlap/conflict and makes it easy to search for Notes with particular tags. What - I suspect most people use Notebook names and Note titles to be specific "What's". However, there is potentially a deeper level of detail for "What". For example, I have a Tag set named "Note Types" that has sub-tags like, "email", "invoice", "instructions", and "map". I find this to be helpful when I want to find a Note and about all I can remember about it is that it is a "Map". When - With the "Create Date" and "Update Date" fields, Evernote largely takes care of "When". However, if I used Evernote for Tasks (instead, I used Apple's Reminder app), I would probably use a Tag set named "When" and give it non-time-dependent sub-tags like "Today", "Hot", and "Soon". Where - I have a Tag set named "Locations". It has many sub-tags and are entities like states, cities, buildings, places. With so many different Tag sets, it can slow down my ability to assign a tag to a Note. To minimize this, I assigned a prefix letter (or two) at the start of sub-tag. For example: * Who tags start with P and look like this: P=xxxxxxxxxx. (Using "W" isn effective.) * Note Types start with NT and look like this: NT=xxxxxxxxxx. * Where tags start with L and look like this: L=xxxxxxxxxx. So, to assign a task, I start typing the prefix and then select from the list of tags that pops up. Another of my ground rules when designing tags is to be sure to distinguish between "Subjects" and a "Subject Types". Finally, Tag set names are plurals. Sub-Tags are singular.

[@vladcampos]

Hi Jim, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to provide such a detailed explanation of your system 💚 I'm sure many people in our community will find it helpful. Thank you.

[@ghoffman007]

Vlad, Your videos are getting even better, even more organized. Yes, please do a series on advanced search. You are covering Evernote info that I haven't seen presented elsewhere. For example, I didn't know you could change the search results to Side List and didn't know you could right-click to change the fields displayed. Very powerful!

[@vladcampos]

Hey Gene, thank you for the kind words. As for the Advanced Search, I'm trying to figure out the best way to cover this topic. I'm not sure if I record tutorials about each command or if I keep showing examples in my regular videos. 🤔 Maybe both. What do you think?

[@ghoffman007]

@@vladcampos Hmmm. Yes, maybe both. But I think showing examples is the better way to cover Advanced Search. Showing examples would demonstrate how to use that part of Advanced Search and could show the power of the search.

[@toucan7433]

Amazing job. I love your videos !

[@vladcampos]

Thank you so much! 💚

[@marilena0357]

I’d love to know more about search. Thanks in advance

[@vladcampos]

Coming soon!

[@Bartmanfly]

Thanks for the search tips. Your database is only as good as your ability to search it.

[@vladcampos]

Excelent point!

[@rafaelup]

Vlad, do tou recommend maintain pdf files in EN or GDrive?

[@vladcampos]

I like the idea of keeping everything, including files, in Evernote to take advantage of the search, tags, etc. Moreover, PDFs, spreadsheets, etc. can work as part of a broad note with other information like I showed on the video below. 👇 kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZOoaZR3YpWWodE But that's only my way of doing it. The best thing to do in situations like this are tests to understand what makes your system more efficient and what doesn't.

[@Mishkafofer]

Looks like a mission for proper accounting software.

[@vladcampos]

Good point! Thank you for your comment. Here's my contribution to the debate, and I would love to hear your opinion. I think that it depends on what the extracted information is for. If you need some sort of dashboard or to write a report, for example, I 100% agree with you. There are much better options out there. On the other hand, using accounting software, a database, or even a simple spreadsheet can be excessive in some situations. In the example shown in the video and other similar situations, I'm not working on any analysis. Sometimes I just need to quickly compare on the fly or check something. And, yes, I do use Google Sheets when I need more elaborate data or any kind of numbers analysis.