I didn’t post this yesterday because I was off on holiday, my apologies. So let’s revisit two days ago. We talked about getting Things Done in other contexts besides the popular methodology by David Allen. I covered how I get things accomplished on Twitter and Email. Today I want to talk about notes.
I use Evernote. Exclusively. If I take a note on paper, it either gets transcribed into Evernote or I take a picture of it with my iPhone and send it to Evernote. I rarely forget things anymore because I use Evernote and I rarely lose things anymore because I use Evernote.
Evernote is a note taking application available via the web but also iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac, PC, Android and Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile. The beautiful thing is that no matter where you take notes, you can access them from anywhere via the web or any of these devices, it all stays in sync.
Evernote gives you the ability to create virtually unlimited number of notebooks and within notes you can tag content. Between those two features you should be able to remember everything and find every note you’ve ever taken, it can even detect text in pictures are make it searchable!
Here are the notebooks I use. Like I said I rarely forget anything anymore:
Main Notebooks:
Inbox – Every note originates here. I get it out of my head and sort it later. It is my default notebook.
Starred – These are the items I’d want to access quickly.
Temporary – This is for things like remembering where I parked in a parking garage. I’ll take a picture on my iPhone and put it in this notebook. I also use this notebook for shipping confirmations when I send something via USPS. no more hunting for little slips of paper.
The Elephant– This is the notebook of things I NEVER want to forget. Men, put your anniversary date in here or that your wife hates red roses.
General Notebooks
Home – For general notes no work related
Work– All work related notes go here. Pretty self-explanatory.
Clippings
Computer– All computer tips go here. If I want to remember a snippet of HTML or Applescript or Gmail shortcuts, they go here.
Receipts– I use the ‘Save to Evernote’ feature in my Print settings on Mac. You can use the bookmarklet or extension for Safari, Firefox or Chrome if you get receipts through webmail. You can even email to your Evernote.
Recipes– I used to be a personal chef…little known fact, I keep all of my personal recipes in there as well as anything I clip from Food Network or Epicurious, or anywhere else. It’s the cookbook you’ll never lose.
Registrations– If I register for a new website or account, I’ll often put a copy of the email in here.
Serials– I hate searching through my email for serial numbers from software I’ve purchased. This notebook makes it so much easier.
Lists
General– Sometimes I just need to make a list to get my thoughts straight. I put those in this notebook.
Packing Lists– I’m a packing list kinda guy, so this notebook allows me to make a list once and use it over and over again, without searching through paper notebooks.
Shopping Lists– Pretty self-explanatory.
Notes
Accomplishments– I write down my accomplishments in here. People don’t give themselves enough credit in this world…well some people too much. Ultimately I find people to be very hard on themselves and one reason is I don’t think people remember how much they’ve actually accomplished.
Blogs/Ideas– Many of my blog posts get started here. I write an idea and flesh it out over time.
Health/Fitness– I clip health and fitness tips in here.
Helping Hand– I do a lot of work outside of work, trying to help people get things done in social media. I’ve built websites for free, I’ve written copy, I’ve designed logos, I do a bunch of stuff for people in my network and this is where I brainstorm and take notes.
Journal/Creative Writing– Yeah, I keep a journal, sometimes I just need to get my own thoughts out, just for me.
Meetings/Conversations– All meeting notes go in here. This is mainly for work but can also be personal meetings and conversations too.
Reading
Articles– Really profound articles get clipped and saved because you never know if they will disappear from the world and I don’t want that. I tag the articles by content.
Case Studies– I save great case studies in Evernote so that I can always reference them quickly.
Search
This notebook exists because I hear something or see something and think “I should Google that later”
Stuff
The stuff series of notebooks are for the various “stuff” that I want to remember. I generally take picture notes with my iPhone or write a little text note with some description of the item or place and maybe some words about what I like or don’t like about it. Here are my stuff notebooks:
Beer
Books
Business
Cheese
Contact
Games
Liquor
Movies
Music
Products
Restaurants
TV Shows
Wine
So that’s it, this is my system for capturing absolutely everything and being able to search for it. Did I leave anything out?
Dan says
For implementing GTD you can use this web-based application:
Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Comes with a mobile version too, and with an Android app.
