When I decided I needed to take back control of Evernote How to Clean Evernote Clutter for a Cleaner Taking Notes How to Clean Evernote Clutter for a Cleaner Taking Notes Evernote is the junk drawer of our digital lives. Just like the junk drawer in our homes, we need to clean and organize it from time to time. Here is a master strategy. Read More It had 43 tags, most with just a couple of notes.
Some of my notebooks had "useful" items. Some held my goals and habit tracking sheets. Others had stuff that I thought was fun, recipes, career-related stuff, and financial information. In short, it was a big mess..
Here's how I turned this mess into a fantastic personal project management system and what it can teach you about taking care of your Evernote setup .
This is the hard part. I had to get rid of many things. To wrap this up quickly, I flipped through all the notebooks and wondered if there was anything I would definitely come back for or couldn't easily find online.
In most cases, there was not. I can always get advice on self-publishing books or filing taxes with a quick Google search. I reduced my existing Evernote account to seven notebooks.
An optional part of this step is consolidation. If you have multiple notes on the same topic, you can copy and paste them into a single note. I have a lot of notes on query letters and tones, for example. All this will go in a single note..
You can also consolidate notebooks into stacks. I, for example, combined "Humor" and "Media" into a "Funny" stack to keep them from cluttering my navigation bar.
Now you need to create notebooks and stacks for your project management system. I'm going to create the following stacks and notebooks:
I'm sure others will come up, but this is what I'll start with. I've also added numbers so they stay in my preferred order at the top of the notebook list:
Now I can access the stacks and notebooks that I need to access as quickly as possible.
Even if you have a well-organized notebook system, you'll want a central location to reference your various projects. As an example, here is my current master list:
On my master list, I've made a note of the various freelance and contract work jobs I'm doing, along with my pay rates for each. This helps me remember how to prioritize my time. Short-term projects will also be added here so you don't forget to work on them.
As you can see, “Independent Plots” is linked – that link takes me to a note where I keep track of my potential releases. Instead, you could go to a Google Drive spreadsheet, Trello board, or whatever else might be useful.
I also have a “Potential/Back Burner” section to keep track of the things I like to work, but I don't have time to do it right now. Again, this is to keep things top of mind.
Of course, you can customize your master list however you like. It could include upcoming due dates or links to many other notes. Or keep a to-do list 7 Tips to better manage your to-do list 7 Tips to better manage your to-do list Is your to-do list giving you nightmares? Perhaps you are trying to do too much at once. A sensibly compiled to-do list is needed for an efficient workflow. We can help. Read More
This note should serve as your dashboard. Depending on the types of projects you have, you'll want to customize it with the most useful information for your particular situation. When you're not sure what to work on next, this is where you'll go.
You can also use this section for a master to-do list. It's easy to add checkboxes to Evernote notes:just press the checkbox button at the top of the note.
There are many different ways to organize your project notes within your notebooks.
I prefer to have a lot of information in each note so I can go to one place to find information. For example, in my Writing notebook, I have some notes that contain a large amount of information on a single topic.
My "News Gathering" note contains a series of articles on finding things to report. It has almost 9,000 words in it..
This is one of the most useful things I've ever done with my notes.
You may want to keep each of those items on a different note. It all depends on your personal organization style. The main thing here is to keep as much information as possible in your notebooks.
All your notes, annotations, plans, projects, relevant emails (if you want), and anything else related to your project should stay in those notebooks.
Of course, that is not always possible. If your business does project management in Trello A Trello Guide to Life and Project Management A Trello Guide to Life and Project Management Trello can help you get organized. It is a free tool to manage any type of project. Read this guide to understand its basic structure, navigation, and how Trello can help you. For more information, you may be best served by linking that Trello board from your master list. But as much information as possible should be easily accessible from your project notebook.
The goal of a personal project management system is to make sure you can find everything you need when you need it. Which is exactly what shortcuts help you do.
While keeping notebooks and stacks to a minimum will help you find things more easily, there are probably notes or notebooks that you want to open with a single click. Simply drag notebooks or notes to the shortcuts area to lock them there, where you can always find them.
Evernote's due dates and reminders come in handy when you're managing multiple projects. Adding a reminder is as easy as clicking the clock at the top of any note and selecting a reminder date. You'll also see the notes you have reminders for at the top of your notebook:
Add reminders to notes you need to address on a given day.
I usually set reminders before due dates, so I make a note of the due date at the top of the note. This allows me to see it in fragment view:
Please note that if you have several different tasks in a single note, you will not be able to set different reminders for each task. You can only set one reminder for a whole note , so it may be better to keep each task on a different note.
As with some other things, How you use tags depends on how you want to manage your projects. For example, you may want a specific label for certain types of projects. You could use “writing,” “editing,” “researching,” “analytics,” and so on.
Instead, you could use priority labels:high, medium, low; 1, 2, 3; now, tomorrow, next week; or any similar system. You can use a collection and filing system, as discussed in this great article on Evernote tags. We show you a simple tweak that will help you organize your notes like never before. Read more.
Many people have devised labeling systems for the productivity method Getting Things Done Organize 2015:Learn The Martial Art Of Getting Things Done [Stuff to Watch] Organize 2015:Learn The Martial Art Of Getting Things Done [Stuff to Watch] Have you ever Have you ever wondered why success achievers always seem to keep a cool head? Read more . Code with Sonia has a great example of using a wide variety of nested tags to classify your notes based on what they are, when you need to take care of them, and the location they're related to.
Or you can decide not to use tags. I tend to go without them, and just Evernote's amazing search capabilities to find what I need. You decide.
Evernote has a lot of great integrations that help it work together with other apps. Feedly and Pocket can send articles directly to Evernote. Trello has a power-up that allows you to link notes and cards. Remember that Milk can sync with Evernote so your reminders appear in your task management app.
If you use a different task management app, TaskClone can help you sync. Zapier and IFTTT connect Evernote with all sorts of other apps. To get an idea of what you can do, check out the best Evernote recipes on IFTTT. You can do a lot of cool things, depending on the devices and other apps you use.
The more you can automate, the better!
If you're using Evernote as a personal project management system, you probably won't need to use many of the collaboration tools. However, if you work with others who use Evernote, they can be extremely valuable—communication is crucial to effective project management. Top 5 project management tips for beginners. Top 5 project management tips for beginners. the first time, here are just five project management tips to help you get started. Read More
Sharing notes is as easy as hitting the Share button at the top of the note to email a link. You can easily share notes and notebooks this way, and you can post a public link to the notes on social media.
Chatting with coworkers can also be helpful, especially if you have a collaborative notebook that everyone uses. Hit File> New Chat or View> Work Chat to open chat dialogs. Type a name or email address in the top bar of the chat window and start chatting.
Evernote is a great place to simply get rid of all the stuff you think you might need in the future. But when configured as a highly organized project management system, it will be much more useful. And you don't have to apply these principles just for work—they can be for personal projects, too. Really, they can be used for anything.
So clean up your messy Evernote account, get it organized, and make a plan. You'll be glad you did.
Do you use Evernote for personal or professional project management? How do you keep everything organized? Share your best tips in the comments below!
