Getting Things Done (GTD) in Evernote with Only One Notebook
August 25, 2009 by Bobby Travis 
199 Comments
A while back, I was working a job that required much more effort and responsibility than was reflected in my pay grade — familiar story? Well, combined with multiple side-projects, keeping up with my wife, newborn daughter, two dogs and a plethora of other things that required my time and energy, I was drowning. I started researching ways to get things done more efficiently. That’s how I first came across the cultural phenomena (some would just say cult…) that is GTD. A friend of mine who was “in the know” about such things was nice enough to lend me an audio version of a GTD seminar by David Allen. After about 2 weeks of listening (on the train, before bed, whenever I could), and an attempted implementation, I realized that I needed a system that was less file cabinets and paper and more suited to my digital life.
Enter Evernote…
Update: If GTD isn’t your thing, check out our post on Action Method Online.
For a different look at Evernote and GTD, check out Dan Gold’s book, Evernote, the Unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done. The second edition is out now. If you follow the link to make your purchase, 40Tech gets a small cut. You can also check out our review of the book, which was written before we became an affiliate.
A Bit About GTD and Evernote
In the course of the seminar, I learned a lot about the Inbox. The Inbox is the basis of your GTD system. It provides you with a place to dump all of your thoughts, tasks and ideas as they come upon you; to be processed and organized into their proper place in the flow of things at a later (and regularly scheduled) time. This frees your mind to continue with what it is you are supposed to be doing at that moment, keeping you focused and saving you from the long, slow spiral into chaos that leads to spinning wheels, a nervous breakdown, or, if you are like me, overwhelm that can only be dealt with by marathons of violent and immersive video games. There are essentially five elements to your GTD system:
- Collect (this is the Inbox(es) part)
- Process
- Organize
- Review
- Do
Evernote provides with you one place to do it all, and particularly makes the organizing part easy to handle. More on this later. First…
Evernote is the Mother of All Inboxes
A good GTD system, one that works with your entire life, will require multiple Inboxes. Or, if you use Evernote, your system will have multiple Inboxes that all lead to one big pit of highly organized, bottomless stuff. That’s what Evernote is – a magic bag that you can just keep throwing things into; a magic bag that allows you to easily keep track of where each item is, when you put it in the bag, and what other items in the bag it relates to. Yes, I’m perfectly aware I said magic bag. Yes, I know I am a nerd. Moving on.
Before you can get started in the virtual world that is Evernote, you will need to do a few things in the real world. First, set up some real world inbox trays in the places you tend to frequent. Let other people know that the Inboxes are there, and that they are to use them rather than bother you when you’re busy. Set up your email in much the same way – there is a good article over at Lifehacker about using Gmail for a GTD system.
IMPORTANT: Do NOT check those emails or messages unless there is a blazing fire attached to them! Resist the urge!! DON’T DO IT!!! Just schedule yourself a time to sort through all of your Inboxes (first thing in the morning is usually best) and start the planning process from there.
Aside from Inboxes, you will need a file/folder structure to action all of your Inbox items into. I’ll go into more detail on the different files and folders later, but the basic set up is as follows:
- A File for your goals for easy reference, helping you to define them and stay on track
- Your Inbox(es)
- Next Action Files
- Tickler File
- Lists (Project Lists, etc)
- A Someday/Maybe File
- A Reference & Support Materials File
Evernote is a means to take quick notes from any computer that has the desktop client installed and/or internet access, but it’s more than just one more Inbox. Evernote can be your definitive inbox – and, more importantly, it’s the place where your file system will live.
How to Use Your Inboxes
Every morning, and whenever you have a bit of time available to you, you need to sort through the items in your collective Inbox. Collect every hastily scribbled note from your various real world trays, open up your email and your Evernote client, and go through each item, one by one. Don’t be overwhelmed… this is where things get good! The first thing you need to do is to decide if each item is actionable or not. If it isn’t, then you have four choices:
- Put it in your Tickler file to take a look at it at a later date.
- Put it in your Someday/Maybe file if it is something that you might want to do, sometime.
- Put it in Reference so you can look at it if you ever need to.
- Trash it.
Trashing it can be the highlight of your day, really. There is nothing quite like realizing that something is useless and doesn’t apply to you, and then simply getting rid of it! If the item you’re looking at is actionable, decide right then whether it is a standalone task or a project.
Definition of a project: If the item will take more than one step to complete, it is a project. Period.
Don’t argue with me about it – that David Allen guy is making a serious living off of this GTD business; helping people who run giant multi-national corporations – guy says it’s a project… it’s a project. Put it on your projects list. You can go through your projects later and assign the first step as a next-action task.
For standalone items, a general rule of thumb is, if the item will take less than two minutes to complete, do it immediately. Get it off your plate and enjoy the feeling of gratification that comes from a job well done. If it will take longer than two minutes, decide what the next action is, and log it in the next-action files – even if that action is just to send an email (that takes longer than two minutes to write) to the person that you are delegating the task to. Move on to the next item. Rinse. Lather. Repeat until your Inbox sits empty before you and you hear the angelic tones on the air that only an empty Inbox brings. It’s a beautiful thing.
Now you’re ready to get to work.
Setting Up Your File System in Evernote
Tags, Tagging & Yes, More Tags
What is all this talk about next-actions and appropriate folders? Well, this is where things get truly organized and Evernote becomes your best friend. David Allen is old school. He likes to work with paper folders and files and a filing cabinet. He will even (at least he would have at the time that the seminar was recorded) print out key emails and place the printed copies in their appropriate folders. In my first attempt at getting set up, I thought I was quite clever and all environmentally friendly and such by organizing my email client with folders and labels that reflected my other filing system. A decent idea, but all of my items were spread out in at least two different systems and were quickly becoming redundant and hard to manage. I needed a way to keep everything in one place that did not require me to kill trees on a daily basis. The light dawned, the birds sang, and the Elephant called. This was an easy thing to do with Evernote.
You can add your emails into your Evernote GTD system for easy reference by forwarding to your Evernote email address; which is provided to you when you sign up, and you can find in the Account Settings area of your Evernote account, online.
At first, when adapting Evernote into my GTD system, I used multiple notebooks. My default notebook was used for my Inbox, and I created several others others for specific GTD folders and separate projects, each with their own category and sub-category tags. It was effective but a bit unwieldy when I needed to find something in a hurry, and I found it difficult to keep my tags in line. I started thinking more about tagging. Then I thought a bit more. Ever so slowly, my overstuffed filing cabinet of a brain realized that multiple notebooks were unnecessary for what I needed Evernote to do! All I needed was one notebook and a highly organized nested-tag structure.
Who Are You? Where Are You Really Headed? — Broader Focus
I started out with a “Broader Focus” tag. Evernote’s tag lists will sort alphabetically, so I prepended a 0- in front of it and encased it in asterisks to make certain that it will always come at the top – like this: 0 – *Broader Focus*. I then added a list of sub-tags called Goals, Objectives, Values, and Visions. In each of these is a few notes expounding on those ideals so that I can always refer to them to keep my life on track.
One Inbox to Rule Them All
Next, I added “0-Inbox”. I drag everything that goes into Evernote into this tag and move each item out as it is dealt with. This tag is actually redundant, as the default notebook will contain all things untagged and they will be at the bottom of the notebook’s note list if you are diligent about keeping up with things. I like it though. I’m visual, and it helps me immensely to have an actual Inbox that I can look at with just one click.
Random Thoughts
I also use a Random Thoughts tag to keep things that are snippets of ideas that do not really have a home or even a goal attached to them yet. This is a good place to go for inspiration when working on something, or looking for something new to do.
Next Action Tags – Where You Really Get Things Done
Now come the Next Action lists. I use several nested tags to keep me organized in different places and at different times, such as whenever I am at work, or at home, or near a phone or computer.
The reason I have prefaced everything with the words “Next Action” is to make it easier on me when I’m searching for something, as well as to make certain that the tags are unique throughout the entire notebook. This is important, as Evernote will not allow duplicates, and you don’t want to accidentally put in a tag that is too similar to another tag, as that will cause confusion later. Think your naming conventions through before committing them!
As mentioned in the “A bit about GTD” part, above, as you go through your Inboxes, decide on a Next Action for each actionable item and then drag the item into the best place for that action to be completed. For example, if it is something that can only be done on your computer, put that item in the Next Action – At Computer tag. If it can be done on your computer at home or at work, then put it in both the Next Action – At Computer AND the Next Action – At Home tags. That way, when you are in front of a computer, or at home and wondering what is next on your list of things to do, you can click on either one of those tags and find that task waiting for you, thereby ensuring that it gets done in the most efficient manner possible. See? Tagging is fun!
The Tickler File – Check it Daily… No Funny Business!
If an item isn’t quite ready to be processed, or doesn’t need to be looked at right away, you can put it in your Tickler File. A Tickler File is something you check into daily to see if there is anything that you need to remind yourself to look at. David Allen uses an entire file cabinet drawer – Evernote can save you some space and is a lot more portable! All you need is a tag that is sub-tagged with each month, and a tag called Days that is sub-tagged from 1-31. You toss the items into the appropriate month, and when that month comes along, you review your tickler items and either set them up in the Next Action lists or drag them to the best corresponding day in the Days sub-tags.
