Software Engineering, Project Management, and Effectiveness
I tested Evernote with my time management system, The Zen of Results. Evernote is like ITunes for knowledge. Check out how easily The Zen of Results fit with Evernote:
It took me under 5 minutes from start to finish. It was intuitive and friction free. One of the keys to effective time management techniques is getting rid of friction, otherwise it's death by a 1000 paper cuts in the long run. I expected some learning curve or some issues, so I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe I'll be unpleasantly surprised later, but so far so good.
Results The quick test was a success:
Notebook Summary Here's a summary of the notebooks I created in Evernote for The Zen of Results:
Action
Reference
Checklists / Scripts
Improvement / Results
My Related Posts
PingBack from http://www.codedstyle.com/the-zen-of-results-and-evernote/
It would be really useful for me to have some examples to go along with your time management system.
Ever since I read the Zen of Results I have been trying to apply it to my various workloads. I have even duplicated your Evernote notebooks exactly. But now I am struggling to know what to put into each of them.
If you could provide examples for each of the notebooks I could then get an idea of what each notebook was intended for!
@ Adam
No problem. Let's start simple.
Today, in your To Dos folder, create an item and title it 2009-01-06. Think of 3 items you have to get done today before you can go home. Write those down. Do this M-F.
In your Queues folder, create one item for each project you're working on. I just name mine by project name, for example, App Arch. Inside the list, dump any important outcomes or actions that pop in your head. This frees up your brain and gives you one place to look for any pending actions you have.
On Friday, in your Lessons Learned folder, create an item and title it 2009-01-09. Write down 3 things you did well, and 3 things you want to improve.
On Monday, in your weekly outcomes folder, create an item and title it 2009-01-12. Write down 3 key things you want done by Friday.
That's your daily and weekly routine. It's simple but it works.
During the day, if a cool wandering thought pops in your head, create an item in your Thoughts folder. Some days might be bone dry, other days might be a waterfall.
In your Notes folder, dump an item such as some ad-hoc research you did. Have one place to dump this. Think of it like a long, flat set of Wiki pages.
That's the heart right there.
Does that help?
It sounds like you have a mostly text system that is heavily based around contexts. One alternate solution that is lightening fast is www.ayenotes.com for taking notes line. You can separate the different lists by tags and the site filters and retrieves extremely fast thanks to a near 100% AJAX solution.
Ayenotes claim to fame is absurdly quick, barebones data entry. Its key feature is that it provides clips for frequently used strings. These can be templates you type, terms you use (action items, research, etc.), or it can be programmer-esque things like HTML and Markdown.
The site also autosaves the work and provides keystroke commands. If you have the site remember your login, every time you go to www.ayenotes.com to take notes online you are dropped right into the new note screen. To get your data out, you can email or download the note in multimarkdown format.
It's really slick - I even use it to take meeting notes and find myself creating templates for all sorts.