Take note: Organize your ideas with ease

Make the most of OneNote and never buy a notepad again

By Cindy Waxer

These days, being surrounded by dog-eared, hand-scribbled sticky notes on everything from your office computer to the refrigerator door is just par for the course in the life of any multi-tasking Canadian. Fortunately, there is a way to eliminate paper clutter without losing track of important tasks.

No longer the exclusive tool of students, Microsoft Office OneNote is an ideal application for organizing every aspect of your life, from planning a Sunday family brunch to reupholstering your living room furniture. That’s because OneNote allows you to capture, organize and reuse your notes electronically on laptops or desktop computers.

“It’s the ultimate notebook because it never gets full,” says Andrew Crighton, a father of three. “You never have to change to a new notebook.”

Using it at the office

Crighton juggles his fair share of projects. OneNote helps him stay on top of everything from client meetings to creative endeavours.

Crighton uses the program with his laptop to type notes during interoffice brainstorming sessions. He says OneNote allows him to create separate folders containing notes on must-buy music CDs as well as contact information for upcoming fundraising events. And because OneNote integrates with other Microsoft Office programs, he can easily send this contact information to people in his Outlook 2007 address book for easy access in the future.

Whatever types of files he creates, Crighton loves the organizational virtues of OneNote’s tabbing system. It allows him to divide his notes into three levels and browse through them in a simple, intuitive and very visual way.

“In the real world, most people’s file cabinets get messy and unwieldy very fast,” he says. “In the OneNote file cabinet, everything is beautifully ordered and infinitely flexible.”

Making it work with other programs

Neman Syed knows all about OneNote’s unique features. Syed is an Information Systems (IS) applications and training specialist at the Law Society of Upper Canada and runs his own technology consulting firm in Toronto. As a professional trainer, Syed commonly recommends OneNote to his team members. For example, he recently introduced the tool to a colleague who was saddled with the overwhelming task of developing a disaster recovery plan for the organization.

“Because she had to conduct dozens and dozens of interviews with all the key players in the Law Society, I recommended that she use OneNote,” says Syed. As a result, his co-worker was able to create audio recordings of her interviews with OneNote that were “tied” to her text notes. She could later click on a text note and automatically jump to that part of the recording.

Organizing your everyday life

Keeping track of hot CDs and lengthy interviews are only part of OneNote’s capabilities. Having trouble picking out the right colour of paint for your daughter’s bedroom? Simply capture screen images from your favourite home design web sites and import them into OneNote so that you can carry your design ideas to the paint store.

Planning a family reunion picnic? Use OneNote to insert details on Aunt Betty’s food allergies, import photos taken with a digital camera to better visualize a seating plan, and create glossy invitations by saving your notes as a Word document and importing them into Microsoft Publisher.

So throw away those fluorescent-coloured sticky notes and let OneNote make better sense of your hectic home and work life.

Click here to download a free OneNote trial