Intro to OneNote

For those who don't know what it is, OneNote is a new app in the MS Office suite (so we all have a license). I decided to try it out from day one here at ING.

My motivation is this: I (like most people) frequently take notes with paper and pencil. For years, I've been in the habit of maintaining to-do lists with little boxes next to each item. But this is inefficient:

• I type much faster than I write.
• It's easier to type while talking on the phone.
• I can take notes on computer in more places using a laptop.
• All my notes are in one place - on my machine.
  

OneNote is a tool for managing lots of notes.

At first it didn't seem too much different from a plain old word processor. But here are some important differences:

• You never have to create or save files. Rather, you set a directory as your designated OneNote directory (and back it up of course) and OneNote manages the files (including auto-saving).
• You can tag items paragraphs/sentences/bullets with "note flags". You tag items with stars, question marks, rememeber for later, or check boxes. Then you can search all your notes for a given note flag.
• You can also simply draw something on your page freehand or easily take snapshots of some portion of your screen.
  
• The organization for notes is section - page - subpage. Within a page/subpage you create paragraphs/bullet lists/whatever. Each of these items is automatically grouped into a draggable object thingy that makes it very easiy to cut and paste or drag and drop logically grouped info.

So here's a visual. I have a section titled "Trackers", and each page is titled with a tracker ID.














Under my "Meetings" section I have pages titled for each type of recurring meeting. I haven't yet used subpages.

Anyway, I'm really liking it. There are other features of course; these are just the basics. Maybe you will find it useful too!