Check the Tickler File’s Days section daily to see what you might need to be tickled on that day (say that five times fast…) and then process it accordingly (Next Action, change day/month, trash, reference, whatever you need to do with it).
Your Project List – Check It Weekly
In your Lists section, you can put all your various lists, i.e.: groceries, DVDs, music you love, and, most importantly for our purposes… your Project List. The Project List is where you put everything that requires more than one step to complete.
You can further sub-tag by project category, as in the image, and even go further by adding tags for the names of your larger projects, if you want to keep all of your project planning notes in Evernote as well. That’s a whole other post, though. The main thing to remember here is that the Project List needs to be reviewed weekly to make sure you’re on track. With each review, you will doubtless find new things for your Inbox or Next Action lists until the project is complete.
Someday/Maybe, If I had a Million Dollars
For items that are not actionable, or you are not ready to tackle now (but are not important enough to be tickled on) there is the Someday/Maybe list. I broke down my Someday/Maybe items into categories that are important to me for easy reference and reminders.
Reference & Support Materials – Your Personal Encyclopaedia
One of the most important tags in your notebook will be Reference & Support Materials. This is where everything ultimately ends up that you don’t trash. As with everything, organize it in the way that best suits you. Me, I took David Allen’s advice and set up a filing cabinet drawer (albeit a virtual one) with a “folder” for every letter of the alphabet.
When I file something, I file it under the letter that makes the most sense, whether it is the first letter of the company (e.g. General Motors), the first letter of the word that comes to mind immediately when thinking about it (e.g. Cars), or the first letter of the subject that the item would fall under (e.g. Bankruptcies in 2009). For easy remembering, you can tag it for all three, an advantage that Evernote gives you that a filing cabinet just can’t — at least not without killing a tree or five.
Pros, Cons & Tips
The main thing to remember here is to be disciplined about your review schedules. Everything else actually has some degree of flexibility, but you really do need to make sure you clear your Inbox every morning, check your Tickler File daily, update the Tickler day tags every month, and every week do a review of your Project List to make sure you are on top of things. And don’t forget to update your tags on each note as you move it around the file system. It is as easy as dragging and dropping notes on the tag itself (and you should delete any unneeded tags as well).
Even if you only adopt the rudiments of what is in this article, you will be well on your way to managing your workload better. Not to mention that you will have an entire filing and reference system almost anywhere you are! In fact, the accessibility of Evernote is its most prominent feature. You can access your notes or take new notes on any computer with a web browser and web access. If you have the Evernote mobile client on a supported smart/pda phone (I use an HTC Touch Windows Mobile 6 phone, and it is also available for Blackberry and iPhone, with Android on the way), you can keep your notes in your pocket.
Having the mobile client also eliminates the need for a notepad and pen. You can take notes anywhere, as long as you have battery life. As soon as you connect to the internet your mobile client will synchronize with your account. Watch your data, as data charges from your carrier will apply. Another tip for mobile use is to take pictures of notes that people leave you in your various real world inboxes. These will then upload to your Evernote account and the text will be searchable with Evernote’s built in HCR capability. You can process them at your leisure. Personally, though, I would rather process them as I look at them, as opposed to the additional step of taking a picture — and it would be a good idea to get a premium account if you are going to go the picture route; could be a lot of image uploading involved, and 45mb is smaller than you might think.
The main drawbacks I’ve found to using Evernote as a GTD system, whether you use one notebook or many, is that Evernote does not have a calendar or task monitoring feature. It is basically a pen and paper system online, with easy tag and search options. The API has been out there for a while though… I am still waiting for someone to connect the thing to Google Calendar. How about it? Anyone?
How do you Get Things Done? Do you use Evernote? If so, how?
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Great first article, Bobby. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but just didn’t know how. I think during my next free weekend I’m going to have to set aside some time to set up an Evernote GTD system, using your post as a guide. My current rudimentary GTD system has an inbox, and then boxes for “Do Now,” “Do Next,” and “Do Someday.”
Thanks Evan!
I honestly never figured myself for a GTD guy… but, as I get older, and therefore busier, I find my time to be more and more precious. There’s just so much I both want and need to -do-! So far, this is the best system I have found to make sure I am not just flitting about and accomplishing nothing.
Just wonderful Bobby; I was a bit confused with lots of notebooks and lots of tags. Now I will do what you suggested. Great help surely.
Thank you and have a great day
Arnold
Glad I could help you out, Arnold! Let me know how it works out for you. :D
Fantastic post – and this may be the answer for me. I had actually considered buying still another filing cabinet, because things are getting out of control at my house. :) I love Evernote but had only been using it to save notes or stuff I find on the web, so I am eager to try this system.
Glad I could help Christie! I hope it works for you! :D
If you are trying to whittle down your current filing cabinet as well, and are not into spending a lot of time scanning or taking pictures of notes for later upload into Evernote, you may want to check out Shoeboxed (www.shoeboxed.com). They will take items you send them and (for a fee) scan it all into Evernote for you. I am not certain if they handle more than just receipts and business cards, though…
You have posted some interesting and thought provoking ideas.
One Inbox to Rule Them All
Next, I added “0-Inbox”. I drag everything that goes into Evernote into this tag and move each item out as it is dealt with.
Question: If you drag the note from 0-Inbox to another tag, the note continues to be tagged with 0-Inbox. Is there an easy way to get the 0-Inbox tag removed?
The Evernote method to remove a tag seems far too tedious if you have a lot of tags.
Sorry, but I must be missing something in the blog.
For instance, in the Tickler Section:
You toss the items into the appropriate month, and when that month comes along, you review your tickler items and either set them up in the Next Action lists or drag them to the best corresponding day in the Days sub-tags.
So, if you have a note tagged with October and you want to move it to August, do you drag it into the August tag, and then manually remove the October tag? I must be misunderstanding the concept, because that seems to be too much busy work.
Hi jbenson2,
Great questions! Basically, you are looking for a convenient way to remove tags in Evernote, am I right?
I know of 2 ways to do that (in the Windows client, anyway):
1. Point your mouse at the tag you want to remove, just at the tail-end of the word, and click to edit, then click again to remove the highlight, and either drag across the word and backspace or delete (or just manually type in your new tag. I find this fairly simple and quick to do.
2. When you have selected the post you want to edit, click the Tag button on the toolbar above. It will open a small pop up that lists your tags with check boxes. Since they are all in numeric/alphabetical order, it is a fairly simple matter (with good naming conventions) to then scroll down to 0-Inbox or October and deselect the tag(s) you don’t want. You can then scroll to and click the tag(s) you do want, or begin typing the tag in the Add box (it will auto-suggest as you type), or close the pop up and drag the item to the desired tag.
I hope that helps. If anyone else knows of a better or more convenient method to play tag, please let us know.
Using the web client or mobile clients, of course, will function somewhat differently. Mobile especially can be a pain, as the editing features are somewhat screwy, but I have yet to discover a situation with tags (for me) that can’t wait till I am on the desktop client — I live with my laptop though.
Appreciate the fast response. What I was looking for was a fast and easy way to remove a tag from an existing note. (your option #2)
The numerical system you are using certainly makes it easier to deselect a tag and then select a new tag, but it is more tedious for me because I have hundreds of tags. I use Evernote for a very large variety of personal, historical and political topics. Fortunately, I don’t have to change any of my tags.
Your system brings a new perspective to tags. So, I have added your numerical format to the top of my list of tags and will give it a try.
Yeah, I can see that the only way this would work for you is to have a specific modifier added to your tags to keep them all together and at the top of your list. It is too bad that Evernote does not support independent tagging per notebook, as that would solve your problem in a much cleaner fashion.
Best of luck! I hope you manage to configure things to suit your particular needs. :D
For implementing GTD you can use this web-based application:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version is available too.
That Dan fellow shows up with nearly that exact statement on many a post about Evernote and GTD… That being said, it seems like an interesting product, although it does not integrate with Evernote in any way that I can tell.
Maybe Dan can suggest it to them as a possible addition?
Good writeup! Evernote is great for GTD.
One of the interesting things I’ve found is how many different ways it can be implemented.
I like how you’ve implemented the tickler system using the tags, its very true to the original idea from David Allen. I just find that it’s easier to drop anything date related into my Google calendar. The downside being that you end up using two different systems, but I’m in Gcal all the time anyway, so it’s not a huge burden.
One other thing you might try: instead of using an Inbox tag, my inbox consists of any notes that don’t have any tags at all. This way everything captured automatically starts out in the inbox until it’s processed.
I set up a Saved Search to identify any untagged notes and that represents my inbox. You can read more about exactly how to do this here:
http://examinehealth.com/personal-productivity/69-gtd-and-evernote.html
@Ben – good catch on using the Saved Search to identify untagged notes and having THAT be your inbox.
I also like your “Saved Searches as Dynamic To-Do Lists” idea…implementing now!
E
Nice idea! I have been interested in incorporating saved searches in my system for a while, but have not yet decided to implement it.
I recognize that the way I handle the inbox is somewhat redundant, but works for me. I can see that the method you propose may be a good answer and may implement it when I get to the saved searches.
As for Gcal… I am turning blue in the face waiting for someone to connect Google Calendar and Evernote. The APIs are there… it can be done!
