Mastering Apple Notes: A Complete Guide to Boosting Productivity

hey it's Jared in this video I'm going to walk you through how I'm using Apple notes and why I decided to switch to it

a while back now Apple notes has come a long way it used to be fairly basic but once Apple added apple pencil support

and then started building out some additional features and then most recently added Apple intelligence it's

become quite a powerful tool and I've been using it non-stop having switched over from using notion and a handful of

other applications and in another video I'll talk about how using Apple reminders as well so if you're

interested in that and other productivity tips make sure to click that subscribe button so you could be

notified when I put out my next videos let's take a look at Apple notes we're going to look at it on the Mac we'll

look at it on the iPhone the iPad Mini the iPad Pro I have several Apple devices and I will use Apple notes in

different situations and so I'll talk about how I'm using each device as well as we look at the devices and I show you

the way that I have Apple notes set up so that I can keep all of my notes organized now having come over from

notion and having databases and all sorts of crazy stuff set up and having my notes be all over the place I thought

I needed a simpler system which is why I wanted to come back and try Apple notes I know that it is a simpler system and

it has less features and less things that you can do with it the notion but that's what I was looking for something

more simple that got the job done and Apple notes has been doing just that so let's take a look at Apple notes Apple

notes over on the left hand side I'm syncing everything to iCloud I do also have some other email addresses that are

connected in my Apple account and so I could sync them to those but I figured iCloud would be the easiest because it

syncs well across Apple's entire platform when I write a note and then immediately go and grab my phone like as

fast as I can open up my phone the Note is already there so iCloud sync is just extremely fast so I will throw all of my

notes in the main notes folder and then you can see I have all of these additional folders but they have the

gear next to them which means they're smart folders so I don't actually have any notes in these folders these folders

are simply displaying notes based on some criteria and that's what I found as one of the most powerful features of

Apple notes is their smart filters and the ability for me to organize all of my notes into what like folders without

having to drag and drop all the time now what I used to do was just have a whole bunch of folders in here and I'd write a

note it would end up in notes and I'd have to remember to drag it into the appropriate folder and that just took

time and I would forget and I'd go to one of those folders and the note wouldn't be there or I'd forget about

the note because it was hidden somewhere in the notes folder because I forgot to uh move it and so that just became a

process and I was losing notes never to see them again until I just happened to discover that note on accident so I

wanted a better way and these smart folders with the filtering is what changed it for me and I'll show you how

to set those up here in a second so you'll notice that I have all smart folders and then I also have an archive

one down here which is a regular folder and so if I don't want it to be in my notes folder anymore it's a note that

I'm not sure if I need maybe I'm not ready to throw it in the trash can yet but I want it out of my main notes

folder I'll put it down in the archive now if we scroll down you can see that I have a list of tags here and I'm trying

to keep this list from getting out of control when I used to use Evernote back in the day I think I added tags for

everything possible now tags are a way for you to get access to notes regardless of where they're at so if you

did have multiple folders you could also tag notes that might belong in different folders for example if I had a journal

entry that also had something to do with a project and a previous thought that I had logged I could have a tag that would

make it easy for me to find all of them but since I'm using smart folders I can do the same thing so I have a bunch of

tags down here which makes it easy for me to find things that aren't in one of these main categories so I I see these

as categories of notes and then I have tags which are extended categories that means that note could be in just one of

those categories or the note could be in a couple of different categories as well and so tags are a great tool to use but

you have to show some restraint with tags I definitely have to do that if I'm going to add a tag then I have to

believe that I'm going to use that tag again and I'm going to be writing more content in different notes and using

that tag so that way I don't just end up with a whole bunch of tags that are only attached to one single note so that's

the sidebar over here we also have quicknotes which quicknotes works really well especially on the mobile devices

like the iPad you just swipe up from the corner and initiate a quick note or if you have the apple pencil you can just

tap on the screen and initiate a quick note then we have our entire list of notes which is simply just sorted by

date and when I make an update to one of them like for example I updated this journal note here and it brought it all

the way up to today and the reason that I use the date as the title is so that I can remember when this journal entry was

created if I just gave this journal entry a title then I'd struggle to know exactly what the date was and so I use

that format for titling my Journal injuries and I'm trying to get back into journaling a little bit digitally I have

a physical book a physical notebook that I like to journal in because I still just like to write I don't want the

distractions of a mobile device even though the Apple pencil's great and I really do love journaling digitally I've

just struggled to get back into it because I like being totally disconnected when I'm journaling and so

I'll take thoughts and ideas that I Journal down on paper and I'll bring those over into Apple notes so that way

