Tag Archives: OneNote

60 Second Productivity, Techniques

OneNote Tip for Expanding Text

If you use both OneNote on the desktop and OneNote on mobile (iOS or Android) you may have encountered the problem I see all the time:  changing between a mouse and touch interface.  Here’s the situation. If I create a list of links on the desktop in a OneNote page they’ll work fine until I go to access that page on my mobile device.  It’s at that point I find the lines are two close together and difficult to select.  Now I could zoom in on mobile, and I could also increase the font if I wanted something more permanent, but there’s a third option.

Try this next time you have a list you know you’re going to interact with both on desktop and mobile.  Select the list on your desktop and go to Home > Paragraph Alignment > Paragraph Spacing Options.  Set the spacing option for after each paragraph to a minimum of 6 pixels and then click Ok.

The list will be reformatted to include a six pixel gap between the lines.  Even more effective is to do this at the beginning when  you create the list so the gaps are added automatically each time you press Enter.

By doing this you’ll give yourself a way to have neat, organized lists that work both on your desktop as well as on mobile.

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Coaching

Using OneNote as an Offline Reader

One of the things I use OneNote most frequently for is to gather articles for reading and reference.  Reading content on the web has been tackled by apps like Pocket and Instapaper, but I wanted to the ability to keep everything in one place integrated with my other notes. Most applications don’t allow this dual-functionality. However my primary note taking tool does, and here’s how I put it to use.

Web Clipping is Key

For this solution to work, you’ll need the OneNote Web Clipper. Once it’s installed in your browser (this is for desktop…on mobile the steps are different) you can then log into your OneNote instance and enable the extension. From here it’s a simple enough matter to start capturing web content into OneNote.

Go Browsing

When you find a web article you want to keep and read offline, click on the Web Clipper and select the Article option from the choices. You could use the full page, bookmark, or region options, but only the Article option captures the text in an easier to read format.  You then designate in what notebook and which section you want to save the article and click on Clip.

One of the features I frequently take advantage of is the option to add notes when capturing rather than having to wait until after you capture the content. At the top of the web clipper you can enter text that is saved when you save the article.  It’s a great way to annotate your information especially when you’re capturing multiple articles in a row.

Another of my favorite features is highlighting when clipping.  In the Web Clipper after selecting the Article option, go to the top of the clipper and click on the highlighter icon.  You can now highlight text in the clipped article before it is saved and the highlighting will be passed along when the article is saved.  I use this frequently because it gives me a chance to identify why I saved an article as well as key points of interest.

This isn’t a perfect tool by any stretch.  Some pages are a struggle for the clipper to simplify, even to the degree there are certain pages it won’t even touch with the Article option. If you’re able to find a page to save (normally text articles work best) you can then use all the features of OneNote to extend your experience: creating hyperlinks, highlighting, searching, comments, handwritten notes, etc.

Is this better than other apps?

There are definitely nice features in the dedicated apps, but if you’re looking to cut down the number of apps you’re using and keep your content centrally accessible, I’d recommend looking into the OneNote Web Clipper as an excellent way to streamline your platform.

Coaching

Seven tips for success using OneNote as a project knowledge repository

If you’ve ever worked on a project (and if you’re reading this article I’d say it’s safe to say you have) then it’s likely you’ve encountered the challenge of sharing information among your team members. Keeping everyone on the same page and informed with what is going on frequently turns into hours spent creating and sharing meeting minutes, summaries, and then in the worst cases having meetings to discuss the meetings. Makes me shiver just thinking about it.

Enter OneNote. If you’re using Microsoft Office 365 then OneNote is already available to you. The trick is to put it to use. Let’s go over the key challenges and steps you need to take to use OneNote as a project knowledge repository.

Step 1 – Get your team on OneNote

No matter how much effort you put into building your knowledge repository in OneNote unless your team is already using the tool, you will have limited success. Make sure they have the application installed (I recommend using the Desktop version whenever possible due to the depth of features but you can use other versions as well) and are comfortable with the basic navigation of the tool.

Step 2 – Create a Knowledge Index

When it comes to managing information for a project in OneNote I recommend creating a separate notebook for each project at a minimum. This setup helps you organize and segment the project information making communication and management more efficient. Unfortunately without an index, the information within the notebook can become difficult to locate and use. By adding an index page to your notebook and creating links to the relevant content areas in your notebook as you create them, your team has a starting place for locating their information.

Step 3 – Create templates

One of the most important aspects of a knowledge repository is the consistency of the answers. If you go looking for a piece of information and then need a similar piece on a different topic, you’re wasting time interpreting inconsistent structures for the information.

