Using the Evernote AI Assistant for finding missing information from a list

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One of the most basic things we all do in Evernote is make lists. Everyone loves a list.

It could be a to-do list for work, a shopping list, a family/kids type of list... lists everywhere.

Something I’ve found myself doing many times is sitting and starring at a list trying to work out if I’ve missed something off it. Especially with my backpacking list, if I forget my stove I go hungry, or end up at a pub. I should forget my stove more often!

Recently I’ve been using the Evernote AI Assistant to help me put lists together so I don’t forget things.

Here’s a few examples of how I’ve used it.

Finding missing items from a packing list

I do a bit of backpacking and camping in the Spring and Summer and have quite an extensive packing list, but even with the list, I usually forget something.

I told the AI Assistant to look at the list and find missing items.

This was the prompt I used.

Take a look at this backpacking list and see what I might of missed. I’m going on a three day hike.

It did a pretty good job and found quite a few things that were missing.

The assistant told me to pack a compass, I have the OS Maps app on my phone but phones can die, so I really should take my compass with me.

It also mentioned ear plugs and an eye mask, which is something I usually pack, but it’s not on the list.

It came up with about twenty things. A lot of them weren’t relevant to me. I don’t need water purification tablets as there’s a pub or tea rooms every 100 feet in the UK so I’ll never have an issue with water.

It was useful. It did a bit of thinking for me and I’ve added a few items to the list.

I just need it to stop pouring with rain so I can head out.

Finding missing books from a reading list

I have a simple reading list. It’s a bunch of authors that I read on a regular basis with checkboxes of their books underneath their names.

A nice table of contents at the top that helps me jump down to an author as the list is quite long.

I have no idea if I have books missing from the list. I’d need to go through the author’s Wikipedia page checking the list against their bibliography, which would take a lot of time.

So, I asked the AI Assistant to find what books are missing.

Here’s the prompt.

The open note is a reading list where a heading is an author and the checkboxes are names of books.

Take a look at the Stephen King books in the note and then search the web to find any Stephen King books that are missing from the list.

I always over-explain things just so it knows exactly what I want. Hopefully less errors that way.

It did a good job.

I wasn’t missing much at all. I had all the novels on the list, but it did find a bunch of short stories I was missing, which I’ve now added.

So, not too bad, but it did take a bit of prompting.

The assistant was really good at finding items missing from my backpacking list.

It was OK at finding the books missing, but I did need to rewrite the prompt a couple of times as it was just giving me a list of all Stephen King books. Still took less time than Googling.

I also tried to get the assistant to look in my Music Collection notebook and find Genesis albums that were missing.

I used this prompt.

Take a look at this notebook @Music Collection

Its a collection of my music. Each note is a different album.

Look for all the Genesis albums in the notebook, these are the ones I own. Then search the web and tell me which albums are missing from my collection. Only give me the missing albums.

It didn’t do a great job. I tried a few different variations of the prompt and all it would give me was a list of all Genesis albums, so I’d have to do the organising myself.

I’ve mentioned this to Evernote as I think the AI should be able to do this.

Let me know if you’ve been using the assistant to help with lists. Leave me a comment below.

Have a great weekend

All the best

Jon