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I only use Evernote to store receipts for purchases with a guarantee. I just email it to Evernote and tag it, imaginatively enough, with “receipt” and put it into my Main folder.
At the same time, I try to remember to store the pdf of the instruction manual too.
There is no advantage to using something like DDMMYYY.
Using YYYYMMDD work wonders when you want to sort things.
Even with your naming convention of: "iD Mobile Bill January 2026", would not sort well, where as, "iD Mobile Bill 20260101" would give you a nice result when sorting.
I've long since moved on to YYYYMMDD, especially since I work with both Canadian French, who use DDMMYYYY and English (Canada/USA) who use MMDDYYYY.
Yeah, understand the sorting issue but its not something I've ever really needed to do. The main reason for the receipts is for warranties or the accountant and for them I just export as a list of PDFs and reorder during the export.
Is French Canada European date format, the rest US style? Had no idea.
I’ve found that Tags consistently outperform Notebooks for one simple reason: flexibility.
While Notebooks seem to be an analog to physical folders, they come with rigid constraints. If you want to build a truly scalable second brain, here is why you should consider making the switch to tags:
Limitless Scaling: For all practical purposes, there is an unlimited number of tags available. You never have to worry about hitting a structural ceiling as your database grows.
Infinite Hierarchy: Unlike Notebooks and Stacks—which limit you to a shallow, two-level depth—Tags can be nested nearly indefinitely. This allows you to create highly specific sub-categories that reflect how you actually think.
Multi-Dimensional Filing: A note can only live in one Notebook, but it can have dozens of Tags. This allows a single piece of information to surface in multiple contexts (e.g., #Taxes, #2026, and #Receipts) without duplicating the file.
If you’re looking to future-proof your organization, stop filing and start tagging.
I mostly agree with you, except that I am beginning to use more stacks & notebooks for more seperation of items.
But I pretty much always use tags, they really are the best for finding things across all notebooks.
With the advent of AI and semantic searches, some of that stuff will probably become less relevant. But it will only work if you use sufficient language in your notes. Notes with just bullet point kind of stuff will probably not serve well with semantic searches.
After you save a PDF file inside a Note in EN, do you delete it from your hard drive, email, etc? What I’m wondering is, is the PDF embedded or linked?
So if its a forwarded email I keep the email in an email folder called Keep-Safe if I need to keep it. I find it easier to collate multiple notes in Evernote.
If its scanned paperwork as a PDF then I embed in Evernote, delete the original PDF and usually shred the paper copy unless its something I need to keep a physical copy of like legal docs etc.
There’s a built in scan option in the Evernote app. If you go to the create screen the middle section of buttons scrolls a bit left and right and you should see scan. You can photograph multi page documents and add them to a note pretty quickly.
Just an observation - I've just gone to the Downloads page, and the latest desktop version there is still 11.7.2, and this morning the mobile version 11.7.1 arrived on my Samsung Android phone.
The 11.8.0 deskyop version mentioned in the housekeeping doesn't seem to have arrived yet.
The "nightly version"? Tell us more, please, Jon. Is this a version that's made available to EN Experts like yourself and Stacey Harmon in a "pre-release" state before it gets officially launched? Just curious 😄
Yeah. Its kind of pre-release with new features attached. I sometimes get an update twice a day and as I'm using it I report bugs if I see them. A lot of bugs get caught here and fixed before the main release.
I still use the normal stable release on my main PC as I don't want it to break!
And this morning Evernote prompted me that a new update was abailable and so I'm now on desktop version 11.7.3 (more "performance enhancements and miscellaneous bug fixes")
Yup. Worth updating. I think nightly kind of stays around one major release behind the stable one but then sometimes patches are pushed right through to stable which miss nightly until the next update.
I only use Evernote to store receipts for purchases with a guarantee. I just email it to Evernote and tag it, imaginatively enough, with “receipt” and put it into my Main folder.
At the same time, I try to remember to store the pdf of the instruction manual too.
I'm the same as you. I only keep stuff if its important. The AI stuff works well with instruction manuals. Its saved me having read through them.
My Evernote-based filing system is, perhaps, a tad simpler.
I have a notebook for each type of document, e.g. Bills, Tax receipts, Correspondence.
I use tags to add the topic or vendor/supplier/store, sometimes a year to group notes together, and sometimes a major brand name of an item I bought.
For bills, the note title follows a standard naming convention: YYYYMMDD Store InvoiceNumber
And, finally, I set the note creation date to match the bill/receipt/correspondence date.
