Avoid using Inbox in Nirvana and save time
If you use Evernote, then yes you should force yourself not to use the Inbox in Nirvana at all for one week and see how it workes out for you.
Why would you want to do that?
I use Evernote a lot for capturing purposes (photos, audio notes, emails, pictures, RSS feeds, basically everhthing). For me it was a big issue to have Evernote Inbox and Nirvana Inbox and empty both regularly. Solution?
Don't use the Nirvana inbox at all.
Capture everything in your Evernote. Forward emails you need to follow up on. Take pictures of your recepits. Upload files. Capture notes on the go with FastEver for iPhone. Use Siri to send email to your Evernote. Send stuff to read later through Reeder.
When you process, you just process your Evernote inbox. Benefits: save time by not emptying two inboxes, easier to enter actions quickly where you need them instead of dragging them in Nirvana (try this!), and you will actually do or delete more actions BEFORE entering them in Nirvana. It is more tempting to HAVE to move everything from your Nirvana inbox to somewhere else in Nirvana. You will actually force yourself to prioritize what you put in Nirvana.
Add to this the latest Evernote URL capability, and this becomes even more powerful.
Hope some people find this useful - but you gotta force yourself to try this before it makes sense. Now I need an option to remove Inbox from my Nirvana ;-)
2 Posted by Folke on 24 Jan, 2012 08:44 PM
Sounds good, I think, but I do not quite understand (I am slow today, I know):
How do you turn the Evernote note into a Nirvana task (with tags and everything?)
Oh, and another thing I agree with: The ability to skip the separate Nirvana mail inbox would be great. I would be just as happy (probably happier) to get these tasks in the Focus inbox - i.e. the "ex-tickler inbox" at the bottom of the Focus list. I could drag them from there just as easily as from the current inbox.
3 Posted by dafyren on 24 Jan, 2012 09:12 PM
I was probably bad at explaining, but you can't turn your Evernote note into a Nirvana task. You have to enter the task into Nirvana.
So the point is that you enter everything in Evernote on-the-go as you capture information during your day. Then you go through this Evernote inbox few times a day, delete/execute/archive and enter the rest into Nirvana in the correct projects with tags etc.
For me, capturing information in Evernote is much easier than doing so in the Nirvana inbox, so that is why this made sense to me.
4 Posted by Proximo on 25 Jan, 2012 03:06 AM
I think it's great for people to try different things and if it works for you then you should run with it.
I currently use Evernote to capture everything on the go with my iPhone app and to capture things on the web. Using Evernote as my Nirvana inbox is not something I find useful or easier to do but that's just me.
Zendone uses Evernote as their inbox and this is what I do love about it, but everything else is terrible. This is why so many would love to see an Evernote integration option for Nirvana. In this example, capturing things in Evernote would automatically be inside the Nirvana inbox and ready for me to process.
Although I capture lots of things with Evernote today, I don't capture any ideas, task or projects. Evernote is more of a reference system for me to capture and store things for later retrieval. I use an iPhone app that automatically take what I type and puts it in my Nirvana inbox which makes it the perfect capture tool for my ideas, tasks or projects.
One example of such app is Captio (see Phil). Having an app like Captio for capturing your ideas, tasks and projects is super easy and efficient because everything will be in your Nirvana inbox ready for easy processing.
I don't feel tempted to keep task in my Nirvana inbox simply because they are easy to drag to lists. My inbox processing is just that. I decide what that stuff means to me at that time and I delete a lot of things. Having things in my Nirvana inbox is much easier for me to process because I don't have to transfer information from one app (Evernote) to Nirvana. I would need to open apps to do this but if it's in my Nirvana inbox, I only need Nirvana open and can quickly add all my GTD elements to the task/project for easy and quick processing.
I really do appreciate you suggesting this technique because I know some people will try it and probably love it. So please don't take my response in the wrong way. :-)
I saw this as a chance to ask for Evernote integration again. Ha ha..
5 Posted by Folke on 25 Jan, 2012 05:12 AM
A more automated Evernote inbox (Zendone type) has the downside that you get a lot of "reference spam" in your task inbox. As you say, Proximo, lots of Evertote notes are not even intended to become tasks, but there is only one default inbox in Evernote, and therefore you need to sit and "click away" many of those entries when you process your task inbox (in Zendone or possibly Nirvana one day). It's still a nice and creative feature, though.
The way I do it today is this: As a part of my daily morning review a go through all my inboxes (Gmail, other email, Evernote, paper note pad etc) and enter tasks manually in Nirvana as necessary. I forward emails and notes etc from other systems to Nirvana only if they contain information that I want to have handy as task notes. I finally go through my Nirvana mail inbox and my Nirvana Focus inbox before I start to review, rearrange and select tasks.
