We all get busy and sometimes need to find something in a hurry. When you create a note in Evernote, take time to tag it so that it will be easier to find what you are looking for later. Take a look at a this list as it has some well thought out suggestions on Tagging. Following these rules will let you find that note you need, even if you have thousands.
Seven Best Practices for Tagging
1. Stick to a Standard Tagging Convention
Tagging one note as “pic” and another as “pics” or “picture” will wreak havoc on your patience. Be ruthless on using the tagging name scheme that works for you.
2. Use Plural Instead of Singular Tags
Use the plural version of a word. It makes more sense to be consistent and uniform. This tip comes from many experienced users.
3. When Tagging using a Person’s Name
Use first name followed by the first letter of the last name. (JohnH). Admittedly you could reverse this and use last name followed with first letter of first name (HowardJ). Consistency is the key.
4. Keep Tags Streamlined
Don’t create a unique tag for each note. Focus on being descriptive as possible, but only use tags that correspond to the important areas of your life.
5. Start Broad, Then Narrow Your Focus
Your could create tags like Health, Travel, or Recipes. Then drill down to specifics like: Running, Lifting, or Stretching to the Health tag.
6. Identify The Who, What, When, Where, and Why. What you are attempting here is to create Context.
If you take a picture at the beach with friends, then you might use tags like Neptune Beach, Sunset, Friends, September, etc.
7. Avoid Multiple Word Tags.
When searching you would have to remember that you used two words. Wonder what order they were?
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The key to all this is consistency. You should set a reminder to look at your tag list once a month and clean up mis-spellings, tags that you did not mean to create and so on. When you look at your Sidebar, the Tags list is at the bottom just above Trash. When you look at the view of tags you can look at an alphabetical order or note count order. If you view the latter, you may see that you have some tags with one or two associated notes and you might consider reclassifying those notes with another tag and then delete the tag that is little used. Also, try to keep your tag list under control. If you have hundreds of tags, then you may have more difficulty in using the tagging convention. When you tag a note, the tag line is context sensitive, so it will present the tags pretty quickly. When you see what you need, use a down arrow to select the tag you want, then type a comma which will allow you to add another if needed.
Here is a short video about tagging (less than a minute long). https://youtu.be/SCqGtL7MzeI