I take a lot of notes. Cooking recipes. Meeting notes. Personal notes. Book notes. And other few things. I just want to keep track of lot of things, for the future.
With all these notes, in different subjects, I wanted a system to organize them so I can know my way around. Like opening the notes app, finding a list of folders named Cooking, Work, and Books. Inside of each one, some sub-folders to divide the subject even more. It would be perfect!
I spent a lot of time trying to make the perfect organization model for my notes. And I tried it with so many apps. And whenever I came up with a new organization model, it did work for some time, but then it stopped. It was frustrating!
What makes it hard to stick is that I was familiar with the new organization system for a few weeks. But after some time, whenever I want to create a new note I need to remember the process again. Where should I put this meeting note? Is it the work folder? Or the Notes folder? What should I tag it? Oh, I think it’s time to create a new sub-folder? All this process over and over again whenever I want to add something.
I decided to live with it. Hopefully, this last scheme will last.
But then, I stumbled upon this crazy idea that shocked me at first. It may not seem crazy to you. But for someone who spent years trying to come up with the perfect organization model, it did!
The idea was: What if there is no organization model? And instead of relying on the organization to find your notes, let’s rely on something else. Like searching?
It sounded crazy, but I decided I should give it a try. And I did!
I’m using Evernote. And I don’t care about the organization model anymore. I drop my notes and I use search to find anything I want.
I still use notebooks (ie folders) to group my notes by theme, but that’s it. No sub-folders or anything. I highlight my most used notes so I can access them easily.
I hope you try it too. And let me know how it goes for you!