…If only I knew how to code well enough to do it. :P
.-= Bobby Travis´s last blog ..CommentLuv now live on 40Tech, and Commenter vs. Commentator =-.
Yeah, at first I got carried away with Saved Searches. Now I’m down to just the one for my “Inbox” and then I have one for “All To Do” that basically combines all my contexts together. Sometimes I just want to see everything on my plate at once. This accomplishes that.
100% agreed on the Gcal connectivity. It can’t be far off!
.-= Ben Anderson´s last blog ..Do You Have Control of Your Mind? =-.
On the Mac version, I don’t see a way to do the collapsable tags.. is that an option?
I am pretty sure Evernote for Mac has -more- options than the Windows program, not less — I am not familiar with the Mac version, however, so can’t confirm.
Check out this pdf, there is a Tags chapter in it that looks to support collapsing tags:
http://www.evernote.com/about/support/Evernote-Mac-Guide.pdf
I’ve spent this week working through the original GTD book and setting up all my stuff according to David Allen’s system. I found your article just in time. I was already convinced that Evernote was the way to go and, while my initial search for GTD + Evernote turned up some useful links, your implementation hits the nail on the head. (BTW, I’m using a Mac and, yes, it does support hierarchical tags; just create a new tag and drag it onto an existing tag) Another site turned me onto using search to identify non tagged items as Ben suggests. Thanks for documenting such a clean and straightforward how-to guide. It has really helped reinforce my understanding of how I’m going to use this system. You Rock! :-)
One thing I added is a “Key Word” tag which I use as another heading. I put all the other random tags that I add to files under this heading. That way I can collapse the list of key words to keep the Tags hierarchy from stretching out too long.
Hi Allen!
I am gratified that you find the article useful! I like your keyword tag idea, too!
Pop back now and again and let us know how the implementation works out for you. :D
Bobby,
I am new to GTD and Evernote and I really appreciate your insightful article. Since I got my IPhone a couple months ago, I have been looking for ways to become more mobile and efficient in my personal projects in a paperless fashion (as for work, I am a government employee and have severe restrictions with the technology I can use).
I noticed that you are trying to find a way to incoroporate Evernote to your Calendar and Task on a mobile. Well, Reqall allows has a built in capability to automatically search a Task to Evernote if you use the right keywords with your task to the item in question by clicking “Related Items.”
Reqall also will post items to your Google Calendar and iCal. So Reqall might be that missing link that you are looking for until something better comes along.
You should consider submitting your article to Evernote directly, and get credit for your idea. Perhaps they can feature it in one their podcasts or make it into a YouTube Video.
Glad you found the post helpful, Amateo!
And thank you for your tip on Reqall. We have talked about the new Reqall/Evernote integration elsewhere on the site, but it never made it into a post update. I believe you have to be using the paid version Reqall for full integration don’t you? And iPhone only? I use Reqall for Windows Mobile, combined with my evernote email address to accomplish some semblance of that functionality, but it is sadly lacking and too much of an extra step. Hopefully there will be apps with better integration on all platforms at some time in the near future. Hope springs eternal!
Maybe I’ll take a moment and submit the article to Evernote — I’m more than happy with your general recommendation though! :D
Hey Bobby – many thanks for this article. On the strength of your recommendation I am checking out Evernote and attempting to use it to create my own GTD system modeled on yours :-)
One thing that wasn’t clear to me from your article was exactly how you are converting an incoming note, email, voice memo, etc. to an actionable “Next Action” or to-do list item. I know Evernote lets you insert to-do style checkboxes into a note, but it doesn’t seem ideal to manage a bunch of separate items with their own checkboxes…I’d rather have some sort of consolidated top-level view of which tasks have been done and which haven’t.
I am contemplating adding a 2nd piece to the puzzle just for tracking open To-Do’s or Next Actions – something like Things (for the Mac) or even just a master Excel spreadsheet or something…but would appreciate it if you could expand a bit on how your are doing it within Evernote.
Thanks much…and thanks again for a very helpful article!
Erik
Hi Erik,
Glad you enjoyed the article!
Mainly, the GTD process or inbox review takes care of much of the incoming items, it just requires a slight bit of transcription, which is actually good as it puts you in a thinking/categorizing frame of mind. For digital items, especially email, you can simply forward the message to your evernote email, which will send items directly into a new note (you still have to add tags to it, so there is a tiny, tiny bit of double processing). You can do the same with the evernote webclipper and if you are an Outlook user, there is a plugin just for you. — You can also use Evernote Mobile and your phone’s digital camera to take pics of everything from a dinner menu to a post it note to a whiteboard, and send it automatically to Evernote, complete with GPS co-ordinates.
You can also use programs like ReQall to either send stuff via your evernote email or via program integration (see the comments just above this set). ReQall is a great way to capture notes via the site, app or even over the phone and will add a calendaring aspect to your tasks that can also be integrated with Google Calendar or iCalendar and the like.
As for task lists with checkboxes, this system actually discourages that. Each note should be an actionable item or categorized into one of the other tag sets. Once the item has been actioned, its status changes and the note should therefore be moved to a new tag or deleted entirely. This is done either on the fly, as you move forward or finish the item, or in the weekly project review or daily inbox review.
If you are finding it hard to get away from the need to check off tasks and make them disappear or contain a little check box — which many people need to feel they are moving forward — add a checkbox to the beginning of each note by using ctrl+shift+C (not sure about the Mac command) and check it off to indicate it is finished and then handle moving the note in your review process, or combine your system with something like the Adobe Air app DooMe, Remember the Milk, or the Action Method system (covered here as an alternative: http://www.40tech.com/2009/11/10/gtd-not-working-for-you-try-action-method-online/).
Finally, if you are looking to hammer out a custom workflow, check out Tarpipe (www.tarpipe.com) and see what you can do with it. They are integrated with Evernote and many other services.
I hope this adequately answers your questions!
Have fun with Evernote! :D
Bobby, thanks for the comments – I appreciate it very much.
Just to clarify, it sounds like you are basically creating a separate Evernote note for each individual Next Action, is that right?
At this point I am using Evernote as a “universal brain dump” for reference material – some percentage of which needs to get parsed into Next Actions (or Projects).
If incoming stuff is actionable, it seems easier to me to distill the specific Next Action into one line on my master to-do list, where I can put it in my “ASAP Stack”, assign it to a specific day or simply defer until time becomes available. I like having a top level view of all open Next Actions, and I’m not sure how you would get that using Evernote (unless you are re-titling each note with its Next Action…which might impede your ability to keep track of project-associated reference material, no?)
I totally “get” using Evernote as the master capture tool (and digital file cabinet for reference stuff) in my personal GTD workflow. At least for now, though, I am thinking I’d probably want to track individual Next Actions elsewhere…and will check out those other options you mentioned (e.g. Remember The Milk etc).
Anyway, thanks for the insight – I really appreciate it!
You are correct, sir!
And yeas, a top down view in Evernote would be a difficult task. You may be able to use a task list creator that will send you an email of your list (sent to you Evernote email) to send you regular emails of your list in evernote. This could help you with your brain dump, in any case.
For what you want to do though, I highly recommend continuing with Evernote as your filing cabinet and checking out Action Method Online. It may suit you better, overall, in the way it handles tasks (similar to GTD, but different methodology).
Best of luck and let me know what works out for you!
ReQall is terrific. I use the paid version on my Blackberry and it is integrated with my Evernote. I use the Scansnap with my Mac on which my Evernote resides. It has helped me vastly reduce the paper piles I seem to collect. If I have any doubt I just scan it into Evernote and throw out the paper. With the tags I can always find it if I need it.
Hi,
Just discovered EN in Nov. 09. Have clipped, photographed and sent everything I can find into it since then! FABULOUS! Husb is SICK of hearing about it, so I just downloaded it on his IPhone. He says he’s “too busy” with “too much to do” to keep track of it all….ahhhhhhhhh the pleasure of EN! He’ll get it and the overtake me in its uses,
Here’s what happens when you introduce someone to EN. Yesterday(1/26/10) I shared what En with the Real Estate Technology committee. They were discussing as a goal becoming more organized and efficient using technology.This got me the assignment of presenting a CLASS on EverNote in April! I REALLY want to show a clear,visual,tangible
presntation of how EN works for EVERYTHING in a business or personal environment.I want all of them to use EN. Is there a flow sheet, or a powerpoint that I could get to demonstrate this? If not, why can’t YOU just make a flowsheet, send it to me and I will make it into a powerpoint?! Seems reasonable to ME!
I like this article and the organizational thinking, but then I’m a little OCD. For my use, I use JOTT and EN. I send a voice to JOTT, which converts it to text and sends it into En(address in contact list). I add a tag at the end of the note,along with next actions and that’s that.I can sort efficiently. Thanks for all you do, congrats on the 2Million Mark. Help me with the class. Make TOTE bags with the logo and beach towels. St. Simons is a beachy resort with techy types and they would love it! I’m a self taught user but market well. Come visit, I’ll sell you on the area and good housing at reduced prices. You could do a class at the local college and Chamber of commerce….It would be a write off and good PR! Not to mention that the weather is wonderful and the Southern Hospitality is terrific!
