How I use OneNote
Chris Pratley writes my favorite blog. He's wondering how other people use OneNote.
My OneNote usage looks something like this:
1) Internet Research - like Chris, I capture bits of pages when I'm researching purchases either personal or for business. The standard copy and paste in OneNote is nice, because it appends the URL from which you copied. I really like the Snipping Tool Powertoy and use that a fair bit also. I used to segregate my personal stuff from work stuff in folders, divided into topic sections. For example, if I'm researching a piece of software (say "Virus Protection), in my Work folder, I'll have a sub folder called Software with a section called Virus Protection-- within that, I might have a page for each product or vendor. I'm finding that lately, I'm using this kind of hard "pigeon holing" in folders and sections a little less, and relying more on search. It would be nice if OneNote could illustrate your folder/section hierarchies a little better -- I know the drop down list to the left of your section tabs does, but an improved paradigm for the tab pallette would be nice. This constitutes about 50% of my OneNote time.
2) Meeting notes and agendas -- I've only recently started aggressively documenting the meetings I'm in because I'm involved in a very complex project and I fear that I might forget or miss something. I'm a touch typist (way faster than my abysmal printing), so I can capture a fair bit ot stuff. I've created some custom stationery for agendas and minutes (similar to the out-of-the-box ones), with a section of blank Note Flags for Action Items-- I can then use the Note Flag summary to see which action items are outstanding. Note Flags rock my world, but I sure wish I could create more... not a whole bunch more, but a few more than 9. I'll often create a summary page (using the "Create Summary Page" button on the Note Summary task pane) to save "point in time" views of action items as MHT files for posting on a SharePoint team site. I do this kind of stuff about 25% of the time I use OneNote.
3) Thinking - Chris calls it an idea scrapbook, but with my relatively small brain constantly filled to capacity, I keep a lot more than just ideas in there. I have a Note Flag called "Thoughts" and another called "Code" (for code snippets). I spend about 25% of my time in OneNote doing this.
4) Ad-hoc web page builder - I use OneNote to help me quickly build MHT files for posting in various places... I do this every now and again.
5) an "E-Wallet" - I have a page buried deep down that I use to store user IDs and passwords for the countless web sites on which I have accounts. It would be nice if I could password protect a page (or a container?!!). I do this once in a while.
My notebook heirarchy is much like Chris's:
Scratchpad (a section where I create things before moving them to their proper place in my folder hierarchy-- sometimes I create things in the right place if I know exactly where they belong)
Work (folder)
Projects (folder)
Administration (folder)
Software (folder)
Hardware (folder)
Personal (folder)
Renovation stuff (section)
Entertainment (section)
Wishes:
- a better way to display the folder and section tabs, so I can orient myself to where I am in my organizational hierarchy.
- the ability to link to containers on other pages
- password protected containers and/or pages
Annoyances:
- I recently tried to plan a weekend getaway for my wife and I to Canmore... I used ink to write Canmore, but the dictionary/recognizer ALWAYS interpreted it as "Can More" no matter what I tried--- so needless to say search never found my ink when I looked for Canmore.
- Note Flag limit-- I'm curious how the development team settled on 9?
OneNote is one application that I CAN NOT live without...
Cheers,
Michael