I have over 5,000 notes in my Evernote database. I rarely look through them. It contains the results of nearly 10 years of capturing bits of ideas, pieces of inspiration and projects I want to work on someday. Because it isn’t easy to review that many notes, I rarely did – until recently.

Thanks to a web-based tool called Reflect (reflectapp.io), I now have a practical way to uncover and capitalize on my best ideas. It is a web-based tool that converts my Evernote database into a series of “flash cards” – one per note – and displays them to me in random collections on a daily basis.

How Reflect works

You do this by setting up one or more “filters” in this application. Within a filter’s settings, you can tell Reflect:

• Which notebooks it should index for review
• Which tags, if any, I want Reflect to focus on
• How many times each note should appear in a review (he default behavior is once)
• How many flashcards should be included in each review
• How many times a day should Reflect alert you of new cards to review (the default frequency is 1)

As Reflect’s developer explains his creation, “The more you review, the more you remember.” Makes sense!

I’ve experimented with several sizes of filters. Five or ten is just about right. Twenty-five is too many.

Although Reflect doesn’t allow me to edit notes directly, it does enable me to tag them and assign them to folders. When I find a particularly valuable note, I move it to one of a small set of action folders I have set up to collect my highest value ideas.

Reflect also enables me to open the note in Evernote, where I CAN edit or update it. I can also delete notes directly from Reflect – ideal for culling those old notes that don’t have any current or potential value.

This simple tool works on mobile devices, too, using their web browser. This enables me to do my daily reviews any time, anywhere – a real convenience considering my busy life.

The incredible, unseen value of Reflect.io

One of the structural challenges of Evernote is that older ideas get pushed down In the pile of notes by newer ones. That means ideas tend to get buried quickly unless you are very rigorous about utilizing folders, tags and alarms to keep your most important ideas top of mind. In other words, creating a system of either folders or tags to keep these “MVIs” (Most Valuable Ideas) is essential if you ever want to see them again.

During the last month in which I’ve been using Reflect, I feel like I’ve been digging in a vein of pure gold. I’ve uncovered some awesome articles I’ve almost finished that never got published for some reason, some idea nuggets that have an awesome amount of potential and much more.

I love it!