I do this using Smart Rules. Here’s my scheme.
I define a keyboard shortcut in DEVONthink for the “Take Note” panel (see the Preferences, in the panel for Sorter, the “Take Note Hotkey”.) This lets me pop up the note taker panel at any time, no matter what application I’m using at the time.
I established a convention for myself for writing quick notes: I start those notes with @ followed by a keyword, such as @self, @family, etc. Here’s an example of what I mean:
Then, I have a set of Smart Rules, one for each destination corresponding to the keywords. Here’s an example:
The condition tests the name of the note against the keyword. (If you don’t type a name for the note, DEVONthink uses the body; this is why testing the name is enough and you don’t need to test the body too.) The actions do things that fit my needs, and you would probably want to do something different, but the gist is:
- move the note to the destination folder
- remove the keyword from the note’s name (i.e., the final note will not have
@selfin the name, because I find that pointless once it’s filed in the destination folder) - prepend the current date to the note’s name
- mark it as read and give it a specific label
Again, you would probably want to change the actions to suit your needs.