So in a way, Dafyren, you might say I am using your idea already (manual transfer from Evernote inbox), although not as an overall solution, only a partial one.
6 Posted by dafyren on 25 Jan, 2012 10:14 AM
Thanks for your ideas Folke and Proximo.
@Folke. I'd say that your flow is almost the same as mine :)
@Proximo: I see your work flow and actually I use many of the same processes. I just send everything to Evernote Inbox. Now that Nirvana has Evernote URL's my process has changed a bit, making it even easier:
1) Capture an idea using Captio and send to Evernote
2) Process Evernote Inbox and write some more notes to this one idea
3) Move Evernote note to my "Active Project X" folder in Evernote
4) Enter a task in Nirvana with URL to the Evernote note
Now I can update this evernote note whenever I have some ideas, and when the time comes for me to take action, I will see the task in Nirvana and have a link to Evernote.
But we all agree that the best solution is a full Evernote integration. :)
By the way, I also use Evernote for Someday tasks. Because my someday tasks can be notes, pictures, text, whatever (as they are not necessarily actionable). So I believe it is waste of time to transform these into Nirvana (which only handles text). Much easier just to go through my Someday Evernote folder weekly and decide which items are now actionable and enter them to Nirvana.
Support Staff 7 Posted by Elbert McLaughlin on 25 Jan, 2012 10:34 AM
Awesome thread... I'm finally starting to conceptualize a few workflows that would justify the effort for deep integration with Evernote and the like.
8 Posted by djohnson on 25 Jan, 2012 06:42 PM
One thing that is apparent from this thread is that a lot of us basically have to process a lot of inbox items (whether originating in email, evernote, etc.) multiple times.
For example, each morning I process my gmail inbox and any items that I need to create tasks for I forward the gmail link to Nirvana. I then have to go into my Nirvana inbox and process the item again to assign tags, dates, etc.
It would be nice if we had the ability to assign all properties to the task in the subject line of the email....similar to the way it worked in N1. That way sending the link from gmail, evernote, mobile app, etc. would not require further processing to file it away properly in Nirvana.
The easier it is to assign these properties the more likely people will use them and start completing tasks by available context, energy, and time.
9 Posted by bumpa on 25 Jan, 2012 08:35 PM
Really cool stuff! I'm all for Evernote integration.
@Dafyren I really like how you handle your Someday tasks, make a lot of sense to me.
10 Posted by Folke on 25 Jan, 2012 11:43 PM
Yeah, somehow our guts tell us there is power in Evernote integration - that's how it feels in my guts, anyway, but when I look closer, that power seems to vaporize a bit. But I am all for it - investigate, think, discuss, and maybe even do ...
One of the good things with Evernote is its vast memeory - pictures, notes, more notes, web clibs, everything, and a whole bunch of these things could potentially be tied to a particular task or project in Nirvana. That feels "powerful". It probably requires some kind of "integration" at the Evernote tag or notebook level, which associates a particular Nirvana item with a whole collection of Evernote items. If this can be achieved without pasting any links, typing any tags etc - just clicking at the most, and if the access is almost as quick as accessing Nirvana notes, then this would be a very convenient and powerful addition to Nirvana's notes feature. The checklisting feature in Nirvana notes is still very useful and unique and cannot be lost.
In the same vein, after completion, these task/project records would be kept in Evernote. If complemented at that stage with completion dates and other Logbook type data, then Evernote could serve as an alternative to the Nirvana Logbook for those users who wish to do so.
As far as tagging of mail/tasks etc, I still think it would be easier to have a much better general task edit functionality in Nirvana in the first place - less menu-oriented, more direct-clickable, as discussed elsewhere in the forum. It is way too time-consuming today. But even today, I do not see myself coding email subject lines with tags and funny prefixes and get the spelling and syntax right. What's the point? If I can quick-click it in the Nirvana window instead? Or even slow-click-click-click-click it like today? (And subject line deciphering may interfere with auto-forwarded emails to the Nirvana inbox.) (And we need faster task entry/edit anyway, even for normal "unintegrated" use.)
Someday/Maybe: Yes, Evernote can be a reference source for the more unarticulated of those vague or distant ideas, and they can be worded later as Nirvana tasks or projects when the the time is getting ripe. Great combination, i.e.: Nirvana Someday are reasonably concrete and probable tasks (projects), wheras Evernote represents the rest. Then all you need is a mechanism to connect those Evernote things (EN tags or notebooks) with a new Nirvana task/project if the day comes that you want to use these old notes, pictures, whatever and do something about it.
(These are just spontaneous reflections, not final conclusions or opinions ... but I hope it can contrubuite somehow to the joint thinking here ... )
11 Posted by Proximo on 26 Jan, 2012 03:56 AM
@Folke,
When you capture something into Evernote, you can send it to any folder and not just the "Inbox". So it's possible to use it for capturing reference material and your task/projects assuming the "inbox" is linked to Nirvana.
