An automated table of contents for your notebooks! Or maybe three ?
You possibly know or use Evernotes feature to create a table of contents note. But Filterize has a really powerful action to create ToC (short for table of contents), that allows you much more!
I use that kind of automation for two of my notebooks and it is definitely time to share my experience with you!
What kind of ToC can Filterize create for you?
1. All Filterize ToCs have a refreshing option, so it will grow with the number of notes in your notebook.
2. A pure summary of your notes. This is like the ToC Evernote supplies, but with updating!
3. An overview for your notes with reminders. Add checkboxes and every time something is done, it will be ticked in your ToC. This is what I am using it for.
4. It can mix 2. and 3.
5. It extends the information about an entry in your ToC, e.g. adding all tags from the note or the reminder time.
Of course all entries in your ToC are linked to the note and the list style is on you.
Why am I using it?
To get an overview which tasks are still left to do and which I have already done. It helps me to estimate time I have to invest, to get all things done. And I always need to see progress, just to feel good ?
This is how a ToC with checkboxes could look like:
What do you need to know to get a ToC for your own notebook?
First of all, when you configure a (new) filter for your ToC you usually don’t need any conditions. Because conditions define, in which note the ToC will be generated, but not which notes will be part of the ToC.
All setting regarding which notes should be part of your ToC will be set with the action table of content in Filterize. So let’s have a closer look at it. There are several settings to personalize your content overview:
1. You have to set a unique code word, e.g. {{toc}}. If you create the new note, insert that code word somewhere in the note. So Filterize knows which note should contains your ToC and the position, where to place it.
2. Indicate which notes should be considered. You can search for everything you also can search for in Evernote (How to use Evernote’s search syntax). So you can search for e.g. notes with specific tags by tag:tag_name. And only notes with this tag will be part of your ToC. If you want to have all notes in your ToC, use *.
Activate only same notebook, if only notes out of this notebook are allowed to be in the overview. Otherwise all (selected) notes from all your notebooks will be in that ToC.
Activate refresh on note update and your table of content note will be refreshed, if you modified it or once an hour.
3. Select the way the notes should be ordered: title, created, updated or reminder time. And if you like to have checkboxes or not or just for notes with reminders.
As third option, you can set, if all tags from your note should be added to the entry in your table.
4. Choose the list style.
It can be plain, like in our example above; unordered and marked with ●; or ordered by 1., 2., etc.
5. The last to two small settings:
Set a prefix, if you want one. It will be set in front of the notes title. This is how you can get reminder time as part of the entry title.
And you can enter a text, that will be displayed, when there is nothing to put in that table.
How to implement it?
1. Create a new table of contents filter or use one of mine and personalize it. Note that my filters always have the condition in notebook. My benefit of that condition, my code word will only work in that notebook. I can use it in other notebooks for descriptions or some such. But you can delete that condition, if something like this is not necessary for you.
Filter 1: ToC with checkboxes for notes with reminders (and a special tag):
Filter 2: ToC as plain list for notes with unchecked checkboxes
Filter 3: ToC with checkboxes and added reminder time
2. Go into your Evernote and create a new note, which contains your code word.
3. Sync your Evernote twice and all you will a have a automated table of contents!
Try it now and enjoy your new automation ⚙️
Now it’s your turn!
Filterize is a cloud service that acts as your personal Evernote assistant. Tell the software how you organize your notes or just let its Artificial Intelligence learn how to do it automatically. Filterize will then manage your notes in the background, eliminating repetitive tasks, avoiding errors and saving you time.