What if I told you that years ago I decided to ditch the endless inbox organization in Evernote in favor of a more efficient workflow?

Some people collect ideas, tasks and other types of information in an inbox style folder, or notebook, when using Evernote. A periodic cleaning routine is what makes sure the items will be redistributed to the appropriate spaces from time to time. Other people, myself include, do the opposite. We select the destination when saving the information.

I do it because I consider those periodic routines, that some call revisions, to be a waste of time. One can argue that it doesn’t matter whether you choose the destination before or afterwords, as it will take roughly the same time to organize things. That’s true, but it’s not where the problem lies.

When redistributing information in a future moment, one has to go through all the items to remember what each one is about, and only after that, move them to the appropriate spaces. That time spent with the screening process will not happen when picking the destination at the same time the information is being created.

For example, if I have an idea for a YouTube video, it’s instantly clear to me that it belongs to my Creator notebook in my Evernote. It’s effortless because the topic is fresh in my mind. Meaning that I’ll automatically save the information in the correct notebook.

The other option means that I would have all sorts of note topics, from ideas for videos to meeting notes with clients, in the inbox notebook. It’s too divers, and I would always have to waste time going through many notes to remember what they are, and only after that, move them to the correct notebook. That revision, or whatever you prefer to call it, is time I never waste.

But there’s a catch. If you don’t have or know what are the right notebooks or folders, there’s no way to choose the correct one. That’s why I try to keep all the ones I use frequently as accessible as possible. To accomplish that, I’m constantly paying attention to how I’m doing things. When I notice friction, I always make sure to rearrange things to fit my needs, like I show in the video below.

Have I mentioned that one great benefit of doing things like this is that I don’t experience inbox-zero anxiety?

What about you? Do you use an inbox to process information in the future, or do you pick the destination to save information in the correct place?