OneNote Hits The Right Note
I have struggled for years to find ways of keeping myself and my work organized. Usually, I rely on my memory. But lately work and my personal life require more juggling and coordination. I have tried programs such as MS Project (utter misery … I like when other people use it and give me dates for which I can bust their balls), and little devices such as palm pilots. I also have tried several web-based open source tools. But I never found one I could stick with and use on a daily basis. My most successful attempts at organization always are notebooks written in my scribbly hand.I recently stumbled upon Microsoft’s OneNote. I like the way I can organize high-level areas, such as Projects or Operations … and then get more specific, such as Drupal Rollout or Lyris Implementation. It is the first tool I have tried and felt comfortable enough with to build my life and business around.
You can create folders and tabs for hierarchical organization, and then pages within those categories for your content. You can draw, paste in images, create boxes for content and move them around. It also integrates well with other MS products, like Word and Outlook, which makes sending my notes and minutes from meetings extremely easy.
The program can be downloaded and evaluated for 60 days; to buy it costs $99US. Because I am a student at UPhoenix, however, I was able to get the CD (sans documentation) for $29US. Still, I would have paid the full price just to keep using this wonderful little app.
February 12th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Completely agree. One of the best applications to hit a PC in years and a total necessity for any disciple of the Getting Things Done Movement. Apparently OneNote really hits its stride for reporters who can record the audio of a phone interview into the same note that they take their notes into.
Amazing app. There is a good blog devoted to it at MSFT, from one its designers, Chris Prately
http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/default.aspx