Page templates provide not only a faster way to create uniform content in OneNote and prevent information from being forgotten during capture. The best example of a built-in template is when you use the Meeting Details function to set up a page to capture meeting minutes. The structure includes all the basic information you need for your meeting minutes with a single click.

Step 4 – Use sync for distribution

OneNote can sync content changes across notebooks for users. Rather than sending email after email, you can use this to make sure everyone has the most recent updates in hand. Sync can be a little temperamental at times so you need to train your team on troubleshooting and version tracking. If you absolutely have to send an email (I’m looking at you entitled executives) you can use the Email Page function to send a copy of a OneNote page to an email recipient.

Step 5 – Use section groups and sections to manage processes

Often we’ll have project information that needs to go through several stage gates before being considered complete. You can use the section groups in OneNote with sections inside to create these stage gates for moving content through to completion. Let’s take the example of creating content for a website. If you have a section group for “Content Creation” and then add sections inside for each step in the creation process you can move items between sections as they progress through your stage gates. The idea is somewhat similar to what you do with a Kanban board for managing processes.

Step 6 – Consistent updates

I have seen the majority of failures when using OneNote as a project repository when it is not used consistently. People have to develop trust in the tool as their system of record. If updates are not happening on a regular and reliable basis that trust will languish and die. The fact that OneNote takes over the work needed for distribution should free up cycles for providing more timely content.

An excellent example comes from our old friend, meeting minutes. So often these are captured, crafted, emails created, and distributed only to result in people “not getting the emails” or not reading them once they’ve arrived. If you’re using a shared notebook in OneNote, as you capture the minutes they can be available in real-time with no extra distribution work needed. Some project managers like to keep draft copies and “cleanse” the notes before sending them out and that’s easily done in OneNote as well. Capture your notes in a “draft” notebook and when you’re ready to distribute them copy the page to the correct section in your team notebook. As soon as the page sync is finished your team receives the meeting minutes. Even if they can’t get emails, they can still access the shared notebook at any time for reference.

Step 7 – Teach your team how to search

“I can’t find that information.” How often have we heard that? OneNote can be the panacea for your team especially if they struggle with locating information. On large or information-heavy projects, the search function of OneNote has saved my proverbial bacon any number of times. Whether you need to search in notes, meeting minutes, printout attachments, or screenshots, the information in the notebooks is at your fingertips.

Let’s take the example of a statement of work for a project. We all know these tend to be difficult to find specifically what you’re looking for when called on the spot during a client meeting. But what if you could have a copy of your statement of work, including your annotations about details around the requirements stored within OneNote just a search box away. Now you can find the “RACI Breakdown” or “Payment Schedule” on-demand rather than digging through cloud storage. Even more important, if it’s sensitive information for your project you can password protect a section while still keeping everything in one place.

The tip of the iceberg

There are dozens of more things to take into consideration when it comes to using OneNote as a project tool, but these seven steps will at least get you started down the right path. If you’re looking to get started down this path and have questions or want to learn more, you can find additional resources at some of these great locations:

OneNote for Professionals on Facebook

The Idea Pump on Facebook

Personal Productivity Club

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Coaching

Are subtasks useful?

Many of the task management applications available today offer the feature of subtasks: tasks that are embedded or tracked under a parent task.  For example, if you have a task called “grocery shopping” the subtasks may be all the items you need to pick up at the store.  In this case, the subtasks are functional and useful, but is this always the case?

One of the challenges I’ve run into is in many applications the subtasks are hidden within a task and are difficult to access from the master list of tasks.  This creates a couple of problems.  First, things can be easily missed because they are not visible.  Second,  and this is my larger issue with them, is they can create a false sense of the amount of work ahead.  If you have a task that has two subtasks, a task with 20 subtasks, and a task with no subtasks, at the task level they all look equal.  It’s that misleading sizing that causes the issue. A good tool will show you not only the task, the presence of subtasks, but also the number of subtasks.

Let’s have a look at how you can handle subtasks in some popular productivity tools.  Some of these are not dedicated to task management but are popular enough to be used for it frequently.

Todoist

Todoist is an example of an application that does subtasks right.  Not only can you create subtasks on any task, but when  you view the task itself the application tells you that you have subtasks, how many, and how many are incomplete.  Can’t ask for much more than that.

Any.Do

The Any.Do mobile application tells you a task has subtasks but not how many.  The Windows application shows the number of subtasks as well as the number remaining completion.  This is where I struggle with platforms…this inconsistency between their mobile and desktop applications.