Examples:
20260201 Children’s Hospital Foundation 2891063
tags: 2026 Taxes, Children’s Hospital Foundation
notebook: Tax Receipts
20140503 City Power
tags: City Power
notebook: Bills - Utilities
20200912 Costco 26401783520209121743
tags: Apple, Costco
notebook: Bills
I like that Chris. I tend to use full date format like 13th March 2026. I might test using a DDNMYYY format see if it helps. Nice system.
There is no advantage to using something like DDMMYYY.
Using YYYYMMDD work wonders when you want to sort things.
Even with your naming convention of: "iD Mobile Bill January 2026", would not sort well, where as, "iD Mobile Bill 20260101" would give you a nice result when sorting.
I've long since moved on to YYYYMMDD, especially since I work with both Canadian French, who use DDMMYYYY and English (Canada/USA) who use MMDDYYYY.
Yeah, understand the sorting issue but its not something I've ever really needed to do. The main reason for the receipts is for warranties or the accountant and for them I just export as a list of PDFs and reorder during the export.
Is French Canada European date format, the rest US style? Had no idea.
I don't know about all of French Canada, but certainly in the province of Quebec they use Day Month Year.
In the US and English Canada it's Month Day Year.
I work in IT so I use YYYYMMDD. I always change my operating system and my apps to default to YYYYMMDD.
I’ve found that Tags consistently outperform Notebooks for one simple reason: flexibility.
While Notebooks seem to be an analog to physical folders, they come with rigid constraints. If you want to build a truly scalable second brain, here is why you should consider making the switch to tags:
Limitless Scaling: For all practical purposes, there is an unlimited number of tags available. You never have to worry about hitting a structural ceiling as your database grows.
Infinite Hierarchy: Unlike Notebooks and Stacks—which limit you to a shallow, two-level depth—Tags can be nested nearly indefinitely. This allows you to create highly specific sub-categories that reflect how you actually think.
Multi-Dimensional Filing: A note can only live in one Notebook, but it can have dozens of Tags. This allows a single piece of information to surface in multiple contexts (e.g., #Taxes, #2026, and #Receipts) without duplicating the file.
If you’re looking to future-proof your organization, stop filing and start tagging.
I mostly agree with you, except that I am beginning to use more stacks & notebooks for more seperation of items.
But I pretty much always use tags, they really are the best for finding things across all notebooks.
With the advent of AI and semantic searches, some of that stuff will probably become less relevant. But it will only work if you use sufficient language in your notes. Notes with just bullet point kind of stuff will probably not serve well with semantic searches.
After you save a PDF file inside a Note in EN, do you delete it from your hard drive, email, etc? What I’m wondering is, is the PDF embedded or linked?
Thanks for sharing your processes to help others get the most out of EN. There’s so many possibilities!
So if its a forwarded email I keep the email in an email folder called Keep-Safe if I need to keep it. I find it easier to collate multiple notes in Evernote.
If its scanned paperwork as a PDF then I embed in Evernote, delete the original PDF and usually shred the paper copy unless its something I need to keep a physical copy of like legal docs etc.
You mentioned that Scannable is only available for iOS, but I'm still not clear on what the options are for those of us on Android
There’s a built in scan option in the Evernote app. If you go to the create screen the middle section of buttons scrolls a bit left and right and you should see scan. You can photograph multi page documents and add them to a note pretty quickly.
Just an observation - I've just gone to the Downloads page, and the latest desktop version there is still 11.7.2, and this morning the mobile version 11.7.1 arrived on my Samsung Android phone.
The 11.8.0 deskyop version mentioned in the housekeeping doesn't seem to have arrived yet.
Ah well spotted. It is indeed 11.7.2. I'm on my laptop today and using the nightly version whichis 11.8 and I forgot :) Updated.
The "nightly version"? Tell us more, please, Jon. Is this a version that's made available to EN Experts like yourself and Stacey Harmon in a "pre-release" state before it gets officially launched? Just curious 😄
Yeah. Its kind of pre-release with new features attached. I sometimes get an update twice a day and as I'm using it I report bugs if I see them. A lot of bugs get caught here and fixed before the main release.
I still use the normal stable release on my main PC as I don't want it to break!
And this morning Evernote prompted me that a new update was abailable and so I'm now on desktop version 11.7.3 (more "performance enhancements and miscellaneous bug fixes")
Yup. Worth updating. I think nightly kind of stays around one major release behind the stable one but then sometimes patches are pushed right through to stable which miss nightly until the next update.