As I wrote before Christmas, <a class="zem_slink" title="Evernote" rel="homepage" href="http://www.evernote.com/">Evernote</a> <em>finally</em> <a href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/12/21/evernote-sneak-out-a-killer-feature/">has the ability to divide information</a> into folders and sub-folders. May not sound a big thing. It is to me. I put a lot of information into my book management process. Without the ability to divide it into hierarchical sub-folders it all gets too complicated and messy.

Now Evernote can do much (if not all) of the job I used to assign to OneNote or on the Mac Macjournal. The finer points aren't there but perhaps simplicity is a benefit, not a disadvantage. Here's how it's looking for me. Note: sub-folders are currently only fully implemented in the Mac Evernote client. You can see them in the latest Windows client, and create them there by dragging notebooks on to one another to form the hierarchy. You don't see them on the iPad or Android phones yet -- just a flat notebook list.

<!--more--><img class="size-full wp-image-6582 alignright" title="Structure" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/screen-shot-2010-12-26-at-11-58-331.png" alt="" width="166" height="99" />Here's my basic book management structure. Dead simple. I have a notebook enclosing all this (which you can't see here). Below that I create new sub-notebooks for five different functions.

It should be obvious what they are from the names here. Places where I can jot down notes about characters, locations and any research associated with the project. Then two more notebooks with very simple functions, one to act as a diary for the project, the other to list tasks I need to do at a later stage.

Here's what the diary looks like.

<img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-6584" title="Diary" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/diary1.png?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="320" />

Very simple idea. I make an entry when I feel like it, jotting down story ideas, concerns, possibilities. <a title="Writing a book diary" href="http://davidhewson.com/2009/08/05/writing-a-book-diary/">You can read more about this process here</a>. At the end of each working week I list the week's running word count. So I have a simple tally of my thoughts about the book and a visual guide to how it's growing.

The To do section is even simpler (and could be included in the diary folder if you like).

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-6586" title="To do" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/to-do11.png" alt="" width="490" height="228" />

You can put in a check box through a simple shortcut (check the instructions -- it depends on what you use). After that I create a simple list of items under those general headings.

Why don't I mix to-dos with the diary? Because I don't want to lose them. OneNote has a very useful feature that allows you to tag any part of a document with a to do or other label. You can then search for them across the whole project and see how many you have.

I can't see a way to do that in Evernote. Something is either flagged as a whole item or not at all. Nor can you search on check boxes (as far as I can see). So I go for this simple option of setting them apart in one place with a check box. That way they won't disappear and will hang around to nag me -- which is the purpose of a to do.

Yes, OneNote is a lot more sophisticated. But Evernote is a lot more gregarious. I can see this information on my Mac, on anyone's PC, on the web when I log in to Evernote and on my phone and iPad. When I'm out with my phone I can tap in new ideas and even send research photos straight to the project file if I want. The whole thing is a lot more portable than it would have been solely in OneNote.

Could you do all this in Scrivener? Some of it. But I always try to divide left brain from right in the book-writing process. And Scrivener wouldn't give me -- easily -- the ability to work with my notes and material on my phone.

So I like this for the moment, and it certainly makes the Scrivener for writing/Evernote for info management partnership a very workable one. Another win for the Mac right now.