How to use EVERNOTE for Getting Things Done (GTD)

In this video, you'll learn how to use Evernote to set up a comprehensive GTD system. The video assumes knowledge of the Getting Things Done® methodology!

Evernote has gone through some extensive updates over the past year. I'm excited to see how it's evolved in 2022, especially the Evernote Tasks feature.

0:00 Why I stopped using Evernote after 3 years
1:18 Overview & Settings
4:00 Capturing to the Inbox
8:12 Organizing with Notebooks
10:50 Processing with Tags & Filters
17:50 Building a Reference Library
20:12 Evernote's Tasks feature
23:22 Conclusion

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[Lumberzackk]

I can tell you spent time learning this program, which has greatly accelerated my learning curve. Having used Evernote for years, I really haven't developed a system, but this is a great starting point for me. Thanks for the tips and take care.

[markyoungmaccom]

Great video, as a former Evernote user using GTD taking a fresh look your video is just what the doctor order!

Really enjoying your content

[alibahrani]

very helpfull to me regarding the "Tasks" section of the demo. Thank you

[benf]

The newly designed Evernote app was painfully slow when it first came out, but after numerous updates it has gotten quite snappy. I have 3600+ notes and it's fast. I did notice that when I first imported thousands of notes it ran like garbage for the first few hours, likely from indexing the new notes or something. After that, it evened out and has been fine ever since. Bulk operations still suck as it limits you to 50 notes at a time and seems to process them one by one. You can usually watch it go down the list as it processes each one. I don't love Evernote but I also cannot find anything better. Believe me, I have tried.

[davidluce]

As you have pointed out, Tasks is the starving step-child of Evernote's development process. The concept is great; I want my jobs and their results to stay together in a notebook or stack, which can form a journal for specific project or a subject of interest. However:
Tasks need to be included in a template, which can be instantiated for a given project. Example: International trip template--one instance for Bonn, another for RIo, ...
Tasks need to have due dates relative to a key definable event
Tasks need to be tagged with context, and searchable by context, to facilitate GTD use
Tasks need to be easily tagged to be "NEXT" for a given project,
Tasks should be set up from Email.
Tasks should be checked when done, rather than struck through (Use this for a journal, remember)
Tasks should be selectable into Completion reports
Notebooks need to be Archivable; when they are no longer needed in "Top-of-Mind".

Against my will, I still maintain a GTD-compatible task manager in parallel with Evernote, because Evernote is not yet effective for that purpose.

[peterkhn]

Thanks! I have learned a lot!!! Peter 🇩🇰

[tiagosantos]

Great video, Lucas!
I started using Evernote for GTD in january/22, after watching your other video on it (I already used Evernote for reference material and ideas). With this video, I thought about a lot of ways in which to change the way I use it: I mainly use stacks and Notebooks to categorize my actions, the only thing I use the Tags for are determining the context, priority and estimated time to complete. Now, I'm thinking of changing it to the way you showed in this video.
Thank you so much, keep up with the good work!

[tylerchasebusiness]

I personally subscribe to Stacey Harmon's notebook-based GTD setup, which relies on notebooks and stacks to manage the GTD workflow. She is NOT anti-tag, but she promotes the use of notebooks to manage the work of GTD. I've tried tag-based methods in the past and they became highly convoluted which is why I've stuck to the notebook-based method. However, I definitely see the massive benefit of tags. I have been very hesitant to start adding tags due to my previous experience. Your video has given me some great ideas as to how to implement tags in a mostly notebook-based system. Thank you!

[dariusb]

In order to answer your question towards the end of the video...I have 36K+ notes, and I'm still using the Legacy edition! Android, web and the new Windows versions are all too glacially (and painfully) slow to use on a regular basis.

[StevenMichels]

I would love to go back to Evernote, but I can't get past the fact that the dark mode looks ugly and thrown together. Also, the default font size on the mobile is too small. I don't get the 8-point font. Hopefully, Bending Spoons can make it right.

[chadibk]

The biggest issue for me is how slow it is I have 4000 notes . Bit I can take voicenotes. Does OCR . Handwriting. None of those were in Notion

[majorgear]

I was curious if evernote added Markdown and local file support to their app.

Seems like no, so I’ll stick with Joplin and Obsidian.

[rob]

I tried to use evernote for GTD so hard but after many year it became frustrating to me, too. Today I use it to store reference materials, only.

Missing overviews, filter mechanism were the biggest issues for me.

Thanks for your work and time.

[brokemen]

How did you get those little gifs or icons next to your tags, notebooks, etc.?

[gemmellsgardencentre]

Looking for more information on how to best set up and manage Evernote Teams.

[Simply]

I use Evernote for everything including GTD. I have been following Stacey Harmon's strategies for my implementation.

She uses note titles instead of tags. (As a new user, I have discovered the debate between tags & notes.) She teaches search syntaxes to locate your information.

For example, when I am searching for a note, I will use intitle:xyz to locate a note. Or, if I remember the tag, I will use tag:xyz.

These skills have made Evernote my go-to productivity app. I work on various projects with different people with varying deadlines. Evernote gives me the ability to document the life of the project from beginning to end. In addition, I can link notes to a master sheet which enables me to find other notes that are pertinent to the project.

Overall, I enjoyed your video. I appreciate learning how other people use Evernote. Thanks for taking time to create this video.

[paulojosue]

Muito legal seu trabalho! Saudações do Brasil 🇧🇷

[curious]

Tasks don't have to live inside of a note. You click on Add Note, click on Task, name your task and hit Create. The task automatically shows up under Tasks over there on the left under Notes, just below the Add Note button. However, you're right, you can't tag them.

[edildias]

I think you have such a negative view of tasks. I see tasks as a “next actions” lists and when click it I can visualize all my tasks sorted by notes (projects). I think that functionality is amazing.

[peterwassmuth]

Nice software but Evernote only uses industry-standard encryption, not end-to-end encryption.