Hey everyone,
I find tagging to be a fascinating tool, so I created a document dedicated to collecting different ways it can be used in Dynalist.
Check it out here.
Currently, it’s just a couple of my own usages. But I’d like to incorporate the ideas of others too. How do you use tags?
If you use the format I used in my list, I can easily put it in:
Please share any other feedback about the list! I want this to be accessible and useful to others.
Excellent list! I think that covered all my usages of tags 
A small benefit of tag that I especially appreciate: it makes typo impossible within the tags. I type fast and often make typos. With tags they auto-complete so it’s even faster (especially for longer tags) and they’re always typo free (unless you made a typo in the first tag!).
Another user (I’m not good with names, but the profile pic comes to mind) shared the brilliant idea of using date tags for things like journals.
E.g. #Y3Y4MMDD So today’s (US) tag would be: #170203
It is also important to note (for whoever is reading this) that tags aren’t global yet, so suggestions don’t appear a new document until they’ve been “recreated”.
Very useful guide. Thanks. I’m new to Dynalist, but have used WorkFlowy, Evernote and a who bunch of different tools in the past. I was about to post a question about the difference between # and @ in Dynalist. As far as I can see functionally they are equivalent, so it’s up to you which you use. Is that correct?
If that’s the case it occurs to me that you can use # and @ for different purposes. If you, for instance, use a Kanban type system you could have @backlog, @ready, @doing and @waiting to stage items; and use the # tag to organise more by context and subject e.g. #home, #work, #project, etc. Is that a sensible idea? Any thoughts much appreciates…
You know @Mark_Goodson, I tried using @ and # tags for different purposes for a while, but in the end I decided to just use either of them for the same generic purpose. My use case changed because I started using other tools like Evernote on top of Dynalist, and I’m trying to keep my tags between each tool in sync. Since Evernote doesn’t have the ability to use different kinds of tags like Dynalist does it became easier for me to just ignore the feature in Dynalist. I’m glad the guide was useful though!
Yes, that’s similar to what I originally had in mind. But I currently have no tags organizing items by stage like you do. I should probably adopt a similar system, thank you!
I don’t find myself using tags much anymore. I just use rich keyword text searches instead through dynalist or Chrome CTRL+F searches.
I don’t actually find myself using inbox / task management based approaches either anymore either, just because I could do this with a number of tools (even with stickynotes)
…but only dynalist could handle organizing complex course notes + codesnippets + youtube/bookmark notes + wikis I have to take for my projects
The vast majority of time I use tags is just for the purposes of making my overall document easier to read, since I can control the CSS of my @ and # tags
I had this problem in evernote where I had this huge well-hashed out 1000+ tag structure in evernote, following best practices from many evernote productivity gurus. But I found I only really cared about < 5 tags alltogether.
I use # tags for “bulletpoint” folders through. Like I’ll try and lump all my notes on wordpress in one area. I have about 10-20 bulletpoints across my one document workflow, and each bulletpoint has several # tags associated with it. They all sit at the top level of as well
I use @ tags as a wildcard. Whenever something belongs in two locations, which is rather rare, or if I do a text search, I use @tags. Alternatively sometimes I just link documents together
I find that I just write notes wherever I want and then move those files later to where they should be. E.G. I’ll start writing some systemadmin stuff on my webdevelopment section, then move it later
Also, this is how I organize my folders currently (I wrote lots of posts on how I did it previously)
✪ All project folders here
✪✪ Project A (wordpress)
✪✪✪ 5
✪✪✪ 4
✪✪✪ 3
✪✪✪ 2
✪✪✪ 1
I literally just write whatever problem I’m currently facing and just go top down. I’ll revisit old notes if I run into the same problem, etc
This doubles up as a inbox management / what-to-do next tool / since I can clearly see what problems I am solving, and what things I’m working on
you use many many so high advanced apps, scripts, programs and stylish addons that maybe you dont need that basic functionality but for the rest of us its very useful ! haha
being able to tag the entire notes/docs/pages would be very important/helpful if you can’t search ‘within title only’
Hi.
Nice work.
Another way to use tags is for processing different statuses or stages of work.
e.g.:
Todos could be tagged this way:
#Pending
#WorkingOn
#Done
#Someday/Maybe
Or for a specific workflow like sales and implementation:
#Lead
#MetWith
#Negotioations
#Signed
#Implementation
#Up&Running
#QuarterlyFollowUp
In response to …
E.g. #Y3Y4MMDD So today’s Fri, February 3rd 2017 (US) tag would be: #170203
I dont mind doing this but lets say I want a tag my tasks so i see how many i have to do on a particular date in the tag pane AND i want see these tasks on a calendar… its redundant to input the dates twice…
can we just input one date and have it be on seen in both places?
Regarding showing the date using the above format - I get the two digits for the month and for the date but I don’t understand the “Y3Y4” segment (I do understand that “17” represents 2017). I’m old and doddery - can someone explain the Y3Y4 to me, please?
I think it refers to Y (year) third number and Y fourth.
It took me a couple of minutes to figure it out. . . but I got it eventually! Thanks, Kevin 