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One of my favourite productivity tools is Microsoft OneNote. It is a simple but powerful personal information management tool designed by a frustrated Microsoft employee on his lunch breaks about 15 years ago. He was frustrated because he was organising much of his work electronically using MS Outlook but still had to carry a paper notepad to meetings.
I am surprised that although OneNote has been on our computers since 2003, many of us still don’t use it, or only use a fraction of its capabilities. I am a deep user, interacting with it as much as I do with my calendar or Inbox in Outlook. I thought it might be helpful to list the different ways I use it for work and personal to manage information in my world. Hang tight – this is a long list! I hope it inspires you and gives you some ideas.
- I use OneNote to capture and manage my meeting notes, often dictating them directly into OneNote, or having Copilot summarise automatically for me
- I use it to capture discussion items for my 1:1 discussions with team members and key stakeholders
- My team and I store key documents that we use regularly in OneNote for quick access
- I keep key project information in my Projects notebook, including plans, documents and meeting notes
- I capture ideas for books, blogs and thought leadership (at the moment I have an ideas Notebook for AI research)
- OneNote is my go-to place for cooking and online recipes. I often print recipes from the internet directly to OneNote and have even listed my favourite recipes from books in OneNote so I can remember where to find my favourite recipes
- I compile travel and upcoming trip information in a travel notebook – ticket confirmations by email, research, websites, itineraries, visas, etc…
- I have a page listing my neighbours’ names along with their kids’ names (I am sorry, I can never remember them all)
- I keep a copy of all my insurance documents in this one central place
- I have recently listed all my TV and Podcast subscriptions and their status, as I lose track of what I is active or inactive
- I have pictures of all the plants in our garden and their names in case I kill them and need to replace them
- I capture wines I like in my personal notebook so next time I am shopping I can use my phone to recall the ones I liked
- I play the guitar badly, but keep the chords to a few songs I can belt out at a party in OneNote, again accessed through my phone
- Chauntelle has documented all our processes and procedures in OneNote for new starters
- And, of course, I keep a list of newsletter and blog ideas, so I always have something to write about when the time comes
There is more, but I think you get the idea. OneNote is much more than a tool for meeting notes – it is your personal information management system. It works on your PC, your phone or your tablet. Notebooks can be used by you alone or shared with your team. OneNote talks to Outlook and vice versa. Certainly not just a one-trick pony. So clever, and yet so underused.
Have a think about how you could up your OneNote game.