The AWESOMENESS of OneNote!

As I begin the transition to a #100percentdigital workflow and practice, I’ve begun to evaluate different apps, and how they can support my work, or ideally, improve my process.  There will be many posts to come as I try various apps.

My assistant Jill has been trying to get me on OneNote for months.  Others had recommended EverNote, but Jill said that’s just because they “don’t know the AWESOMENESS of OneNote.”   I asked Jill to write a guest blog on OneNote.

Here’s Jill:

The awesomeness of OneNote is that it is an extremely versatile tool.  It takes notes, is accessible from almost any device including your phone, iPad and web browser.  Best of all…it’s FREE!  Think of OneNote as a digital binder.  It’s made up of notebooks with page dividers/tabs and pages within those separate tabs.  I keep a OneNote ‘binder’ for every project that I work on.  It’s great for not only keeping historical data but can be used as a type of Wiki/Google Docs tool.  And really, what’s not to love about that?

Let’s take a look at just a few of the features of OneNote:

• Note taking – This is not just a simple note-taking tool.  You can take notes on the fly at a meeting and then organize them later when you’ve got a moment to digest and work on them.  You can make notes, agendas, ideas, lesson plans, etc. and email them to others.  You can make instant tables, bulleted notes, tag your notes, and move your notes around from page to page quickly and easily.  For those who want simplicity, there are academic and business templates as well as decorative templates if you just feel like making things pretty.
• Audio note taking –OneNote has a feature that gives you the ability to record audio and video which you can play back and then take notes later allowing you to be able to pay attention during your meeting/lecture.  Pure awesomeness.
• Sharing – You can share your notebooks with as many people as you’d like.  Changes are live and interactive and everyone can make edits/changes once the notebook is shared.  You don’t have to share the entire notebook, either.  You can simply email a page and they can add it to whatever OneNote notebook they’re currently using (or not).
• Stylus – If you have writing capabilities on your device, OneNote can handle that.  It also has the ability to convert the ‘ink to text’ so it’s legible for, you know, everyone.
• Office Lens – This feature scans whiteboards and documents while cropping and rotating pictures to enhance image quality.
• Screen shots – You can take a screen clipping of anything on your device, whether it be a webpage or just a shot of whatever’s open on your monitor.
• Documents – Yes, documents can be saved and inserted into OneNote.
• Emails – You can send your emails to OneNote for future (and quicker/easier!) reference.
• Math – If you’re like me and can’t quite comprehend doing math in your head, OneNote can do adding and subtracting (yes, without a calculator) as well as calculus equations.

These are just a few of the things that OneNote can do.  Obviously there are so many more features/options within OneNote that aren’t listed here.  Give it a spin, play around with it and be a part of the awesomeness of OneNote!

Thanks, Jill!  I’ll be working with OneNote to see whether it’s the solution to my workflow needs.

I’ve now been on the #100percentdigital transition for one week (my iPad arrived exactly one week ago).  Right away I learned the importance of a community in achieving the #100percentdigital goal.  Next post: It Takes a Village!