Babs, this is either the most impressive bit of stream of consciousness I have ever seen in a comment, or the most creative spam piece I have ever come across! Props where props are due. I’m keeping this one up…
Thanks for the comment! :D
Bobby, do you use either Jott or ReQall to log voice-to-text messages in Evernote? Love to hear your feedback, if any. Muchas Gracias!
I use ReQall as it is freely available to me in Canada (where I be from, eh…). I looked in to Jott, but found that it wouldn’t work for me — though that was well over a year ago.
You may also want to check out Dial2Do — my partner here, our illustrious founder and fellow Evernote worshipper, Evan — uses both Dial2Do -and- ReQall (he posted about Dial2Do recently, should still be on the front page of the blog).
Hey Bobby – just some quick feedback on your “One Notebook GTD” method :-)
I’ve been using my own riff on your tagging system for the last couple weeks and it has been working awesome. I pretty much killed Things, OmniFocus and Remember The Milk in favor of using Evernote as my “all in one” app in the manner you describe. Having individual EN items as “To Do’s” or action items has actually been a lot more intuitive than I thought – stuff simply gets deleted or re-tagged as it gets “done”, and I do not miss having a checkbox to tick (like in Things or OF). Plus, having an EN note for each next action item gives me a handy place to deposit notes or needed information relevant to a particular item.
Now if I could just figure out the best “voice-to-text” service it would make things perfect! (I like Dial2Do a lot, but no iPhone app yet… :(
Anyway, so far, so good… but just wanted to say thanks!
So glad I was able to help, Erik! As you further modify things to suit your needs, please post back and let us know what you come up with! :D
Try ReQall. I love how it works with Evernote. You can use it for free and try it. It can be connected with Evernote. I have ReQall on my Blackberry. I am just an average techie user, not a super sophisticate. I find it very easy to use and totally rely on it now that I got acquainted with it. Just go to http://www.reqall.com.
I have to agree with Ann, Erik. We’re big fans of ReQall over here — not so big as Evernote, mind you, but we like it lot’s… :P
Great Post– Just got the free EN weg. I am having trouble creating sub-tags. I tried creating a new tag and then dragging it into an existing tag, but nothing happens..?
is there another procedure to do this?
Im using Windows XP.
thanks!
Hi djFritzo — I’m not having that problem with older versions of Evernote or with the latests 3.5.1. Make sure you have the latest version, and if the problem persists, I suggest contacting Evernote technical support. I’ve found them to be pretty good in the past.
It actually works, but only after I refreshed the page! Again thanks for the reply and a great post.
Thanks very much for the post! I have been using EN as a dump for a while now and wishing I could have a better system, this is the one. Now I just need to clean it up.
No problem man! Glad you like it and I hope it works well for you! If you discover some new and awesome tricks or implementation, make sure you post back and let us know. :D
I do have one personalization that I added to your system that I think will work better for me. While I have some specific deadlines, most of my work is more general. So within the Tickler label, rather than listing every day and month, I have 1 – Today, 2 – This Week (with child tags for each day of the week), 3 – Next Week, 4 – This Month, 5 – First Quarter, 6 – Second Quarter, 7 – Third Quarter, 8 – Fourth Quarter, 9 – Next Year. I figure I’ll have to review the next week tag every Friday afternoon, to prepare for the coming week, the Month tag on the last day of each month, and the Quarter tags at the end of the preceding quarter, but I plan to put the due dates in the body of the notes anyway, so it shouldn’t take long to review and categorize.
On a different note, a lot of the commenters said they wanted a to-do and calendar integration with EN, the iPhone app Awesome Note backs-up it’s to-dos to either EN or Google, and has a calendar view of your items. The only annoyance is that it creates folders in EN, rather than allowing you to designate where you would like the notes saved. The app works both ways, you can create notes in either and it will show up in both. Only the app shows the actual to-do date and check box, and only the EN note shows attachments (should you add them in EN) but otherwise it’s a pretty tight integration.
That’s awesome Josh! It sounds like it will work well for you (unless you are like me and have 500 personal-and-otherwise projects on the go at any given time… :P ).
Great tip on the Awesome Note app — I’ll check it out!
Huge thanks for taking the time to making Evernote a real GTD app. I’ve recently setup my tag as you suggest, and I’m benefiting form it already!
My question may be more a GTD one than an EN one: How do you recommend handling meeting agenda items/notes/actions for recurring meetings?
Like most, I have several weekly recurring “check in” meetings that do not pertain to a specific project. In between their instances, I update EN notes dedicated to each. By the time a meeting rolls up, I conveniently have a list of things to discuss. The meeting’s discussion prompts me to update a mini actions list, and I typically throw a reminder into my Inbox to “process actions from meeting with Jane.” What’s the GTD + EN way to manage notes for “check in” meetings like this like this?
I realize there’s potentially several right answers.
Hi Mark! So glad you enjoyed the post and find it valuable!
In answer to your question, and looking at the way it appears you want to set up your workflow, I think the thing that I would do is either set up a specific tag hierarchy or even a new notebook that is used just for your recurring meetings. This could also be an extension of the file folder concept, just with something more specific than the alphabet.
Another option, that may be more inline with the GTD way of thinking, is to set up the recurring meetings as projects. In the GTD way of thinking, anything that has more than one action is a project, and it seems to me that you may be able to boil each recurring meeting down into the project mindset, with accompanying notes and actions. If you need to be able to see all elements at a glance, you can use this concept with the addition of the file folder idea above.
Hope this helps!
Thx for the prompt response, Bobby!
I asked my question because I was really struggling with the latter of your 2 suggestions. I read GTD a while back, and I’d love to say I gave being a purist a shot.
I think I’m trying the former of your 2 suggestions. That is, thinking of meeting notes as “reference” material, which they are in a sense. I have trouble thinking of the nature of my check-in meetings as projects, but maybe I need to bend my mind a bit more ;)
No problem Mark!
I totally understand your point of view in being a GTD purist — I have trouble with it as well. I personally think that no system is flawless and no system can mold itself perfectly to your way of thinking or your specific needs. David Allen may disagree, but I tend to view his rules as more guidelines than anything else. Do what works best for you!
I’m just chiming in here to say – this is all starting to make sense now. I’m in the middle of reading Getting Things Done for the first time, and it really has me pretty pscyhed (and my staff tells me I’m much more productive). I am using Toodledo, but will come back to this when I’m done with the book to see if Evernote can fit into my GTD workflow somewhere.
Awesome man!
As you know, I am constantly looking to improve my approach — I’m getting more and more curious about ToodleDo as an option and would love to see how you make the system work with Evernote as well.
Thanks for the great article! I am new to En and the way you spell things out is exactly what I need. Well done!
Awesome! Glad I could help!
Bobby – Thank you! Seriously, thank you! I love Evernote and have written about the merits of my “second brain” on my site as well. When I was first trying to apply the principles of GTD in the digital world (after reluctantly giving up the Moleskines myself), I looked to Evernote to store all my reference files and then RTM – Toodledo – Nozbe and now back to Toodledo for my Next Actions, Someday/Maybe & Waiting for lists.
Interestingly enough, I saw your post and thought to myself – “Nah, I need multiple notebooks!” Well, after using Evernote for over a year for each of my Areas of Focus, my one big struggle was always the number of tags I had! It became unmanageable. I revisited your post over the weekend and thought — I should do this!!
Last night, I spent a good hour or so going through all of my tags and setting up the reference & lists section similar to you and deleted all of the notebooks. A HUGE thank you to you as I now have a bit more balance and a “mind like water” in my lovely Evernote system!!
.-= Daniel Gold´s last blog ..Applying Principles from “Presentation Zen Design”- Part 1 =-.
Hi Daniel,
So glad I could be of help! I am completely and repeatedly astounded at the number of people this post has done good things for and the amount of traffic it still gets. O.0 Evernote should really think hard about offering some other time management functionality — there seems to be a demand for it.
Let us know how the system works out for you. If you get stuck, I may have a few alternatives that might suit you!
Bobby – I wanted to circle back with you on my comment to your post. Thanks again for the great tip. So, I did in fact redo my entire Evernote system! I had (note, the past tense) it up up until mid-August and I just couldn’t do it anymore! :) I felt as if I had more difficulty finding my notes, even with the advanced searching. The upshot here though is that I have finally leveraged Evernote for my GTD purposes thanks to Egretlist, which i found in The Trunk! I must say, this is outstanding! I wrote anpbout it on my latest blog post – http://dangoldesq.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/swinging-happily-on-evernotes-trunk/. Enjoy and Cheers!
Daniel´s last post ..Swinging Happily on Evernote’s Trunk!
Daniel, I have no idea how I missed this. I’ve looked at Egretlist, but have never tried it. If you notice this comment, let me know if you are still using it and what the experience is like. Or have you gone full Springpad now?
Hey Bobby – no worries at all. Egretlist was fun while I had it for a few months. The reason I ultimately ave it up was 2-fold: 1) I bought a DROID. That did it right there. However, 2) the bigger issue was that that I thought there was a lot of maintaining to do. Too many tags being created and then I didn’t like the clutter when I went back to Evernote. The project integration was cool, but then why not just use Nozbe? If you take a look at my blog, I just interviewed Michael Sliwinski from Nozbe. Really great guy and very forward thinking.