Workflowy

While not a dedicated task management application, tasks can be tracked to completion through the interface.  This doesn’t support subtasks in the same manner as the other applications as they are indented tasks in an outline format with no roll up to their parent task.  This accomplishes the same goals for the most part, but there is no tracking of subtask quantity or degree of completion.

OneNote

OneNote works in a similar manner to Workflowy with no real subtask functionality available.  It can be challenging to manage tasks within OneNote but it’s flexibility in an outline structure can mitigate the difficulties.

While there is no way to avoid having subtasks within task lists in some form, keeping them visible and under control makes all the difference working them into a task management solution. If you are going to introduce subtasks into your lists I recommend trying them on just a couple of tasks first before diving into the deep end with them.

60 Second Productivity, Education, Techniques

Super Powered Highlighters in OneNote

One of the features of OneNote is the option to apply highlighting to any section of text on a page. This is easily done by using the highlighting tool in the Basic Text toolbar.  You can select the color of your highlight and click and drag to apply. But what if I told you there is a far better way to do highlighting, especially if you’re using OneNote for studying and research?

Rather than using the highlighting tool, create a custom tag for each type of highlight you need. Let’s say for example you’re prepping for an exam and you have definitions, quotes, dates, and procedures to recall. In the Tags section of the ribbon bar, select the drop down arrow under the tags scroll bar and select Customize Tags from the bottom of the list.

Creating custom highlighters

Once selected, give the new tag a name like “Definitions”, choose a highlighter color, a font color if desired, and a symbol if desired. Select OK and your new highlighter tag is added to your list of available tags at the top.  You can reorder these if desired.

Reaping the benefits of the custom tags

Where this comes in handy is when you use the Find Tags feature and group the tags by the tag name. Now all the definitions you have highlighted are together, as are all the quotes, dates, and procedures. If you really want to take this to the next level come study time, select ‘Create Summary Page” to generate a new page including all your highlighted content and direct links to it back in your original notes.

When it comes to a research and learning tool, OneNote can be a huge time saver and increase in productivity as you work on your studies.

Office 365

Using OneNote for Procedure Management

If you’re responsible for either using or managing procedures in your work (and to be honest, who isn’t?) you need some way to not only keep track of the procedures but also what is necessary to successfully execute and measure them. OneNote can be an excellent tool for doing this by applying some of it’s core features to the problem at hand.

Many organizations use dedicated applications to track and manage operational procedures, but just as many do not. We’ve all dealt with groups who keep their procedures in Word documents with artificial, templated structures to create some semblance of organization. This is an unnecessary creation of work and can be much more easily managed using OneNote.

If you have existing procures written in applications such as Microsoft Word, I recommend attaching them in a OneNote notebook as a file printout. Not only do you get the contents in a readable format but you also get the file attachment, plus the content is easily searchable.

Maintaining editable procedures

Procedures are one of those things that take on a life of their own and are in a constant need of updating and revision. OneNote makes this process simple using the History features of OneNote 2016. Unlike Track Changes in Word, History shows edits, edits by Author, page versions, and even a notebook level recycle bin. All of these come in handy as procedures are updated and revised.

A common question I get about this though is how do I protect my procedures from being changed? I want them “etched-in-stone” and not able to be changed unless they go through a formal review and approval procedure. Yet again, OneNote to the rescue. The simplest way to achieve this feat is to render your procedures as a PDF file for distribution. A quick application of the Export function can make a PDF of a page, section, or notebook available for distribution and reference. The pro tip for this is to combine the PDF with a new OneNote notebook and add the PDF as a File Printout. Not only do you get the file, but each page is viewable in the OneNote notebook, searchable, and ready for additional notes without violating the integrity of the original procedures.

Sharing Procedures Among Team Members

When you have a team working with common procedures, it’s important that everyone have access to the most recently approved procedures and is able to find the relevant content at a moment’s notice. Leveraging shared OneNote notebooks among team members makes this an easy task with any changes automatically populating out to each person for quick reference. I recommend adding a change log to the beginning of your notebook and deep linking to pages that have significant updates for access. Additionally you can use the tags capability to highlight key areas in a procedure for quick reference and consolidation.

Maintaining Gold Copies of Procedures

If you need to retain “gold copies” of your procedures for audit purposes you can use the password protect feature of OneNote to keep copies under lock and key. Additionally the PDF export also works as an excellent way to create historical copies of your procedures for reference. Remember, by default anyone who has access to a shared notebook can edit the contents of that notebook, so creating protected copies requires additional steps outside the normal features of OneNote.

