Keeping Evernotes

My therapist asked me what i was holding on to these days. I realized it's been lists, the data organization i'm engaging in. Last fall i started using Yojimbo, a Mac data organizer that would sync with my phone via Missing Sync and would sync with my work laptop via Mobile Me. Thanks to the end of Delicious, i also started using Evernote.

For some months i had a strange cross organizer experience, not entirely trusting Evernote (a cloud based system). I started some tagging practices that really helped keep up with my personal to-dos: a "+yyyymmdd" tag (usually just the first and fifteenth of months) as a tickler to pay attention to something, a "-yyyymmdd" tag to stop paying attention. That is, if i wanted to read more about something i might put a minus-date tag on it so that if the date passed and i hadn't followed up, i would drop it and not let it weigh on my to-do lists. (I don't use that minus-date tag nearly as much as i should.) I also have a "@followup" tag.

In May, when i could see some sort of layoff was imminent, i decoupled MobileMe from my work laptop along with other personal data purges. After it became clear i was staying, i reattached data synchronization to various sources, but somehow the Yojimbo synchronization would never work. Meanwhile, Evernote continued to improve their application. More and more functionality, features, and as that synchronization still worked between my machines, i became more dependent on trusting Evernote to keep my data secure.

In the past month i decided i would trust them with my work notes. It's probably a huge data security policy decision on my part, but -- again, security vs efficiency. I console myself by noting the paper notebook phase i went through similarly put corporate data out of corporate control; the only difference is digital data is much more easy to discover and mine if it's compromised. On the other hand: leaving documents on airplanes is so easy to do.

Given the lack of access to the Yojimbo notes from work and my growing trust of Evernote, i've given up on Yojimbo. Yojimbo is also tightly coupled with Apple's MobileMe process, and that's changing. Right now there are 688 notes in Yojimbo, some duplicated in Evernote. (Ahah: http://veritrope.com/tech/yojimbo-evernote-export/). This morning i went through old "@followup" tasks.

I've also realized i don't blog nearly as much as i used to -- not at all at my grey cat blogs -- because i'm able to make excellent notes in Evernote. I regret that to some extent: but i'll be able to be more intentional when i reboot my blogging.

I am a huge fan of Evernote now: i've paid for an account, and can't imagine keeping up without it. In this "tempest" at work, i am not lost.