Regarding Springpad – I still love it. Have I converted everything over? No. I think Springpad is amazing, Katin is amazing, and I think I found a home for both applications. What’s ironic, is that my “moment of clarity” I had with Springpad is actually what made me realize how to apply that same level of simplicity in Evernote. Minimize tags. Create nested notebooks. Reduce the clutter. It’s killer algorithms and search taxonomy plus its JPEG OCR engine is top notch and currently can’t be beat.
Springpad is superb for over 150 recipes I have, movies I like, books to read, and places i want to go … And it’s integrations with the greater world wide web. Its latest foray into social website note sharing puts them on a playing field above all else.
That makes you wonder of course: is Springpad really an “Evernote killer” or an app that thrives in its own class? Hmmmm… What do you think?
Sent from my iPad
Daniel´s last post ..My Interview with Nozbe Founder- Michael Sliwinski
Thanks for the info on Egretlist, Daniel! As mentioned in the comment wayyyy at the bottom, I’ve been curious about Nozbe for a while, so your interview should be interesting.
As for Springpad, I believe it will ultimately separate itself from Evernote. That is one of their goals, and they seem to be pursuing it aggressive about their pursuit of it, while still making their app better and better. There will always be room to compare the two, as they overlap in the information collection department, but they really appeal to two different mindsets when it comes to that collection, and can ultimately be used together, if you really want them to be.
It should be interesting to see how things develop, but I think the simplicity of Evernote seems to better suit the mindset of the more hardcore GTD crowd.
I am working on setting up a similar system in Evernote and had a question.
What do you do with your next actions once they are completed? Do you delete them from Evernote or did you create a tag for completed actions and do you use that tag as a storage facility for what you’ve done?
Hi Mike,
Generally, I delete them, unless I am time-tracking. I like the finality of deleting after completion, and it suits the GTD mindset. If you need to track tasks in some way, or just really like to see those little checkmarks that mean done, you could move them to a completed tasks section — if you want to, you could even separate them by project tags to make for easy sorting of multiple projects’ progress.
Hope that helps! :D
Thanks. That helps. A few more questions.
1. I’m still reading the book for the first time as I try to put this process into place, so maybe I don’t remember reading it or haven’t read it yet, but in what order should you process your next actions? In evernote, I have contexts for phone calls, work at my computer, etc. Let’s say I’m making phone calls — evernote lists the next actions by however I sort the list. In what order should these be tackled? I do remember David Allen saying that you should start at the top of the list and work through each item one at a time, but it seems kind of arbitrary. Am I missing something?
2. Can you explain more how you use Evernote to relate projects and next actions? I have a 0-Project List section (with one for home and one for business) and I have a 0-Next Action section (with appropriate contexts). How do the two sections relate to one another? do I list all the steps of the projects in the project list section (let’s say I have a project — developing prospect list) and then put the first item as the next action and when that’s done move to the second item and so on? I’m unclear how to connect projects and next actions, both as part of GTD and in Evernote.
Thanks for the help.
Hi Mike, sorry I missed this one.
I by no means purport myself to be a GTD expert, but I will do my best to answer your questions with my own approach.
Handling next actions is generally done based on location and by working from the top of the list to the bottom. So if you are in the office, you know you can start with the next actions that are related to your workplace list. These can be broken down by calls, meetings, and general workplace tasks — as well as any other tasks which can be done while you are at the office, such as errands in the surrounding are on your lunch, some online items if you are connected to the internet, etc. Priority items will either be consciously placed at the top of the pile, or on your calendar as a scheduled block of time. As always, when you are creating your next actions from your inbox, you do anything that will take less than two minutes immediately, and you relegate anything that requires more than one action to a project.
If you need to, you can also have a separate priority structure to your next action lists as well. You can even break them down by projects if you need to have the visual “bucket” applied to your organization. Though this is outside of GTD methodology in the strictest sense, it is really a matter of adapting it to best suit your needs to be able to “set it and forget it” — which is the core of GTD.
When reviewing your projects list, you break down what is needed for the project into its next action or actions, and add that (or them) to your next actions list in its appropriate area. If it is a call, you put it on the call list. If it has a specific timeline, you add it to your calendar, and so on, and so forth. Once you are finished the next actions, you get rid of them or add them to your archive. Often times, new actions come of the one you have completed. These go in your inbox for later processing unless they must be done immediately.
Review your projects list as often as you need to, as you start out, but try to get things set up and flowing so you only have to do a review once per week.
Hopefully that helps! :D
Hi Bobby, thanks for sharing your method of getting things done using Evernote.
Just want to throw a quick question to you: do you still use this method as your primary time/task management method or have you shifted to something else?
Hi Faisal,
Currently, I am invested in Producteev. Not because this method failed me, but because I am constantly on the lookout to try new tech and see how it will work for me. Then, of course, I write about it. :D
Hi Bobby,
I’m new to GTD and am reading the book as of now, and yet I am very much an Evernote devotee. I have a suggestion and a question.
The suggestion is for Dragon Dictation as a method of recording voice note as text and getting them into Evernote. I find that the speech recognition is excellent.
The question is over Lists. You say you have a Lists tag and then within that you keep your various lists. Do you assimilate each individual actionable item into a single list? For example, if I’m out and about and I remember I need to buy milk, I will set up a note (via Dragon Dictates for example) to buy milk. Would you then action that by adding as a line on one Shopping List note? How then would this work in terms of being an actionable item? Would you have an item that says ‘Do Grocery Shopping’ in your “Next Actions – Errands” tag / list.
I know this sounds basic but I’m just intrigued as to how it practically works (and I’m jumping ahead as I haven’t read the book yet!) ;-)
Excellent article btw
Cheers,
Chris
The answer to Chris’s question is to use the proper context tag. What I see most often is a context of @Errand used as a catch-all for “when I’m out and about.” Shopping falls into this context. If it has a context then it is actionable. When you’re out and about you open Evernote and search on the tag @Errand and it returns all the notes that you’ve tagged this way. There is your list of things you might get done while you’re out and about. Make sense?
Heh — see that’s why I don’t use Dragon Dictation… I tend to lean toward the wordy. Allen basically was saying the same thing as me, but in a much more succinct way. :D
Hi Chris,
I am familiar with Dragon Dictation, and it is a pretty good app. I find it a bit frustrating, personally, though, as 20 seconds or whatever it was is generally too short for me, and I find it awkward to get back into the text to continue the recording. If I gave it a bit more time, it might work into my workflow better.
TO answer your question, once you are fully in the GTD swing of things, you should never have to suddenly remember to buy milk and then add it to your next action lists. It should either already be there, waiting to be accessed under your errands next actions when you are in the right area (or even on your calendar, as it is likely time sensitive) — or it should go into your inbox to be processed at the time when you do all of your inbox sorting. At that time, you would then set it to its appropriate errands list, which you would automatically check when you are out and about, and want to see what you should be up to.
Does that make sense?
Hi,
Allen / Bobby – many thanks for the response. I understand the point you’re making re the method of processing and contexts.
What I am wondering, though, is when using Evernote in this way, do you have one note that has all the items you need to get when shopping or multiple notes, one for each item.
If I realise, for example, I need milk, I make a note that sits in my inbox. When I review my inbox do I have a ‘Shopping List’ (i.e. one note) that sits under my ‘Lists’ tag that I add this item to, and add an entry to my Next Action – Errand that says “Do shopping?”
I suppose I’m wondering about the connection between a List and the contextual Next Actions.
Hope my rambling makes sense!
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris,
I think this would depend on what works best for you. And context. My thoughts would be as follows:
If you need to do shopping in general, for example, your next action could be “Go grocery shopping”. You would access your shopping list when you were actually shopping, as it is a reference item, not an action list.
Since the action is the general act of shopping and the list is the reference tool, if you realise you need milk, you really just need to add that to your list — so you could have -that- be a next action, but by GTD principles, you would really add it to your inbox to be processed later, and when processing (as adding buy milk to a list should take less than two minutes), add it to the list right away and move on. If that seems redundant, you could simply add it to the list when you think on it, but it should, theoretically, be quicker to add it to one of your inboxes, thus saving you a few seconds and the potential of distracting yourself from your current project by reading something not related to what you are currently doing.
If you just need to buy milk, then my previous comment would be your path.
Does that make sense?
The method you describe is fine if it works for you, Chris. For me, a simplifying awareness was this: the context tag is what makes something a “next action.” If all I do it tag a note with “@Shopping” or “@Errand”, then I can select that tag and know that the item will be listed in the search results.
It doesn’t matter whether I add “Milk” to a list in an existing note or a new note that just says “Get milk.” As long as I tag the notes with the right context tag, then I’ll be able to find it easily when I’m in a place to do take action.
When I first started using GTD, I tried to be too rigid in defining everything. Part of whats so great about GTD is that you can evolve your methods as long as you check that you’re following the basic principles from time to time.
Gents,
Both excellent answers – many thanks for your time!
One final question, relating to Evernote actually – has anyone had problems with the use of ‘nested’ tags? They seem to randomly jump from being a parent of one tag to another, or a parent tag jumps from the bottom of the list to the middle of a nested table?
Cheers,
Chris
Do you know what – just downloaded an updated version of the windows client which appears to miraculously have fixed my issue!