JGibbard says
You’ve written this EXACT same comment on every GTD post that I put up with this for this week. I can “get” if you had put it up on one of the posts, or made the slightest effort to engage with me about the topic, but you haven’t. This could be considered spam due to those facts alone. Social Media is a dialogue “Dan” not just a place to troll around promoting your own product. I am leaving this comment up though so that other people coming by this post will see what NOT to do when commenting on someone else’s work. We’re all probably selling something to some degree, whether it’s a product, like you, or selling yourself and your knowledge, like me. The big difference is that I do this nearly everyday with the intent to help people. I relish in the engagement, I yearn to make new connections. You are just a banner ad that no one paid for. In the future if you’d like to be more successful with this tactic, you might try reading the post and building the conversation. Then, should you happen to see an opportunity to insert a plug for your product at a time where it would be valuable, mention how it could be worthwhile for someone to look at.
codecowboy says
Well, this is a post about the capture part of GTD but what about the rest? How are you using it to define next actions?
JGibbard says
Good question. I don’t really use Evernote to define next actions. I use NirvanaHQ as my task management and Evernote to remember everything. The context of this post was really about using Evernote to keep track of things that you want to remember.
I know this isn’t exactly the David Allen GTD methodology but my posts in this series about getting things done are more about the tools I use to get things done than it is about the specific methodology.
Faaz says
This is great. I have been using Evernote to archive all my documents. Your layout make its great to remember everything as well as to archive.
Jeff Gibbard says
Thanks. I’m glad you like my layout. I’ve shifted it a few times since I wrote this post, but the idea is similar.
Faaz says
What are some of the changes you have made? Evernote has become a place of reference for me. On a side note, its great to see great ideas and people from Philadelphia. I went to school there and fell in love with the city.
Jeff Gibbard says
Thanks. I’m working hard. Philly’s social media scene is alive and vibrant. We have some extraordinary people that really live the spirit of the participatory web. It’s a nice community.
As for the changes I made, I did some condensing. I found that having beer, wine and liquor notebooks was overkill. I just combined them to food and drink and use tags instead. I combined movie, tv, music and books into “Media” and again use tags. It’s very similar just a little more condensed.
Steven Banks says
Great article and list. What I find so odd is the total absence of a “Clip to Evernote” icon in your list of shares above. Come on Jeff… get on that! Thanks for a great list and letting us get some insight to your method of madness. Also, now that EN has “Notebook Stacks” your method is sweeter.
Jeff Gibbard says
Thanks Steven. You are absolutely right, I did leave out the “Clip to Evernote” chrome extension and bookmarklet. I’ve been meaning to revise this post for a while now. My Evernote usage keeps evolving. I’ll get to work on an update.
There’s also shared notebooks….wait until I introduce that one. Here’s a sneak peek: http://www.evernote.com/pub/jeffgibbard/favorite-articles
Steven Banks says
Hey Jeff,
Yeah, I actually meant the new “EN Site Memory” buttons that they publish a
little while ago; http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/sitememory/
The original post is
old, but I just found it via a tool I’ve used since it cane out called
Paper.li
As you know EN is just wild in Asia (clueless as to why… but their NUTS
about it.) So this person has a Paper.li that you can see here;
http://paper.li/ksugi55_Tokyo/1303639451
Dude… the blogging through EN
(if that’s your goal) is frickin’ brilliant! I think we just came up with an
idea! Being able to monetize a Shared Notebook in exchange for
yearly subscriptions. Just sent that idea off to the EN Forums.
Talk to you soon Jeff!
—
Steven Banks
Dan Gold, Esq. says
Jeff – This is a really fantastic article, well organized, and well written. I’ve been an avid Evernote user for some time and blog about it myself. I’m always looking for best practices, how others setup their workflow, organize their notebooks, and tag their notes.
My fellow blogging friend, Bobby Travis (@bobby_travis:twitter), co-author at @40tech:twitter wrote an amazing article that generated a lot of buzz called GTD in Evernote in Only One Notebook (http://bit.ly/iH4cPS). I had tried that for some time and then stacked notebooks came out and changed everything.
Like you, I’ve also written a lot of my blog posts in Evernote and then just pasted into @wordpress:twitter for publication. After looking at what you’ve done, I started reorganzing again based on your stacks. Truly, this looks great – can’t thank you enough! I’d love for you to check out some of my posts on @evernote:twitter , if you get a chance. Thanks again, Jeff! http://bit.ly/fY7wOr
PS: That Dan guy below is quite the nuisance! Seriously, doesn’t he realize that everyone finds him annoying, ridiculous, and plain old hurting the branding and reputation of GTDAgenda??