As a little background, I've been a paid Evernote user since 2005. I have no stake in the company or their products, but found their note taking software to be exactly what I was looking for to capture and tag my notes. The original 2.x versions did everything I thought I needed, especially logical intersection of tags (AND, OR and NOT) plus synchronization to USB devices. Then 3.x came along and provided began multiple platform support and synchronization to the web. It all seemed good at the time, but I didn't need it. The synchronization to the web I especially didn't want, given the nature of my work. Lastly, the tag intersection controls changed dramatically, all but removing the functionality. So until a few weeks ago, I've stayed at version 2.2.x.
The number of projects I have been managing lately in my professional life was overwhelming my simplistic usage of ToDo checkboxes and tags that I was using as a task management system in Evernote. The note taking and tagging was still nearly perfect, but something more was needed. I've used Franklin-Covey and Day Timer systems in the past but didn't want to go back to those for various reasons. I've known and skimmed the David Allen's GTD system, even been aware of Evernote implementations, but never really worked with it. Now seemed like the time.
In my web searching, two GTD Evernote hits stood out, from authors I don't know beyond the articles they've written. One article series by Ben Anderson captured the overall mindset of task management and prioritization through lists, tags, etc. but didn't really capture the how-to essence I was looking for. That essence was captured at just the right level for me in an "Evernote GTD How To" article by Ruud Hein. Effectively, I've implemented Ruud's GTD system with my own modifications as documented below. Read his article first, then come back to this one, or nothing from this point will make sense.
Did you read it? Really? If not, the rest of this will not make sense (as if any of the rest has).
Changes
- Changed @wf tag to @wait. More descriptive and still short.
- Changed sd to @sd. More consistent with "GTD tags" all having a prefix.
- Changed all saved searches accordingly.
- Various minor title changes to saved Searches
- Added/separated "@ Project List" saved search into " - Work" and " - Non Work" versions
- Search criteria takes firewall approach. I.e. tag:@* followed by -tag:@sd works correctly.
- Single task notes, unrelated to projects are OK
- Keeping tasks in project notes until ready to work on keeps task list manageable
- Restrict task levels to one deep (i.e. no task lists in task notes) to maintain project summary view
- Saved Searches naming convention:
- "@ nnnn" - key searches to flip between while working
- "@nnnn" - context views
- Notebooks
- Create one for GTD only
- Project note creation
- Three tags: "@project" literal, context ("@nnnn") and project ("_nnnn")
- First line contains checkbox (Ctrl-Shift-C) and "Project: " literal prefix
- Actions in bullet lists with checkbox
- Action note creation
- Three tags: context ("@nnnn"), project ("_nnnn") and timing (05/15/30/45/60)
- First line contains copy/paste from bullet list in project note
- Action note completion
- Mark the checkbox in the action note done when finished
- Mark the checkbox done in the project note, datestamp (Alt-Shift-D) the line
- Copy detail task notes back into project note, or
- View all project notes by using project tag (more Evernote like)
- Project/Action note updating
- Use outline style bullet lists for all line entries
- Datestamp first bullet (Alt-Shift-D) of a note entry session, indent following bullets
- No priority system other than two: MIT and Next
- Due dates must be entered into a separate calendar application
Questions
- Separate notebooks per context? One for GTD makes sense, but the others are then limited to a single context.
- How to create a "pure" completed search? "Completed" search picks up any note with one or more completed checkbox
- When one project creates a task for another - tag for both projects?
Even without the GTD implementation made possible by the combination of Saved Searches and tagging, Evernote would still remains a must-have application for me. It did finally provide me with a compelling reason to start using 3.1 though.
This overly wordy description of how to use Evernote as a GTD task manager might not make sense by just reading it. Implement it. Experiment with it. Change it to the way you can get (more) things done.
You don't have to be a type "A" personality to give this a try. And besides - Evernote, like this article, is free!
Update: 2010.05.07 ----------------
Based on additional usage of the system and reflection on Ruud Hein's comments, I've made the following changes/updates to the original article above.
- Priorities - I have embraced the Someday tag (overcoming my misguided thought that it was akin to procrastination) and now have effectively a three tier priority system: MIT, Next and Someday. Projects are reviewed weekly for additions to the Next pool. The Next pool is reviewed not quite daily to insure nothing critical is being overlooked and needs MIT status. The Someday pool is reviewed on an as needed basis when/if the Next pool becomes small enough to warrant doing so.
- Calendar - Google calendar with it's multiple reminders works very well and is not that much of an "extra step" in actual usage. For some tasks, I have taken to prefixing the task name with a due date so a "Next Action" review keeps the dates visible. Mostly work tasks get the prefix and tasks for other context get Google, but not always.
- Cross Project - Tasks get at most one project tag. Any additional benefit for later project review would have been overshadowed by the overhead and maintenance required. Voids the frictionless principle.
- Work/Non-work - the duality was created to manage what was too long of a Next Action list. The use of Someday described above made it no longer useful. That change also violated the lean nature of the system's original design.
- Notebooks - One for GTD (obviously), the rest don't matter
- Completed - The dual nature of the Completed search can be useful. Working as designed.
