How to use tags in a task app without making a mess

Tags are the most flexible organising tool in any notes or task app, and that is the problem. With no rules, a tag list grows to dozens of labels: #work, #Work, #job, #office, #acme, #ACME-project, #q3, #urgent, #important. Within a year, nobody (including you) knows which one to use, so you stop using them, and the tagged items become as hard to find as the untagged ones.

Here are the rules I use. They are boring on purpose.

Rule 1: tag for retrieval, not description

Ask: will I ever want to see all items with this tag together? If yes, it is a tag. If no, it is description, and belongs in the text.

#acme (all work for a client) passes. #interesting fails, because you will never search for “everything interesting”.

Rule 2: keep the list short

Ten to fifteen active tags is plenty for most people. If you have more, merge. Common keepers:

• Areas or clients: #acme, #home, #hiring.
• Contexts, if you batch by place or tool: #calls, #errands.
• A waiting tag: #waiting for things blocked on others.

Rule 3: one spelling, lowercase, no spaces

Decide on lowercase and hyphens (#client-acme) once. Many apps treat tags case-insensitively, but your eye does not. Consistent spelling is what makes autocomplete useful.

Rule 4: dates are not tags

#today, #thisweek and #q4 go stale on the first day of next week. Use the app’s date fields for time. A date brings a task back; a tag just labels it.

Rule 5: priority is not a tag either

#urgent, #important and #p1 multiply quickly and mean less over time. Use the app’s priority or importance flag if it has one, and use it sparingly. In Jot, a standalone ! marks a capture as important - it needs spaces on both sides so “call now!” does not count. See four tokens and a date.

Rule 6: tag at capture, clean up weekly

Adding a tag while typing the capture costs a second if the tag is already in your head. Fixing missing or wrong tags is a job for the weekly review, not for the moment of capture. See a ten-minute weekly review.

Rule 7: prune quarterly

Every few months, look at the tag list. Merge synonyms, delete tags used once, and archive tags for finished projects.

Tags vs lists vs folders

• Lists (or projects) are for things that belong in exactly one place and that you work through together.
• Tags are for cross-cutting groups: a client who appears in several projects, a context like #calls.
• Folders are for reference notes, not tasks.

Jot has both: >list sends a capture to a named list, #tag labels it, and both are read out of the line as you type. “Invoice Acme friday >finance #acme” is a todo in the finance list, tagged for the client, due Friday.

The test

A good tag system passes one test: when you search for a tag, you trust that the results are complete. If you do not trust it, simplify until you do.

For more on organising digital material in general, the PARA method from Tiago Forte is a sensible framework for notes, even if you only take the idea of organising by actionability.

Jot is on the Microsoft Store.

Jot is a quick-capture app for Windows: one hotkey, one line, back to what you were doing. What it is, or what is still unproven.