:-)
Cheers for your input again guys.
Chris
Thanks for the reply earlier, Bobby.
I like the point that Chris just rose. I can add two notes and tag them with ‘Projects’, and give them some name like ‘Project A’ and ‘Project B’. Then I add two separate notes, ‘Task A’ and ‘Task B’, and tag them with ‘Tasks’. This is all fine as such but when I will slelct notes from Projects, I will not be able to know which note in Tasks tag is actually related to that specific Project. That is, there is no way to relate two notes as siblings or as parent/child in Evernote, or is it? How to connect one note with Projects tag with a note with Tasks tag, to be more specific.
We may just be asking too much of Evernote here, I don’t know.
I think this will depend on how specific you are when you set up your naming conventions, Faisal. And what platform you are using for Evernote. In the desktop version, which is what I use most, shows all tags related to a note when you select it. That should solve your problem, if I understand it correctly.
The thing to remember with Evernote is that it is, essentially, just one extremely long notepad document. It just has the option to organise yourself with tags that will allow you to jump about the document quickly and within contexts that you set up. Those contexts, even in the system I devised in this post, will have to be altered to suit your personal workflow.
I hope that was helpful!
There is a lot of flexibility both in the GTD method and in Evernote. Here is one approach: Use the tags to create your lists.
If you tag notes with a project tag, then when you select that tag in the left pane, Evernote will show you all the notes in a list in the middle pane. That list of notes can be your list of tasks. Each note can be one action item or you can have a note titled “Tasks” where you list all your action items.
The “next action” should always be tagged with a context (@email, @errand, etc.) That way you can select the “@errand” tag and see everything that pertains to that context.
Also, notice that the project tags (in the left pane) are your list of projects. You can drag and drop these tags under a heading like “:Projects” to make it easier to see the projects list all at once.
Cool, or what!
Very nice, Allen!
Hello.
I am totally NOT techie at all. I use Evernote for random gathering of ideas at this stage. If I see something that I would like to look at sometime in the future I clip it to Evernote. I wanted to do this with this article. I see that it could be relevant in my life but I am not at this stage yet. I need to do things paper based first to get my head around ideas. That said when I try to clip this to Evernote the only thing that comes up on the page is that GTD agenda thing that someone was talking to. I am NOT going to use a system that hijacks my note so I wont even bother looking into it now. How though can I save your article???
Thanks, Allie.
Hi Allie,
I suspect you may have an older version of Evernote or the Evernote clipper, or some other weirdness going on there. I just used the Google Chrome version of the Evernote clipper extension and chose “Clip full page” and received a full and perfectly rendered copy of the entire page, complete with ads and comments that were perfectly editable. Other ways you can get the article into your Evernote include the Readability2Evernote bookmarklet and iReader extension for Firefox and Chrome (using the email button to mail it to your Evernote email address). You could also use a service like Instapaper or ReaditLater to save the article for later viewing, though that won’t get it into your Evernote.
Hope that helps you out!
Really interesting. I’ve been using evernote just to reference things and use toodledo free account to do the main GTD task managment. That’s synced with my ipod touch(by Appigo ToDo app) and nexus one (by Got to do). I have just stumbled upon Springpad and that is very promising. I think I’ll stick with Toodledo as you can tag a status (e.g. Next Action) and a category which I don’t think you can do in Evernote easily.
Evernote definitely does have some drawbacks when being used to digitally manage GTD — it is kind of a middle ground between a pure text and a pure GTD app approach, which helps it to work well for the middle of the road minimalists out there. Toodledo is pretty cool, Evan (40Tech founder-guy) uses it. You might also want to check out this post on GTD in Producteev: http://www.40tech.com/2010/09/03/gtd-in-producteev-utilizing-multiple-workspaces/
– and here is a review of Springpad we did a while back: http://www.40tech.com/2010/04/20/springpad-vs-evernote-it-might-be-better/ :D
@Tim: great point and I hope I can help help shed some light here as well. For some time, I was convinced that Evernote was simply for reference. I couldn’t see how it could be used for GTD, notwithstanding several blog posts. I’ve used Toodledo for quite some time, and on the iPad, I used ToDo as it integrates. Then … I downloaded Egretlist. It makes so much sense!! Egretlist recognizes your tags in Evernote.
So, I create a task for a project: “Request sales figures from Admin Assistant.”. I tag it in Egretlist with @waiting for, #Admin &.Project A. After the task is completed, I check it off in Egretlist. The cool part is that back in Evernote, I get the big picture of not just my activities, but a complete record of everything I’ve done.
As a bonus, what I really like is that it integrates with your iPad, iPhone, iPod calendar … Which integrates with my work Exchange calendar. Not too bad!!
Daniel´s last post ..Swinging Happily on Evernote’s Trunk!
Why not drop an email to Everenote support asking the feature to connect with Google Calendar?
That’s been done many a time. Bill — Evernote has not expressed any interest in bridging that connection, and no one else has done it yet, either. If I was some sort of real coder, I would have done it myself, by now…
Bobby, you are right. I have asked EN support and got the reply.
–
Bill,
There isn’t an integration between Evernote and Google Calendar today, but it is something that we would love to see one of our partners develop. Keep an eye on the Evernote Trunk to see what’s being built by partners!
Thanks,
Evernote Support
–
So, they won’t implement this feature and count on the developers.
But we can also set up a filter and forward the reminder email from Gmail to the evernote private email address to get a workaround.
Intriguing thought, Bill! I would love to hear more on how that implementation would work.
Basically, you need to set the notification on Google Calendar as Email and then set a filter in your Gmail, which is to forward your Google Calendar reminder to your Evernote inbox.
You will love it!
I see what you’re getting at, Bill — I’ve actually attempted a similar thing when trying to set up reQall to work with another service (to auto-utilize the voice to text technology, using Google as a bridge). This will definitely work, though, by virtue of the private Evernote email address being able to accept the Google confirmation code.
Nicely done. :D
I don’t know if my problem is fixable or not, but I’ll ask.
I LOVE Evernote and have been using it for a couple of years for collecting all kinds of things. I have about 750 notes, which doesn’t seem that much to me, but my problem is that Evernote (web version, We aren’t allowed to install extra software on our work computers :-( )seems to run REALLY slow for me. Takes a long time to load and saves/refreshes are painfully slow.
When I saw yours or someone’s thoughts on setting up a completely separate EN account just for GTD, I was enthused, thinking “maybe it will run faster” but then I started thinking about the complications. If I want to use the web clipper or the windows mobile tool (which is really cool)I will have to pick an account/notebook for it to upload to, so I don’t see how I’ll be able to use it for both GTD and the regular info collecting I do. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks for this great discussion, Bobby.
Hi Jack,
I wouldn’t open an entirely new account for Evernote and GTD. It is best to just set up a specific notebook for it — and have that be your default notebook. You could have a separate notebook for your reference items and clippings, or just use the one notebook with a very specific tagging system. The latest Evernote browser extensions will allow you to easily choose where you want to put the item you are clipping. You can also search your notebooks and tags directly from the extension and view whatever item you like — it will pop up quite quickly in a new window.
Another option for you would be to investigate running Evernote desktop from a USB thumb drive. This option was offered in the older version of Evernote, but there is a workaround for the new version. Check this link here: http://bit.ly/4Qg0O9. Make sure you read the first few comments for the workaround and issues/concerns regarding it.
Hope this is helpful! :D
Bobby-
The Thumb Drive install/workaround worked great, thanks a lot for the lead on that.
Time to Get Busy!
Jack
So glad it worked out well for you, Jack! Stop in from time to time and tell us how goes. :D
Bobby, a Thank You is simply not enough!
I’ve been trying to get my head around GTD for over a year and getting frustrated and giving up. This year however I found myself with 6 clients all with multiple projects and I was realizing exactly how dis-organized my organizing skills were.
Since I already was using ActiveInbox for Gmail (formerly GTD-Gmail) and Evernote as a research repository, I used this article of yours to finally get rid of all the crazy notebooks in Evernote and convert everything to tags. By the time you had me creating the Reference/Filing Cabinet … it all snapped into place. FINALLY! I get it now! OMG Brilliant!
I’m sure I’ll have to adapt everything to my own workflow since I’m a graphic/web/copywriter guy and I sometimes work on projects with partners and create shared mood-boards in Evernote for Clients to access, but you finally pointed me in the right direction!
Thanks Uber-bunches :-D
Chase.
F.Y.I. I learned to make Mood-boards in Evernote from this article: http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2009/07/20/how-to-use-evernote-to-create-a-mood-board/
I plan on writing a “Workflow Optimization” article that takes everything I’ve learned into account and share it with others.
Hi Chase,
So glad that I was able to help! I hope that it works out for you, or at the very least, helps you hammer the GTD concepts into your own workflow.
Thanks for the tip on Evernote mood-boards — very interesting! Once you’ve got your workflow optimization article ready, let me know — if you want to showcase it and the tech you use for it here, let me know.
Hey Bobby,
Definitely check out http://www.activeinboxhq.com … you’re explanation of how to setup Evernote for GTD finally made GTD click in my head and now that I understand it a bit more, ActiveInbox makes so much more sense to me too! LOL.