I can sort them tag them and reference them later so there's different ways to view your notes as well you can view a

list or you can view them by icon I like viewing them by list you simply click this button to create a new note and we

have some different formatting options here like changing the style of a text checklists adding a table recording

audio making a link locking a note adding photos Apple intelligence which we'll talk about in a minute or sharing

that note with someone else so Apple notes has a lot of features and I like using it on the desktop when I'm more in

work mode when I'm at my computer and I'm making notes on a project or I'm writing an outline for a YouTube video

or something like that I'll use Apple notes on the computer because then I have my keyboard and it's just a great

experience there now a lot of times I am mobile and I'm using my iPhone and so when I open up my iPhone and I go and

open up Apple notes I have the same view so I get all of my smart folders over here and all of my tags and if I tap on

any of these I get access to all of my notes and then I can click on one of those notes and then the note opens so

it's very easy for me to get access to everything that's in here to hit plus and just add a new note and all that

good stuff and then of course it's going to sync over almost immediately as I create a new note and start to add

something like if I add some text and then hit done it's only going to take a few seconds before it shows up on the

computer and that note is ready for me to edit over there so on my phone I'm typically capturing notes on the fly so

when I think of something or maybe when I hear something uh in an audio book I was listening to or in a podcast I was

listening to I'll come in and just throw a note down really quick and I don't really care too much about what I'm

doing with that note I may have a thought and so I'll add something about that thought and then as I start to

build out this note then I start thinking about the tags like where is this going to go well if it's a thought

that I'm wanting to kind of process more later I will use the tag thought and then when I use that tag thought and hit

done I can go back and look at all of my thoughts and hey here's that note how did it magically appear down there well

because I used a tag and these folders are smart folders so that's the power of the way that I am utilizing Apple notes

is that I can just throw my note in the main note folder doesn't matter because that's where all of the notes live and

then I can just add a tag to it and so if this note was to develop into something that I was going to write an

article or a blog entry on I could add the article or blog or writing tag to it I have a couple of different tags

depending on what I'm going to be writing and then when I hit done and go back and look at my folders and I go

down to writing and I tap on that one hey there's the note it's in that folder as well so now this exists both in the

writing and in the thoughts folder because it's a note that makes sense to be in two different places but if I was

just using basic folders I wouldn't be able to do that I'd have to choose a folder for that note to be in and that

note might make more sense to be in a couple of different places so that when I want to go in and process some more

thoughts it's in that category but then also when I'm ready to start going in and writing and I'm thinking I'm going

to sit down and I'm going to write it's in that folder as well or that category whatever you want to call them and so if

you look at all of the different smart folders I have set up I have action items set up and action items is notes

that have something that I need to take action on right away and I simply use the fire Emoji hashtag for that to show

up so I just add the fire Emoji hashtag to that note so in our little test note that we had if I open up that note so

we'll go and hit hashtag and then fire for the fire emoji and just hit the space bar and then hit done and then if

I go to my action items that is there in the action items and so when I'm done with this and it's no longer an action

item because it's done whatever maybe it's a YouTube video that I needed to film that day it's a note for a client

or something like that I'll just go ahead and delete that and then hit done and then it's no longer in the action

items folder but it is still in the folders that it was existing in before with those two other tags that I was

using so I also have one for business where I'll put notes that are related to different business work projects client

projects and stuff like that that I'm working on I'm currently reading a chapter of scripture from the Bible

every day so I'm making some notes on it and I'm 65 days into that I've been scanning a lot of documents in as well

especially stuff that my kids bring home from school that I want to save but I don't want a growing stack of papers

like this one's pretty funny to me like my daughter wrote down things that she knows about her dad like what color is

his hair and his eyes and his job is working and he loves to eat taco meat just the random things like these are

funny things that I want to save and be able to look back on but just collect ing all of the papers and storing them

somewhere that just doesn't make sense so I scanned that with the phone and then I also added her name as a tag and

slash docs as a tag as well slash docs puts it in the docs folder and then under her name if I was to create a

smart folder for her name which is something I might actually do is create a smart folder for each of my kids so

that I can easily reference any notes that have to do with my kids and my wife I think that would actually be a great

idea and I didn't think about that until now but then I also have some other folders here ideas if I have an idea

that pops into my head I want to save that and that's something that I might process out I use the inbox quite often

for notes that I just want to drop into somewhere and I'm not really sure what to do with it yet it doesn't really fit

into any of these other categories but it needs to go somewhere and so I'll throw it into the Inbox and then

journal's pretty self-explanatory projects are for personal projects that I'm working on like this YouTube channel

and other stuff like that will go into the project folder things around the house stuff like that my thoughts folder

we've already talked about different thoughts I may be watching videos on YouTube and an idea pops up that I want

to think about later and I'll put it in the thought section writing we talked about already and then of course YouTube

for YouTube videos and all that good stuff so this is a great way to organize all this stuff and having it sync across

all of my devices is absolutely fantastic now when I move over to the iPad Mini which is a device I carry with

me quite often because it's so mobile the iPad Pro I know this is like a lot of Apple devices but the iPad Mini is

fantastic for just quick entry and having access to all of my stuff so if the screen is off on the newest iPad

