OneNote Review

Aug 16

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A few years ago when I looked at all the features that OneNote provided and compared it to the features of many other note taking programs, OneNote did not come out on top.  I liked it.  I really did.  It was just missing a feature that others had that I really liked — syncing over multiple computers.  Evernote (and others) had it and OneNote didn’t.

I was so frustrated because I really liked many of the features of OneNote and wanted to use it as my main note taking source.  It organizes information very neatly and intuitively.  It has tagging for using different categories across organization branches.  It has a lightning fast search.  It works well with other Microsoft programs like outlook and internet explorer.  It can link to files, folders, websites or to other notes within the program.  Really, it had everything I would have wanted in a note taking program and more except internet syncing.

I used multiple computers over the course of a day and didn’t want to have to copy all the files on a USB drive every day to transfer.  Believe me, I tried to do that and it gets unwieldy very quickly.  All you have to do is forget the drive one day and then the different copies don’t match and it’s a big mess.  Not only that, but it’s a big hassle to ferry your information between different computers multiple times a day.

Unfortunately, Evernote is much more disorganized and its harder to find most types of stored information, so that didn’t really fill my needs either.  Therefore, a few years ago I basically abandoned all the note taking programs as too impractical for my needs.  I ignored all the note taking software systems until…

…OneNote 2010 came out.  With it came internet syncing!!  I was so happy I got it and put it on my home computer, my laptop, my work computer and my wife’s computer.  I highly recommend getting OneNote.

Why even use note taking software?

Aug 14

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The usefulness of note taking software is questioned by many people.  What’s wrong with pen and paper or just remembering things?  Plenty of things are wrong with those methods.  First of all, we often write things down because it is difficult to number everything that we need to know.  Second, when you write something down that you need to remember, you have to decide where to put it in how to organize it. Organizing is where it gets difficult for most people who are trying to record their thoughts, ideas, or anything else that they might want to remember later.  Then you have to remember where you put it when you need it.

Note taking software makes organizing your notes a million times easier. Honestly, I’m not exaggerating that much either.  In many cases when I want to remember an idea,  so I write it down.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve written down so many ideas and then placed them in a place that I was never able to find that I’ve lost count. I’ve even tried to organize them with folders, different notebooks, different note pads, , etc. You name it, I tried it.  A note taking program is the easiest and fastest solution I’ve found. Finding the information later is the most important thing because if you can’t find what you’re looking for when you need it, there is not much point in recording it.

One of the most common items that note taking software helps people organize and reference is to dos. By using the program as your to do software alongside with your notes for reference, ideas, links, and any other lists or notes, you make your to do list more effective. Because, after all, your actions  are often related to other ideas that are not to dos.

As I got more and more into using note taking programs, I realized how powerful it was to have an intuitive organization system that makes things easy to find.  I slowly began to realize that OneNote, while having its flaws, had easily the most intuitive setup. Therefore, it was the easiest to start using.  Not only that but it is very easy to find notes that I wrote a long time ago because, again, the organizational layout just makes sense.