During the writing my previous article focusing on tools for small business, I happened to run across OneNote by Microsoft. It’s a piece of software that I have had on nearly every computer I’ve owned since it first came out and became available on the Mac (and I’ve had it on every Windows device that has drifted through my orbit). I’ve only poked at it a couple of times myself, trying to figure out how to get it to work for me in a variety of ways.
Being an Inattentive ADHD type coupled with a hefty dose of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), trying to find tools that worked for me has always been a passion of mine, in part because I have yet to find the perfect tool for me. Before the comments begin, I am aware that there are NO perfect tools out there, but there are ones that will meet your needs nearly perfectly).
Running the gauntlet of analog to deep-tech integration, it’s been a long journey so far, and one that I don’t expect to end in the short term.
All that being said, what I found during the course of my research for this article wasn’t what I had expected. Instead of putting my focus on a particular set of apps one can use to help streamline aspects of your small business, I found a collection of people who are highly engaged in using OneNote to help them keep their business (and homelife) running smoothly.
I became so fascinated by the dedication to this small piece of software, the more I dug into it, the intrigued I became about finding a way to work it into my own routines (check this space later for a potential update on that process).
Right off the bat, I can see why so many people are such fans of OneNote, ranging from Mac users like myself Windows users. There are even people who use it exclusively on their phones since the smartphone has become the primary computing device for such a large portion of the population.
What is OneNote?
OneNote, is as it sounds: a piece of software that primarily used as a way to keep notes, jot down thoughts, and collaborate with people from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection.
The basic interface of OneNote provides the user with a list of their open notebooks, and within each notebook are sections that can be broken down further into pages. Each page can be a collection of different inputs, from photos to text to handwriting to web-snippets. It’s a catchall that can then be used to take all this information and organize it into something cohesive.
Perhaps one of the most striking things I discovered in speaking with users is how differently people use this tool.
Organize Multiple Projects
I spoke with Ian Graham, a Master’s candidate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology who uses OneNote to organize his professional and educational lives. While pursuing a Master’s degree, Graham also manages the tech department of his company. It is critical for him to keep his work and educational projects separate, but close at hand with one cohesive system.
Collaboration
Looking at their collection of notebooks and sections you could see the care they’d taken to keep everything separate, but in close proximity to potentially related items.
I mentioned the collaboration aspects of OneNote above, and I wanted to go back to that for a moment here. Perhaps the most frequently touted response when asked about some of the most useful features was commentary on the collaboration feature, especially within teams whose members are sometimes separated by continents and oceans.
Being able to have a localized base of operations, as it were, where people can share their notes, mark off items on their task list that others can see and respond to, I have been informed, is incredibly useful and has helped to contain miscommunications and provide a more accurate view of the overall project status.
If you have more than one project going, you could have separate notebooks shared with separate groups of people in order to better track the progress of both.
Another OneNote fan I spoke with, Jessica Hussiere, talked about her love of Check-Lists within a collaboration. Being able to see others checking things off their to-do list allows her to keep up
with her part of the projects more easily. Instead of needing to send an email to ask if something had
been completed, she could just check the Notebook section for that project and find out.
Flexibility
Perhaps the one thing that attracts me so heavily toward OneNote is its flexibility. As somebody who has tried to do a Bullet Journal, attempted use of Omni-Focus, and dabbled in a variety of other Organization type software titles, having the ability to turn any notebook into what you need it to be is liberating.
My personal experience with OneNote during this adventure has been a positive one. That’s not to say that it’s flawless, but I’ve managed to put together a variety of notebooks for both my professional and personal lives.
