Me and OneNote, A Love Affair

In September, I went to a conference for work and noticed that all of my European colleagues were taking notes in OneNote. 

I had heard of OneNote but had never used it because I don’t like new things and I just didn't understand why one would need it.  However, I kept watching them and it piqued my interest so much that once I returned, I decided to crack open OneNote on my computer and start playing around.  When I first launched it, I was prompted with this film so I decided to have a see.

Be still my heart!

I was amazed and the seeds of my love affair were sown.

I was soon creating pages left and right.  Each of my projects has its own uniquely colored tab within a notebook called... wait for it... "Projects".  Everything is organized.  I type my meeting notes directly into this instead of writing them and transcribing them at a later date.  I can link my meeting notes from within my project tabs to the notes I keep for the week in my Weekly Notes tab. I can send my emails to OneNote and they show up where they can be organized according to project.  I could go on. 

I kissed my old weekly note database good-bye and moved everything to OneNote, which another great feature, it auto-saves so you never have to hit Save again!!!!  (I admit there was a learning curve here for me and I initially was annoyed at the lack of a Save option before I understood there was no need.)

And then last week…  I was putting stars everywhere to tag items that I needed to remember wishing there were other tags I could use when lo and behold, I saw the option for a tag-a-palooza of options.  There were things like like “Question” (a question mark), “Password” (a lock), etc.  AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! 

And then when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I decided I needed to make a page to get my to-do list together (aka everything I tagged).  Glancing at the Home tool bar, I discovered the Find Tags button.

OMG

Me and OneNote.  We had a moment.  Mr. should have been green with envy.

So now, I had a side-panel (aka Tag Summary) with all my things to remember.  Could life get better?

It could. 

Because today I discovered the Create Summary Page button at the bottom of the Tag Summary panel and on clicking it, it actually put all of my tags into ONE page!!!!!  No longer do they just exist in a side view.  AHHHH!!!!!

The last thing I got even closely as excited about on the technology front was my iPhone. So this is big. 

But, life isn’t perfect and before I got around to divorcing Mr. in order to marry OneNote, I discovered that while the Summary Page is fab, it doesn’t auto-update for new tags….  Sad face. 

My enthusiasm was somewhat tempered but  I realized I am not perfect either (shocking I know) so I am not going to let this ruin our relationship.

So, I went back into OneNote and experimented with inserting files.  Suddenly the sun was out and all was right with the world.

Me + OneNote 4Eva