OneNote Life

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a note taker and a list maker. I mean, obviously, in school, note taking is suggested required encouraged, but beyond my ‘schooling’ years, I’ve been a big fan of writing everything down.

I like pens and notebooks more than the average person (I’m guessing) and I believe that black ink is the most boring color you could ever use. I even once made a woman at a doctor’s office very angry because I filled out medical forms with sparkly teal ink – but she clearly had other issues, beyond my happy forms.

The problem, with my note taking habit over the years though, was that my notes weren’t very organized. And it drove my sweet/patient husband insane. Because I’d grab a notebook and start writing. Ideas for a blog post were followed by notes from a business call which were followed by the week’s grocery list and then a ‘to do’ list. I might have a note somewhere about needing to make a grooming appointment for Moxie and then a list of ideas for my mom’s birthday was sandwiched between the places we were researching for our next vacation and the new veggie burger recipe I found.

To this very day, I will write things down in sparkly gel pen, BUT, it no longer makes Keith insane. Because he can now always find the weekly grocery list in Microsoft OneNote. Whether he creates it, using a nice organized checklist, or if I jot it down on a piece of paper and then snap a photo. It’s just always where it needs to be.

Keith actually introduced me to OneNote, years ago, knowing that it would appeal to my note taking habits. But I quickly realized that this fun new digital notebook, was actually a pretty powerful tool. It’s set up like a notebook with dividers, so I can actually organize my thoughts and ideas to different sections. What a novel idea, huh? 😉 And if I happen to need to move a page from one section to another, or change the order, no problem. Have you ever tried to do that with a traditional bound notebook? Yeah, I know.

So let me count the ways in which I love OneNote.

First, I can take my notes anywhere I go. Desktop, laptop, my iPhone – it’s always there, and always updated with whatever I last entered. That in itself is worth the price of admission. Oh, and admission is free. Yes, OneNote is FREE to users.

Second, notebooks are sharable!!! This means that I have a notebook just for business. And you know, divide it into all the different projects we’re working on, and then share it with Keith and any other collaborators. This in itself, has saved us many many headaches. Because we all know exactly where to find the information on any given project.

And now that Mayhem has reached the schooling years, she has her own OneNote notebook as well. And guess what? It’s super organized, and shared by Keith and I. Which means we can take schoolwork on the go and I can be checking her math assignment from the sidelines while she’s at tennis practice.

OneNote also recently introduced the Family Notebook, and now we have another notebook. Because, honestly, our grocery list needs to be shared, but it does not belong with business stuff or ‘personal’ stuff. Same goes for vacation planning or the myriad of other household stuff we both need access to. And the cool thing about this family notebook is that is comes pre-loaded with some templates – to get you going on your list making and note taking.

Did I mention the ‘inking’ ability yet? You know, the ability to write and draw directly on to your pages. Nothing makes this colored pen loving lady happier than the ability to jazz up my notes with some colorful ‘extras’. This ability to write directly on the pages is also what allows us to simply copy Mayhem’s math work from her workbook, into OneNote and have her ‘do the math’ on her pages in OneNote.

Oh, and my favorite thing about OneNote, is the web clipper. Grab an image, a section or a whole dang page from a website and drop it into a page in your notebook. It keeps the links mind you, so you can always follow the link back to the original source. Our Recipe section of our family notebook is now chock full of ideas for our primarily plant based lifestyle.

It’s entirely possible that Keith and I would still be married without the help of OneNote, but I can assure you, it’s been our organizational therapist. I still get to write in sparkly gel pen, when I want, but now we know where to find everything.

So go ahead and give it try for yourself and see what all the fuss is about. Microsoft OneNote is free to download and use.

This post is sponsored by Microsoft OneNote, but all thoughts, opinions, and undying love for the product are purely my own.