I actually plunked down the beta fee today for the plus version because I liked the free version (plus to support the developers of such a cool product), but didn’t know how to use it effectively before, but now I totally get it. I’m in no way affiliated with them, just love their product … now that I understand how to use it.
Thanks again for that article!
Cheers, Chase.
Make sure you watch the video on the home-page of ActiveInboxHQ.com … the music is bad, but you get to see the cool features in use … they’ve revamped it recently too which makes me like it even more.
Oh, and thanks for the other links you sent me too. Cheers!
Glad to be of help, Chase — and thank you for all of your input and feedback! :D
Bobby & Josh, I’m sure you know but …
SANTA IS REAL! He gave Sub-Notebooks to Evernote
Maybe you should do a new post Bobby?
With the power of being able to search for a tag in a sub-notebook I can find things even faster!
heh — Sub-Notebooks are an awesome thing. I haven’t had time to wrap my ,ind around how I will use them yet, though. My first thought is to simply replace some of the top-tier tags with notebooks, as many of them we implemented to mimic that function in the first place. Funfun playtime is imminent!
I would also use Sub-Notebooks to really fill out project-specific notes and reduce clutter.
Yup, we think alike.
I’ll still focus on tags, because that’s one of Evernote’s strengths … but I’ll promote a few to notebooks … I’m considering what I want to see when I fire up my Android Phone, that will determine my notebooks I think.
I already have one named Projects which will be further broken down into singular, specific projects.
Can’t wait for the end result and post.
Cheers,
Chase.
Hi! I realise I’m VERY late to the party, but I wanted to thank you for this great article.
I stumbled across GTD and Evernote completely by chance when I innocently looked for a note taking app to replace the boring looking default one on my iPhone. I settled for Awesome Note because, in addition to creating notes with really pretty backgrounds, it also has a To Do list function, thus replacing my shopping list app, which I had begun to also use as a very basic To Do list. I’m a big fan of leanness and efficiency, so having one app do the job of two appealed to me, and if this one app has more features than the two it replaces then even better. Or so I thought.
The more I explored the app the more intrigued I became by the possibilities of being able to turn a quickly jotted down “note” into a To Do (with reminder/alarm), a calendar entry, a photo/album (with optional map) or a diary entry, simply by changing the view and assigning a due date. Some reviews mentioned it being “GTD-friendly” and syncing with Evernote and some further googling led me to your article, which opened my eyes to both GTD and Evernote. I had heard about them before, but never bothered to look into what they could do for me. After reading your article I finally did.
I’m a fairly well organised person by nature and instinctively did many of the things GTD preaches, but being able to visualise them and getting them out of my head an on to (virtual) paper so I don’t have to worry about keeping track of them really helped to de-stress my life. My set-up is a bit different to yours since, although the functions are similar, the interface of Awesome Note is quite different to that of Evernote (e.g. I use folders instead of tags for my next actions). But the principle is similar as the app only allows for one note book, while you can have as many folders as you like.
In short, your article has truly helped to change the way I work and organise my life for the better and I wanted to thank you for that!
Hi JD, I’m glad that my post was able to be so helpful to you! It’s notes like this that make the work worthwhile. :D
I’ve thought of trying out Awesome Note before, just never got around to it. I may have to play with it to see how it works for me.
Thanks again for your awesome comment!
Thank you very much, you’re very welcome! :)
I think Awesome Note sometimes tends to get dismissed as “eye candy” because of its fancy UI, at least I can’t remember seeing it featured in a serious To Do app review. I freely admit that the pretty UI was one of the things that initially attracted me (after all, I wasn’t looking for a GTD app at the time) but its To Do capabilities are actually quite powerful. I need reminders and alarms, otherwise I never get things done, and the fact that I’m limited to one notebook (and five folders per screen: screen 1 = today, screen 2 = this week, screen 3 = sometime and so on) forces me to simplify my tasks as much as possible. I find that very helpful and the pretty UI makes me actually want to look at my To Dos, rather than avoid them (my biggest problem, haha). The only thing that seems to be a bit temperamental is the sync; it’s fine with Evernote and Google docs (although some of the info, e.g. formatting, is lost) but the WiFi backup via PC browser doesn’t always work.
That said, I’m considering “upgrading” to 2Do synced with Toodledo as this combo apparently has more options, like smart calendars and the option to link my @Contact Next Actions to a contact in my iPhone notebook. I’m not sure if I can bring myself to move away from Awesome Note’s folder system though; I’m quite a visual person and moving tasks from folder to folder as I work through my projects helps me visualise the progress I’m making. But even if I do move on, I will still keep Evernote as a research tool.
Once again, thank you very much for this great article and fore making my life easier!
I agree, the eye candy of Awesome Note, while attractive, can also be off-putting. We seem to have similar attitudes and needs where organization is concerned, however, so I might have to play with it, now. I am extremely visual, and need to be able to see progress as well — and if something isn’t in my face, it doesn’t exist, but if it is in my face and stressing me out, I become selectively blind. Long story short, presentation is important…. :P
In fact, the reason I never went over to Toodledo (which 40Tech’s Evan loves and has covered here: http://www.40tech.com/2010/04/25/task-manager-comparison-toodledo-vs-remember-the-milk/ ) is that I couldn’t stand the interface of the web app. It’s Evernote integration is very appealing though, as are the multitude of other integrations it is part of. If you give it a shot, let me know how it works out for you!
Thanks again,
Bobby
Haha, I agree – Toodledo’s UI puts me off too! But there are skins for it and much of my GTD is managed on my iPhone as I travel a lot. What attracts me to Toodledo was its flexibility, the fact that it syncs with Google calendar (don’t know how well it works IRL though), which in turn syncs with my iPhone’s calendar, and the friendly tone in their support forum. Given that I’m basically entrusting my life to their system, having attentive support is encouraging.
One thing that has so far put me off 2Do, and therefore Toodledo, is not having an inbox = dumping ground. In Awesome Note, I can scribble down a quick memo, save it as a note and it automatically plops into my inbox to be processed later. Since I tend to jot down thoughts as they come to me during the day this feels very intuitive and a counter on the inbox tells me how many notes are waiting to be processed. Someone on 2Do’s forum suggested creating a calendar/tab and calling it inbox – I have to see if that works for me. Also, since I’m a PC user there’s no desktop app to sync with (2Do syncs with iCal, in addition to Toodledo). I’m all for cloud sync and the convenience of having access anywhere and from any computer, but I travel abroad a lot and free WiFi or hotel PC aren’t always available, so I’d have to rely on my phone when working offline.
Awesome Note has its limitations. Dates don’t include year. Making a note read-only makes phone numbers clickable, but I have to enter them manually, rather than simply attaching a contact from my address book. The sync with Evernote isn’t as tight as I would like, it doesn’t sync with Google calendar and doesn’t support tags or sub-tasks.
My workaround for tags is to start the title of a note/To Do that I want to be searchable with the appropriate place, person or project. Usually I sort by due date, but if I’m going to contact person ABC I can sort the To Dos in my @Contact folder alphabetically to make sure I cover everything “tagged” ABC. I try to have one Next Action note per place, person or project that lists all items to discuss, buy, whatever, but this ensures nothing gets overlooked. One tag per note is usually enough for me (@Errands = place tag, @Contact = person tag and so on) and it only takes 2 taps to sort – quicker than doing a search (no saved searches in AN). My workaround for sub-tasks is to list them on the parent note, e.g. “Project XYZ”, and then cut/paste them into individual To Dos as I work through that project.
Still, I find AN’s layout with memo, inbox and tasks due today (with badge) at the top of the screen and my folders underneath most intuitive for the way I think and its limitations force me to keep things simple. That’s mainly from a phone perspective, though.
I also looked into Springpad, prompted by Dan Gold’s enthusiasm for it – yet another fount of inspiration I must thank you for since I discovered his blog through his comments here! I think SP could one day become the app of choice for me, but right now it seems to be very US centric. I live in Europe and users here say that the value added info provided is often not useful for them. Also, I don’t think there’s a desktop client. It does look promising though and I will keep an eye on it.
I’m really sorry, what was meant to be a quick reply turned into a novel! Once again, thank you very much for your inspirational article and your kind and helpful replies. In fact, this conversation prompted me to review and improve my system further. Nice talking to you and I will report back on my experience if and when I try Toodledo!
I’m loving this string! Great dialogue!! I’m especially grateful for the shout out!! Im truly flattered by the mention!
I’ve tried AwesomeNote before as well. While I think it’s a decent app, I never cared much for the notebooks it created in Evernote or the multiple steps needed to get things done. Plus, I’ve got a DROID now and theres nothing similar. Have you tried Noze + Evernote? It integrates your projects with Evernote project tags. Plus their iPad app is beautiful and they are building out their DROID app in March. Just my two cents!
Sent from my iPad
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Hi, Dan! I was going to thank you on your blog for the helpful tips and ideas I found there (I was only holding off because I’m still reading through it) but I may as well do it here and now. It truly has been a fount of inspiration for me!
