If you're like me, you hate to use paper and try to conserve by using as little of it as possible. I've been using that great PDD notebook that Robin Racoma illustrated, but now I'm running out of room...if you're in the same situation, this is a great time to try out a digital notebook program. In an attempt to improve efficiency and effectiveness I've been playing around with the Microsoft Office OneNote program. I use it to take notes for meetings, phone calls, or simply do research. Some of you may have even seen the icon under the Office folder, but never had time to explore it. I've been using it since I got my new computer because it was already installed.One may say, "I use Word to do all my note taking." OneNote allows you to do more than just write text. In addition to allowing plain text, it also allows you to add graphics and images where and however you want. It gives you a free form canvas (just like my trusty PDD notebook), to add these things. It also allows you to organize and file all your notes. It also automatically saves everything in it just like when you close your paper notebook. I'll leave it up to you to explore. Click here for a demo. If you like it, you can download a 60 day free trial too. Or you can take it for a spin to see how it works Click here for a test drive.
Since most of us are very task oriented, one thing I really like is that it can integrate tasks to Outlook. Say you're taking notes and something gets tasked for you to do and you'd like to make sure that you task yourself. You can simply click on the red flag to task an item and it automatically goes to your task list. Depending on how big of a task you may have, it will also link your task to your digital notebook, so it's not just a task, but a task with context. Also when we receiving agendas for meetings, OneNote allows you to save the document into the digital notebook by going to the print command to "send to OneNote".
I wanted to highlight some of the things that I enjoyed about this program. I hope you take the time to explore what it has to offer. It was really easy for me to start using because it's very user friendly. Good luck! Tell me what you think.
Microsoft Office OneNote
Comments
I think it will definitely be something we should look into further as we move to SharePoint. Right now all of us don't have the program (does everyone with new computers have it?). Mahalo for sharing.
I did, however, try the test drive version and viewed the demo. Similar to Christy's thoughts, I particularly like the fact that you can create MS Outlook tasks easily since we use that all the time. I also think there's a lot of potential to integrate this when we have MS SharePoint available to our branch in the future. I'm not sure how much the license for One Note is or if it is part of MS Office suite, so lots of next steps to consider and explore in the future. :)
I like it! I remember you telling me that you've been using it to track what you do each day, but I never got a chance to try it so this was perfect. I've seen the icon on my computer, but wasn't sure what the functionalitites were. I NEVER use pen and paper anymore so I do have a bunch of word documents with little notes saved in a folder called "Notes" which doesn't help when I'm trying to find a specific one. I also like the integration with Outlook and sending tasks directly from your notes. I'd like to go back and read more about the Shared Notes. I'm wondering with our many sub-group if that feature could help me keep things organized and also be able to keep everyone updated with the latest information since not everyone is in every sub-group. Thanks again - I'm looking forward to exploring it more.
Kelly