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Evernote Tags and Notebooks | How I use them




I did a post in 2015 called Tagging and Notebooks in Evernote and since then some things have changed with my tagging and notebook system in Evernote.

The image below shows what my tags and notebooks looked like in 2015.


The next two image show my tags and notebooks today.



As you can see I have a lot more notebooks and tags currently.  The number of tags changes quite often because a lot of my tags are temporary, and I also delete notes when I am done with them.  I routinely go thorough Evernote and delete notes that are no longer relevant.  Once I do that I eventually have tags with no notes so I will go through my tags frequently and delete all tags that do not have any notes associated with it.

Each notebook stack, except for 5 - HOUSE, 7 - TEMPLATES, and z FILING CABINET z do not have an @ tag associated with it.  The tag for 5 - HOUSE is currently nested under the @SHANNON tag because it keeps my tag list shorter and because there are only a handful of notes in that notebook.  {5 - HOUSE notebook stack is a temporary notebook that is holding some projects we are working on in and when those projects are complete most of the notes will be deleted and any that need to be archived will go to z FILING CABINET z.}  I do this so that none of my notes will be without a tag and because it keeps my tags organized under each section.  I tag my notes sparingly because Evernote's search feature is so powerful.  I can always find the note that I am looking for very easily.  

I have gotten some questions about what is in my 1 - GENEALOGY notebook stack.  {To be honest, this notebook stack is a mess right now.}  The images below show my 1 - GENEALOGY notebook stack and my @GENEALOGY tag stack. 



Notebook Stacks

!!INBOX - has temporary notes. Things that need to be added to my Legacy Family Tree database and snippets of information while doing research.  There is also a Genealogy Master Note that is updated frequently and it includes links to notes in other notebooks that reference research that I am doing, best practices for a document I am working on, etc.  I try to clean this notebook out weekly.

**RESEARCH** - is a big mess...lol.  This notebook currently has every genealogy note in it.  I have been going through this notebook and making sure the information in the note is in my Legacy database, if it is an image I am making sure that it is saved to Dropbox, etc.  I delete the note if I do not need it any longer or it gets put in one of the other notebooks.

BEST PRACTICES - holds notes pertaining to Legacy Family Tree and how things are entered into my database and include templates to extract information, etc.

CCH&GS - this notebooks holds notes with information on people that I want to research at my local historical society.

EDUCATION - holds blog articles, webinar notes, handouts, etc.

RESEARCH NOTES - holds research notes for people that I am researching.

Tags

The following tags are nested under the @GENEALOGY tag:

{In the image above, CCH&GS is a tag but while writing this post that tag has been deleted and also the last tag in the list is missing which is z SURNAMES z. Nested under the z SURNAMES z tag are all of the surnames that my notes are tagged with.  The surname tags also get purged often.}

add to to do list - this tag is helping with the cleanup in the **RESEARCH** notebook.

Coal Mining - my great grandfather owned a coal mine and I am researching the coal mine and coal mining in the area.

Email - are email queries that I have received and forwarded to my Evernote account.

Find A Grave Requests - these are photos that I have taken at cemeteries for other people

Legacy Family Tree - shortcut keys, user guide, webinar notes on Legacy Family Tree, etc.

Locations - nested under this tag are tags for locations that I am researching.  Most of the notes in the locations tag have information about the location.

More Research Needed - this tag was created to help in cleaning up the mess in the **RESEARCH** notebook.

Research_Log/Notes - exactly what you would expect this tag to be used for

Toolbox - notes with information about citations, topics I am researching, websites to research, etc.


Hopefully this helps show you some ways you can implement tags and notebook stacks in Evernote.  Are you using tags and notebooks in your Evernote system?
By Shannon Thomas
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