MS LoveNote

Yes. That's the Freudian slip I came out with when I was telling Russ, AD's "IT guy" how enamoured I've recently become of Microsoft's OneNote.

Yes, I know I'm about three years behind the curve on discovering this one, but it came as a surprise to me.

When I first loaded it, I thought of it as a note taking tool. Since I "scribe" my notes with illusrtations, AutoDesk's Sketch Book Pro wound up being a better tool.

However, at lunch the other day people were talking around the table about how they use it, and I realized the functionality of it is way more than simply taking notes. Though the OneNote software is simply an electronic notebook with dividers and sections and pages, here are the cool parts:

1) You never have to save anything. Once you type it, it is there.
2) It maintains source links from whatever you copy/paste from the web.
3) It has a snipping tool so you can easily screen capture and paste.
4) It has a recording feature that tracks with your meeting notes.
5) Flagged items appear in your Outlook as tasks.

Of course, my favorite part is in the application. One of my notebooks contains the flow of all of the notes of my day. People I talk to, tasks that need to be done, status of projects. Everything I need to write down is written there. So, three months from now, when Joe Smith calls me again, I can search for "Joe Smith" in the notebook and immediately have the notes from our previous conversation. (Pragmatically, each month has a tab and each day has a page with full pages of notes on a given topic slipped in where I need them.)

Information can be tagged and the notebook format of it allows me to easily organize every piece of information, every conversation, and every thought I have in a day.

Most of our office uses the electronic notebooks in a shared format for projects.

All in all, it is definitely worth a test drive.

© Cathy Hutchison 2008