EVERNOTE: THE RIGHT APP FOR GTD (PART 2 Conclusion)

How to Improve Your GTD® Efficiency in Evernote

Published August 30, 2020
Last updated December 8, 2023
by Stacey Harmon

HOW YOU GO WRONG USING EVERNOTE FOR GTD (CONTINUED)

2. Your Evernote software skills are weak.

Evernote is powerful – much more powerful than the average user understands. And, most users jump right into Evernote without a net. And it results in a disorganized mess (fix this with my Starting Fresh with Evernote course).

I get it – the app is approachable, and you want to dig right in. But, using any tool for GTD isn’t a 101 maneuver. You’re better off to have a clear idea about the opportunities and constraints that your chosen tool provides (as this article does for Evernote).

This issue of weak software skills will plague you no matter what GTD app you choose. As step 3 in my 5 Steps to GTD Success illustrates, expertise in your chosen GTD app is an essential part of your success. Go read that page now to understand why.

As the videos on that page show, improving your software skills can save you oodles of processing time (a huge part of the work in GTD). And, this time savings doesn’t just impact processing. It also impacts the organization and management of your account.

When you understand your chosen tool you become a GTD ninja. And, Evernote offers plenty of ninja tricks!

For example, choosing a notebooks based approach to organizing your Evernote account is only the base level of organization available to you.

Evernote has MANY tools you can use to create structure that supports your life and the way you work. Notebooks and tags are the most talked about, but notes, stacks, note links, naming conventions, shortcuts, pinned notes and search all play a role in creating powerful Evernote organization and workflows. When your software skills are ninja level, your options for not only organizing – but also processing and retrieving data – in Evernote, skyrocket.

My Academy attracts GTD’ers who understand this. The Evernote skills they hone in Academy bring a whole new level of efficiency to their daily GTD practice.

Here’s an example of how my ninja Evernote skills assist my daily GTD practice.

I’ve done the work to familiarize myself with the feature set of Evernote. And, I use this knowledge each and every day to benefit my GTD practice in Evernote.

You’ve already learned how organizing with notebooks creates more efficient processing in Evernote. I amplify this with my Evernote ninja skills, by editing the notes I process. Processing notes means I’m filing them, and I keep the end goal in mind when doing so – I want to be able to retrieve the note whenever I seek it in the future. That could be tomorrow. Or, it could be 2 years from now.

All these edits are optional, and not necessary for 100% of the notes I create. But, they do make the retrieval process more efficient (as you now know, I lean on Evernote search a lot).

So, when appropriate, I apply my ninja skills to set myself up for “search success”. Here are some ways I do that:

• I give the note a meaningful title

• I’ll merge notes

• I link the note to other notes

• I’ll assign tags

In this way, I’m also using Evernote’s features to patchwork together multiple layers of context – further enhancing my ability to organize and later retrieve all that I’ve captured.

It’s also super efficient to file notes from my inbox into notebooks (my Evernote ninja skills help me here again). I never have to take my hands off the keyboard as I’m able to filter the movement of notes from my inbox to their notebook container with a few key strokes.

I estimate I process 25% faster than those who don’t have the same depth of knowledge about Evernote as me. I also succeed in retrieving and navigating to what I seek more rapidly than the average Evernote user – even in my account containing over 35,000 notes.

When you commit to a GTD lifestyle, it is essential to commit also to mastering the app you chose to support your GTD practice. Do what it takes to elevate your Evernote skills. It impacts your entire GTD practice.

3. You don’t have a solid – and scalable – GTD workflow in place.

This issue represents a snag in step 4 of my 5 Steps for GTD Success.

The most common reason people get stuck with a GTD workflow that doesn’t work for them is they’re attempting to organize with tags. This is not a scalable solution for the reasons already covered.

Another issue I see is that they haven’t gone through the effort/expense required to learn the features of the tool (issue #2 above) enough to make an informed decision on how to organize Evernote.

And, many people know that their brain just doesn’t work this way. The truth is that creating a scalable GTD workflow is the art of organizing Evernote. And, this trips a lot of people up. Learn the nuances behind this challenge here.

In this case, your solution is to invest in the efficiency of an expert providing their structure and coaching. Once you have that baseline, if needed, you can adapt to make it your own.