Areas? Horizons?
Focus?Responsibility?
Not sure if
they are all
the same.
Using Tags for GTD Areas of Focus in Evernote
A few weeks ago I posted about an experiment that used a stack and a collection of notebooks in Evernote to organize my Areas of Focus (or Responsibility). I abandoned that approach for several reasons, mostly due to a recent urge to reduce the number of notebooks I was trying to juggle.
I went back to using a hierarchy of tags and simple set of rules.
Rules for Areas of Focus/Evernote tags
- Tags are used only for Areas.
- All notes must be tagged.
- If a note doesn’t fit in an area, throw it out.
To make things a little easier to quick sort, I place my areas into three super groups: Career, Personal, and Work. Arguably I could get by on just these, but I’ve found it helps me keep a clearer picture of who I am and want to be by having a second level to my hierarchy.
I enjoy reading your experiments.
When you posted about using stacked notebooks you mentioned this wasn’t supported on the iPhone. As far as I can see nested tags also are not supported on the iPhone.
Can you describe the difference – from a usability aspect – between using notebooks or tags on the iPhone?
Good question, Robert.
Without stacks, with notebooks:
1) Area notebooks made for a very long list
2) Couldn’t view all projects together
3) To view projects, I had to remember it’s area first (very annoying)
A single notebook proved more usable on a regular basis.
Technically I don’t need a hierarchy for my areas. I could rename them to start with my super group titles: “Work – Fitness Designer”.
One very cool – and completely accidental – advantage of using tags is that they have their own iPhone tab bar item. This makes it easy to jump right to my Areas list whenever I like and easily sort any notebook I’m in.
Thanks for the clarification!
No problem. Answering your questions led me to discovering how the tab for Tags now serves as a mobile Areas list. Bonus!
Maybe it’s a language difference but what is the difference between Career and Work?
I am also referring to http://hanamidesign.com/blog/starting-fresh-20000-level-horizons-focus-getting-things-done/#comment-block
Work would mean your job description / your responsibilities. But Career is the same as work or maybe the same Personal?
I am a bit confused, hope you could elaborate a bit on this. Thnx
To some Career and Work may be the same thing. For me, Work is anything to do with the company I work for. Career is what I’m doing outside of that to become a better, more accomplished designer, writer, and songwriter/singer/musician.
Some people might put those things under Personal, but I prefer the distinction.