You are looking for the note from the meeting where the client changed their mind about the budget. It was in June, maybe July, and you do not remember the title you gave it.
Digging through the tree will get you nowhere. This is the moment to use search.
Searching the content, not just the titles
Note search covers the title and the content. So you can type a sentence you remember, the name of a person mentioned in the middle of a report, or a figure you had written down.
For tasks, search reads the title and the description. But most tasks only have a title, so the title stays your best handle. That is a good reason to name them with a verb and an object rather than a single word: "quote" is hard to find again, "send the Martin quote" comes up straight away.
Search follows the space you are in
That is what explains almost every "I cannot find it".
Search covers the active space. From your personal space, it searches your personal space. If you are working in an organization, it searches that organization's work. Filters count too: categories, date, priority and status for tasks, categories and period for notes.
When nothing comes up, Flots shows "No results found". The item may well exist, but in the other space, or behind a filter you forgot to clear. Check both before concluding it has disappeared.
Check the space and the filters before you worry
The message "No results found" does not mean the item is gone. More often it means it is not where you are looking.
Sorting the results according to what you are after
The "Sort by" button offers three options for tasks and two for notes. Each answers a different situation.
| Sort | Available for | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Recently modified | Tasks and notes | You are looking for what you were working on these past few days |
| Created date | Tasks and notes | You place the item in time, not by its content |
| Finished date | Tasks | You are searching among completed tasks, most recently finished first |
Sorting by recently modified is the default, and the most underrated one. When you are after "the thing I was on before the meeting", that is what answers, and often without typing anything at all.
When you do not know what to type
Task search says so as soon as it opens: "Search or view recently modified tasks". Without typing anything, it shows your twenty most recently modified tasks.
That is useful more often than you would think: picking up the thread after an interruption, finding what you left hanging yesterday, checking what you moved this morning. Opening search and typing nothing is a legitimate way to use it.
What makes search useless
Two habits sabotage any engine, and no feature makes up for them.
Generic titles. "Note", "To do", "Meeting": once you have thirty of them, search hands you back thirty identical results.
Content that lives elsewhere. Whatever stayed in a message, a paper notebook or someone's head will never be found, however good the tool. That is the underlying argument for writing everything in one place, developed in lightening your mental load.
For what you consult constantly, search is not the right answer anyway. Better to pin it to the top of the project, so you can reopen it without typing.
To name and structure what you create well, see anatomy of a task.
Search a sentence, find the note.