:-)
12 Posted by Folke on 26 Jan, 2012 09:09 AM
@Proximo
OK, thanks. that's good to know :-)
(But then I suppose you have to click a bit extra to get the "reference spam" initially separated from the potential tasks?)
But anyway, we can see from the Zendone case that it feels intuitively very nice to be able to sit in the task manager (Zendone in that case) and process all kinds of input (voice messages, notes etc) and convert them into tasks. That's the good thing. At the same time we also see all the drawbacks: Extremely slow access to the notes. Have to jump between two systems - double tagging and organizing. Only one EN note for each task. Cannot add an EN note to an existing noteless task etc. Basically, you currently pay a very high price for just having a nice "feeling" about the eat-it-all inbox. It would need to have a much more solid time-saving power and smooth handling, somehow.
Maybe some of these shortcomings could be fixed with some advanced presets for mapping Nirvana tags and state into Evernote tags and vice versa?
13 Posted by dafyren on 26 Jan, 2012 09:16 AM
@Folke
The examples you mention in Zendone are due to bad implementation (and zendone people have also acknowledged that). It is possible to get quick access to notes, edit notes, add note to existing noteless tasks etc. zendone team is also working on all of this.
So I believe you should not see the current zendone omplementation as a limit to what can be done. :)
14 Posted by Folke on 26 Jan, 2012 09:50 AM
@Dafyren
You are absolutely right, and I actually don't see Zendone as a limit to what can be accomplished, I assure you :-)
I am just trying to point out what needs to be considered in order to make the effort worthwhile for Nirvana (and us users). Let me continue:
Let's say you have taken a snapshot of a whiteboard at a meeting and placed that in you Evernote inbox for later conversion into tasks. That conversion takes place in your mind and needs to be worded and typed via a keyboard. With Nirvana today you need to click to switch between EN and N in order to alternate between analysis and typing, which is no big problem. And if you need to keep the picture of the whiteboard accessible from your task you also need to copy-paste the link into the Nirvana note, which is no big problem either. And tagging etc is something that needs to be done no matter what.
So if you integrate the two systems more closely you could save a couple of clicks, for sure, and I definitely like that, but since those savings are relatively small there is not much room for introducing any new disadvantages, such as what we have seen in the first implementations of Zendone. It needs to be super smooth in every way, and it is worth deliberating very carefully how and if this can be achieved. Otherwise you waste a lot of time and energy that could have been better used for other important improvements to Nirvana. That's all I meant. And as I also said, I think it is very exciting.
15 Posted by alexandremrj on 26 Jan, 2012 11:39 AM
Hello,
the way that FacileThings (a pure GTD app) does things with evernote is all new notes in Evernote appear in the FacileThings inbox, waiting for processing - polling every 20 minutes evernote for any new notes.
Nirvana could try the same thing - all new notes in the default notebook in Evernote could appear in our Inbox
16 Posted by Folke on 26 Jan, 2012 12:48 PM
@alexandremrj
That sounds pretty much like Zendone, except Zendone gets the stuff almost instantly (don't ask me how, though). It is neat in that way :-)
17 Posted by alexandremrj on 26 Jan, 2012 02:20 PM
@Folke Its like zendone, but this one leaves the evernote links intact
Support Staff 18 Posted by David McLaughlin on 27 Jan, 2012 12:33 PM
OK. I'm not going to try to dampen your enthusiasm for Evernote (I use it too), but we're also not going to restrict integration of "stored stuff" to Evernote. There are a lot of people who use Onenote, and other storage and 'cloud' solutions. Not saying that we might not do a deeper integration with Evernote first, just saying there's a bigger picture here. And there are a fair number of people who could care less about any of the above - we'll make Nirvana work just fine on its own, and the rest is extra special sauce.
The basic tenent is that you've got stuff, you want to link your stuff to Nirvana tasks for reference, and wouldn't it be great if you could not have to re-enter all the stuff in both places. We'll get there - we have a few ideas rolling around - but as @Folke mentioned there are other priorities that come first. This is not at the bottom of the list, for sure.
What was a bit disappointing for a quick win from Evernote is that their Share->Send By Email function uses what looks to be a MS Office style formatting to their email that is practically impossible to parse reliably.
Sending a note to your Nirvana inbox from Evernote ends up with some unstripped css styles, then the text jumbled together in a single paragraph without formatting (base on just a few tests I did). If they had a send as plain text option it would work great.
I took a couple of the Evernote emails sent them to Outlook, saved them as text, and then sent them to N2 Inbox and they were fine -- but NOT a good process by any means for an ongoing basis. So it looks like we'll have to wait until we get a chance to do some magic with their api.
David