Scheduled Revision Tracking

Good procedural management requires regular review and updating of procedures to maintain relevancy and accuracy. OneNote can assist with this as well, whether it’s through something as simple as a table page linking to each procedure page, when it is to be reviewed, when it was last reviewed, and who completed the review. You can build on this approach by using the Outlook Tasks feature under Home in the menu bar to create tracking tasks for when items are to be reviewed. Additionally, since each page can generate a direct link to the page (right-click on the page in the page list and select “Copy link to page”) you can add those links into Microsoft To Do, Planner, or your preferred task tracker of choice. If you want to do things right, you can even build a SharePoint list and track the review and updates, as well as use Power Automate to schedule notifications and reminders.

Creating a Procedural “Wiki”

By leveraging the linking ability within OneNote, you can create deep links from one procedure to another quickly and easily. Highlight the text you want to use as the link and then use Ctrl-K to connect to the page on OneNote for the link. A pro tip is you can use the same technique but right click on the movement arrow to the left of a paragraph to copy a link to a specific paragraph in your procedures.

Scratching the surface of procedure management with OneNote

This is only the beginning of what is possible when doing procedure management using OneNote. If you have questions or want to know more, make sure you leave a comment below.

Techniques

Taking Daily Notes in OneNote

One of the tricks I use every day to keep my notes organized for my client work is to leverage OneNote’s ability to create note pages on the fly.  Keep in mind this process works best in OneNote 2016 but can work in Windows 10 with a little patience.  You could probably make it work on mobile as well but personally I haven’t tried that yet.

Let’s start with a typical OneNote section.  In that section, I create a page with the date and a consistent header:

The next step is to start adding topic headers for each topic of the day.  I do this by using the [[ ]] technique around the names of the topics:

On the last one I didn’t’ add the final ] yet so you can see what it looks like on the page.  You’ll notice that as soon as you add the final ] and press enter, OneNote converts the title into a link, creates a page with the title as it’s name in the list of pages, and then links the two together.

At this point I normally indent the topic pages under the day page in the pages list to keep things neat and tidy, but that’s not critical.

Now comes the important part. As I go into each topic I capture all the notes for that topic while they happen.  If it’s a meeting, often I’ll use the Meeting Details option in the ribbon bar to add the meeting information into the note quickly.

When I do my weekly review, I drag each of the topic pages into a section specifically for that topic and organize them in date order. The perk is the link on the day notes page will still work after you’ve moved the topic notes to their sections.

Once you get into the habit of capturing your notes in this way, you’ll find quickly that you’re missing fewer things and it’s easier to keep your notes neat and organized.

Next up…I’ll show you how to use tags in OneNote 2016 in some ways you may not have tried before.

Techniques

Archiving OneNote Notebooks in OneNote 2016

One of the most popular articles on The Idea Pump is about deleting and managing OneNote notebooks. To make the process a little easier, here’s how I recommend you handle those pesky notebooks you need but don’t need anymore.

To get the notebooks out of the way you can always close them. They’ll sit in your storage area happily waiting for the next time you need them opened. However, if you’re using cloud based storage such as OneDrive you may not want them tying up your space in the cloud. This is where the Export function comes in handy.

Take the notebook you want to archive and while you have it open in OneNote 2016 (the Windows Desktop version) select File: Export: Notebook and choose OneNote Package from the list of options. Select Export and then choose a location to store the exported package file. It can be on your local computer, or as I like to do, on a flash drive I place into storage for when I need it later.

Pro tip – at this point you can choose to export the entire notebook, the current section, or only selected pages as you wish. This can be exceptionally handy as I’ll explain in a little bit.

Once you’ve exported the notebook to a package file, you can go into OneDrive and delete the original notebook or locate the original notebook on your hard drive and delete it there. Either way you’ll have a compacted single file of your old notebook ready to be stored.

Now back to the pro-tip. If you don’t want to archive the entire notebook but there is content you do want to move out of your current notebook, you can use the package trick for that as well. Create a section in your notebook called…wait for it…Archive. Now move the pages you want to keep into that section, create a package for that section, and then delete it when done. This trick works great for archiving old project records, accounts, or anything else that’s not immediately necessary but not something you want to lose either.

Coaching

How to create nested section groups in OneNote – Videos

Video

I learned recently you can create nested section groups in OneNote and this has made a huge change in how I’m organizing my notebooks and content. Watch these videos to see how to create nested section groups in OneNote 2016 and OneNote for Windows 10.

OneNote 2016 – Nested Section Groups

OneNote for Windows 10 – Nested Section Groups

Let me know in the comments how you plan to put nested section groups to use!