Mini this is the iPad Mini 7 and then this also works this way on the iPad Pro as well if I just tap on the screen it

opens up a quick note I didn't have to unlock the screen on my device or anything it just opens up a quick note

note and I can start writing a note very easy and I have that handwriting refinement turned on that makes my

chicken scratch look a little bit better still very much like chicken scratch but nonetheless it tries to improve it a

little bit and make it a little bit more legible if I'm done with that I could just simply hit the lock button on the

iPad and turn it back off if I open up the iPad Mini I could go in and see my handwritten note that I just added and I

could categorize it I could pretty much do anything that I I wanted I can even type in here one of the things that I

will make sure to do later is come back and add tags to this so that it can go in the appropriate smart folder so how

do you set up a smart folder well you can do that on any device let's take a look at the Mac all we have to do to set

up a smart folder is click on new folder and then give that folder a title so let's just call this smart folder so

we'll just type in then I'm going to click make into smart folder and you see all these other options pop up and might

be a little overwhelming but it's pretty easy to understand now include notes matching all means that any criteria

that I set down here the only way that that note is going to show up in our new smart folder is if it matches all of the

criteria we can set it to any and so long as one of these items matches it will show up in the smart folder so say

for example I wanted and the tag has to be article now I have a tag and all selected now I can also choose all

selected any selected any tag or untagged notes and this is how I have my inbox set up notes that don't have any

tags are going to show up in my inbox and so that's how I know that a note hasn't really been processed because if

I haven't added a tag to it it's going to show up in the inbox until I go through and clean those up by adding

tags to them which then removes them from the inbox so for our smart folder here if I wanted anything with the tag

of article to show up this is all I would have to do now if I wanted it to not only have the tag of article but it

also had to be a dock I would select both of these and with all selected it means that the only items that are going

to show up the only notes that will show up have to have both articles and docs now if I wanted it to show up if it only

had one of those tags either one then I would choose any selected if I went down and chose any tag then it's going to

show any note that has a tag so for my setup that doesn't make any sense I would want it to be any selected and

then I would want it to be article and docs and then I can add more criteria as well not only just tags but I could

choose date created date edited whether it's shared if it's mentioning somebody else if there's checklists in it this is

a good one if you want to use Apple notes for checklist or for to-do lists you can have a special smart folder over

here for lists and it's only going to show notes that have checklists in it which super cool feature that you can do

that attachments that's also Al a good one I could use that instead of the tag docs if I don't want to use the tag docs

I could just use attachments because anything that has an attachment is probably a document and could go in my

docs folder we can also set it to notes that exist in a certain folder which doesn't really work for me because I'm

only using the main notes folder and I have an archive folder and that's about it we can have it show all quick notes

but all quick notes already show up in the top so I know there's other reasons that you might use that it's great that

it's here but not super useful for me me also pinned notes and locked notes as well so there's a lot of additional

criteria that you can use here to customize how notes will show up in these different smart folders and you

could get as creative as you want with these or just be as simple as you want as well now you can see that I have and

a couple of them aren't showing up because for whatever reason they haven't synced over on this Mac even though

they've been there for months but under docs and journal there should be an emoji there and why isn't there an emoji

there and how do you get an emoji there well the easiest way to do that is on a tablet because you have emojis built

right into the keyboard of course you can do that on the Mac as well by pulling up the Emoji Keyboard but I find

it a lot easier just to do that on this device so let's go ahead and tap on that little icon and hit edit smart folder

and then come down here and tap on emoji so you might hit space and then go to an emoji and find an emoji that you want to

use and all you have to do is add that emoji and hit done and then you will see that it now shows up in the name and

that should sync over to all of your other devices for whatever reason on this particular Mac it's just not

updating a couple of the emojis that I set weeks ago on this device but that's fine it shows up pretty much everywhere

else so I'll just go ahead and fix this because I don't want to have that showing up but all I did really was just

add emojis just to make these stand out a little bit more and I like the Emojis it just makes it easier for me to

visualize all of those different smart folders much faster than just reading down the list it differentiates them a

little bit better so lastly I often use my iPad Pro for notes as well and so we'll go ahead and open up that and open

up notes here there's a couple of different ways that I tend to use the iPad Pro now just to make it easier to

see I'm going to go ahead and pop it off here and set it down flat so that you can see the screen a bit better now

right here I have a lot more screen real estate I can see all of my folders I can see all of my notes and I have enough

room here for notes as well I can maximize this and Go full size which is really nice and so it's nice because

there's just a lot more screen real estate on a big iPad like this now one thing that I like to do is use split

screen and so when I am using the Bible app and making notes I want to have the split screen open so that I can