Haha, I agree that the proliferation of notebooks AN creates in Evernote is a bit unsightly, but it doesn’t bother me too much as they mirror the folders on my phone (10 for GTD, the rest are photo albums). Since they are numbered they show up in the same order in both apps, so I find my way around them quite easily, and I can get most things done in both apps with 2-3 quick taps/clicks. What does irk me though is the fact that reminders aren’t exported from AN to Evernote and attachments, e.g. pictures, aren’t imported back into AN. Here I would wish for tighter sync since pics and web clippings are handled more conveniently on the web or desktop than on a phone with small screen and limited battery life.
Thank you very much also for the tip re Nozbe. I was aware of it, but haven’t tried it yet. I agree that it seems to offer a number of things I’m looking for and that the iPad version is beautiful. Alas, I’m less keen on the look of the iPhone version and I understand that its functions are restricted unless I pay £85 for a web subscription? Right now I’m trying out 2Do/Toodledo alongside AN/Evernote and so far I really like it, but if I decide that Evernote is the way to go for me in GTD I may check out Nozbe as well.
I may also look at Egretlist as I love the UI – another suggestion I must thank you for! It seems to lack reminders, but I guess I could just set them on my iPhone calendar – its sync with Google calendar is pretty tight. And I have just downloaded Springpad (hey, it’s free!) to check out for myself what it can do for me.
Yeah, the money thing has been what’s keeping me back from Nozbe as well. I like free. I like making free work for me in unexpected ways, drWing as much from it as I can. That said, I suppose $8-9 per month isn’t bad if the software helps, but I would be more app to try something and build on it if I can get most of what I need for free, and then decide if I want to pay for more. Their free account may do enough, but it seems much to light for me to really get a feel for it — definitely too light to pull me away from free alternatives Like Evernote and others.
Wow, JD! Maybe we should get you writing here as a reviewer — that’s how I got started… I realized that my comments on Evan’s posts were turning into near full-fledged posts, so I figured I might as well just start writing here. Turned out that he was about to ask me if I wanted to, so it worked out. :D
Dan has been a great source of conversation, and I also have enjoyed his blog, so I’m glad you were able to find your way there through us! — and nice plug for your Nozbe interview Dan. Great timing! :D I’ve been looking at them for a while now, but haven’t gotten there yet.
In all seriousness, though, if you guys want to do a guest post or three, feel free. I’m thinking you would have some valuable words for 40Tech readers.
You liked my shameless plug on my last post? :) I couldn’t help that one! LOL!
In all seriousness, a few things:
1. A fellow Springpad devotee, @chaudron, put together a great SlideShare deck on how he implements GTD with Springpad. As I noted earlier, I know you can apply those same principles to Evernote if you really wanted to. I think he maybe missing just a “deferred” bucket for things that won’t get accomplished today, but aren’t deemed “someday” either. Here’s the link: http://www.slideshare.net/chaudron/easy-guide-to-implement-gtd-using-springpad.
2. You’re right about Springpad and Evernote users – I do think it is two different mindsets. I hadn’t thought about it that way until you said it – maybe it’s like Mac vs. PC? Ultimately, as you also have noted several times, it’s what you’re most comfortable with in processing, analyzing, and acting upon the information that comes in to help you get things done. It’s almost like we should create for the masses a comparison chart or even a flow chart on the way to information gets processed in both programs. (Wait, don’t steal that idea, I thought of it first!! :))
3. I’d love to be a guest author on your post! Really, I would. In fact, like you, a lot of my comments that should have been short, ended up much longer and it inspired me to write my own post … hmmm, like #2 above. You let me know — and while I may not have as many hits (for now) as you, I’d love to have you write a guest post on my blog too. Wait … we can switch! I’ll write for yours one week and you write for mine! :) PM me and we’ll talk!
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Heh — I enjoyed the plug immensely, as a matter of fact. :)
Thanks for the slideshare link. I’ll take a look at it, for sure — but after I spend some time thinking on it on my own. That will help me to better analyze what he’s done. I should add a slideshare presentation to this post at some point, and share the method around that way as well.
As for your chart idea, ohhh consider it stolen! :P Actually, I think it would be fun to do an infographic on the subject — happy to work on it together! Of course, if any aspiring folks reading this wish to do it and send it in to us, I would be fine with that too. Saves time…
The cross-guest posting sounds fun, too! Let’s chat about it, for sure. :D
Wow, thank you so much, Bobby! I’m well and truly flattered by your kind offer! Currently I’m test driving 2Do/Toodledo alongside AN/Evernote and I just got Springpad as well. Once I used them long enough to have a clear idea of the pros and cons it might be interesting to do a comparison of all three apps since they offer rather different solutions to the same task (literally, haha). If you really think your readers would find it useful I would be very happy to share my thoughts.
Thank you also very much for letting me know about the planned offline version of SP – that sounds very interesting! I’m not sure yet how to best replicate my system in SP; I may have to finally ditch my trusted folders in favour of tags, otherwise I could end up with 10 full-size notebooks on my small phone screen.
No worries, JD. I think your experiences and insight could prove to be very insightful. Once you’re ready, please do feel free to send us a post on whatever you like — several posts, even. Check out the guest post guidelines link at the top of the page to see what sort of nuances go along with writing here. Looking forward to it! :D
Oh, and regarding Springpad, JD, there is currently no desktop app, but they are going to make the web app offline capable via HTML5.
Bobby, you were the first person I thought of when I read this article: 5 location-aware apps you haven’t heard of http://bit.ly/hW1ffS
Especially because of the App: http://taskave.com/
Looks cool, haven’t really checked it out though.
Thanks for the tip, Chase — looks like an interesting app! All mobile task management apps should do this…
Hey Bobby
This is Arnold again; I love the suggestion you made and I have been working hard to set up the system in my laptop. It is almost ready, except that I to ASK YOU about the Tickler File. I understand and I agree with the reasoning behind, but because I love this whole Idea so much I am trying to understand a little more on how to set it up. You said:
“All you need is a tag that is sub-tagged with each month, and a tag called Days that is sub-tagged from 1-31. You toss the items into the appropriate month, and when that month comes along, you review your tickler items and either set them up in the Next Action lists or drag them to the best corresponding day in the Days sub-tags.”
QUESTION ON THE TICKLER FILES:
I am supposed to:
1. Create A MONTH TAG and under it create 12 SUB TAGS (one sub tag for each month?
2. For each 12 sub tags I then create A DAYS TAG which is SUB TAGGED about 31 times (one for each day of the month?)
3. Check TICKLER FILE everyday? (to make sure I am not forgetting something.)
Sorry for all these questions, but I really love everything about this system and I want to implement it.
Have a great day
Hi Arnold, that’s close, but not quite it — though what you listed would work the same way.
The set up is more like this:
- Tickler
–> Days
—-> 01
—-> 02
—-> 03
—-> 04
—-> …
—-> 31
–> Months
—-> 01-January
—-> 02-February
—-> …
—-> 12-December
You file things that you want to tickle you by month.
When the appropriate month arrives, you sort through that month’s items during a scheduled review, deciding what days you would like to be tickled on for each item, and then dragging those items to the appropriate day tag(s).
When finished, you check your Tickler day tags daily as a part of your routine.
The reason I didn’t add the days to each month was that doing so invites you to add a scheduled day to each item you put in to the tickler, which is over-processing something that is meant to be a vague reminder, adding time to each item, as opposed to a once per month scheduled processing point.
There are more complex ways of setting this up via saved searches and the like that may allow for less dragging about and deleting/moving when done, but I find this method to be easily set up, organized, and more tactile, which actually helps things to move forward, as opposed to getting lost. That said, you should adapt this to best suit your personal workflow, needs, and habits.
Cheers!
Bobby
Hey Thank you Bobby
Thank you for writing back with more explanation. I understand it now, and so happy. I am a babyboomer (a litle over a year for retirement) so I am setting up my IM business. Just beginning the Affiliate Marketing with Amazon.com and CB. Since there is not much money right now I will be doing it through Article Writing with Ezine Article.com and many other later on.
I have been scammed before in the internet; so I took a year just to check things out and find out who I should trust. Any way I am really excited and really looking to this as another career which I will be giving full time soon.
That is why I am trying to get organized because I will be creating a lot of mini site, writing articles for while before I begin outsourcing (hopefully soon).
Have a great day and thank you so much for helping me to get organized. I am indeed grateful.
Arnold
Glad I could be of help, Arnold! Best of luck in your business ventures!
Hello,
thank you for this great post. Let me ask you, is there any method to mark todays notes (i.e. in the tickle-file), so e.g. by a saved search? E.g. by querying the tag. However, I can’t get much further because the date (actually, the day-integer as well as the month-integer) would need to be updated dynamically.
Do you have any solutions?
Yours, Steve
Hi Steve,
I stayed away from complex saved searches in this approach specifically to keep it very straightforward. In order to do what you want, you may want to change things up slightly to adapt to your needs. A great resource for using GTD in Evernote with saved searches — and a good reference for saved searches in general — can be found here:
http://ruudhein.com/evernote-gtd
I hope that helps you out!
Bobby
It’s a great and interesting article. I like the idea of having more tags than notebooks. Every time I try, it does a note book stack but I’m not sure that is what I want. I’ll keep playing with it though.
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Hi Rabihat! I’m not sure why you would end up with notebook stacks. Are you dragging one notebook onto another? That would do it. If you want to create a nested tag, make sure you are right-clicking on a current tag and then select the option “Create tag in ____.”
Hope that helps you out! :D