reference something so whether this is a web browser or a Kindle book or something like that and then you have

your Apple notes opened over here it's great to split screen these apps and I have it set with a shortcut so all I

have to do is tap this and it's just going to go ahead and open both of these so how did I set that up well you can go

and open your shortcuts app so we'll tap on shortcuts and you can see here I have the Bible plus notes shortcut that I've

created now if you want to create your own version of that all you have to do is go over into the gallery and then

just type in split into the search and choose split screen apps and then hit setup shortcut it's going to say

configure the shortcut what's the first app you might go and type in notes to have notes show up or I'm right-handed

so I actually would want the notes app on the right hand side so the first app let's go ahead and put Kindle in there

and then hit next and then the second app we would want to be notes and so I'll go ahead and hit notes and then hit

add shortcut so now if I go back to all of my shortcuts you can see I've got one called split screen two apps well I

don't want that I want it to have an actual name so let's go ahead and rename this so just tap on that little down

icon and hit rename we'll delete this and I'll put Kindle and then plus notes done and then back and you can see it

says Kindle plus notes of course I could change the color I can change the icon and all that stuff too to customize this

shortcut so now all I have to do is just tap on that and it will open these up well if I want to add an icon to my home

screen all I have to do to make that happen is tap on this icon and hit add to home screen and then it's going to

allow me to customize this so I might choose the icon uh change the color what have you I can choose the symbol down

here and then hit add then when I go back you can see that it's here now all I have to do is tap on that icon and it

will open up kindle and the notes app and I could be reading a book and making notes over on the right hand side either

handwritten notes or if I have it attached to a keyboard I could just be typing in those notes this is a great

feature that makes it really fast for me to get into a note and also have it side by side with another app I could slide

this around and make the app a little bit wider or more narrow depending on what I want which is great and so this

is just another great way to use Apple notes lastly let's take a look at some of the Apple intelligence features that

are built in now we have the Apple intelligence icon right up here which gives us the ability to use apple

intelligence to proofread something which means it's going to read through it and look and let us know if there are

any grammatical errors any spelling errors anything that it can change we can have it rewrite the item as well so

you can select a sentence a paragraph or the whole body of text and ask it to rewrite it and it will go and try to

make it sound better sometimes I think it makes it sound a little bit like AI wrote it and it loses a little bit of

the essence of the way that I would write but there are times in which what I wrote is not super intelligible what

was coming out of my mouth was just a garbled mess and so I end up using the rewrite feature even if it's just to

help me get an idea of what I should have written or maybe reword that a little bit differently and then I'll go

in and adjust it so that it still sounds like it came from me now we can also choose whether we want that rewrite to

be friendly professional or concise so let's just take a look at what that looks like let's select this box here

and you can see writing tool shows up here that's the same as that icon so if I tap on writing tools you can see that

it will rewrite it let's just choose rewrite and see what it does develop the most informative and userfriendly course

website tailored specifically for solar solar preneurs and small business owners so that's not bad I like it it's a

little bit longer than what I wrote but if I don't like that I can hit revert and it will convert back again if I

choose writing tools I can also choose concise to make a large body of text much smaller I use this quite often when

I have a thought that I've fleshed out and it's too long to post to Twitter or to other short form platforms I use that

to take my thoughts that I couldn't figure out how to make shorter and have it make that more concise it's pretty

great now I can also select a body of text and ask it to give me a summary to identify the key points to create a list

or to put data in a table which is super useful and something that I use quite often so to give you an example here's

some test results that I had from a recent laptop comparison so let's select all of these we'll just go ahead and do

that and then tap on writing tools and hit table and see what it does it's going to go ahead and analyze all of

that and uh look what it did it actually built me a table and that makes sense it has the Benchmark type over here it has

the M3 chip the M4 chip and the same information that I added and then what the difference is and it's in a table so

that's actually pretty fantastic that it was able to take simple bullet points that I created and and turn that into a

table so Apple intelligence in Apple notes is pretty useful and it's one of the main reasons why I keep using Apple

notes the Apple intelligence features I find myself using multiple times every day whether it's to take some thought

that I have and make it a little bit more intelligible or to take data and put it into a table like that Apple

intelligence is adding a ton of value to my Apple notes experience so that's going to do it for this video on how I'm

using Apple notes to be more productive on all of my Apple devices I hope that you learn something from this video and

if you're interested sign up for my Apple productivity course which shows you everything that I do and how I set

up all of my devices and utilize them on a daily basis to be more productive the link for that down in the description

below and I've also included some links to some different items that I use to be more productive such as this paper light

grip for my apple pencil some of the cases that I use on my devices and other stuff that I find useful that improves

my overall Apple experience across my devices but that's it for me make sure to hit that subscribe button if you

found this video useful give it a thumbs up and we'll see you back in another one soon take care