Make My New OneNote Fighting Technique Unstoppable
May 29, 2018 12:41 PM Subscribe
Help me make OneNote my organized outboard brain. I've been using for a few years with a throw-everything-in-and-let-search-find-it method. I need better OneNote fu that doesn't lead to missed assignments or misplaced notes.
Opportunities and expectations for my team are growing, and I need to up my game and organize notes and assignments for several projects if it's all to succeed. We are using Teams for some of this, but I need OneNote to be my synchronized multi-device outboard brain.
I work on a Mac, use an iPad, and an iPhone, and am learning to use Windows 10 (in a VM) as well, and of course it's all synced in OneDrive/SharePoint. I'd like to reorganize things in specific notebooks with specific sections, titling conventions, etc. and have these changes sync across all these devices. MS's help pages are so much better than they used to be but they don't answer the questions I have. Nothing relevant on Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, either.
Please help with suggestions for moving & renaming pages, sections, syncing... What's the best way to reorganize all this? Through the web interface? Should I delete the OneNote apps from everything but the Windows instance, reorganize it, and they reinstall on all my Apple devices?
I must stay with OneNote for shared notes across MS Teams, Groups, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc., so please no suggestions for another tool. Thanks.
Opportunities and expectations for my team are growing, and I need to up my game and organize notes and assignments for several projects if it's all to succeed. We are using Teams for some of this, but I need OneNote to be my synchronized multi-device outboard brain.
I work on a Mac, use an iPad, and an iPhone, and am learning to use Windows 10 (in a VM) as well, and of course it's all synced in OneDrive/SharePoint. I'd like to reorganize things in specific notebooks with specific sections, titling conventions, etc. and have these changes sync across all these devices. MS's help pages are so much better than they used to be but they don't answer the questions I have. Nothing relevant on Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, either.
Please help with suggestions for moving & renaming pages, sections, syncing... What's the best way to reorganize all this? Through the web interface? Should I delete the OneNote apps from everything but the Windows instance, reorganize it, and they reinstall on all my Apple devices?
I must stay with OneNote for shared notes across MS Teams, Groups, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc., so please no suggestions for another tool. Thanks.
Best answer: Not sure about the syncing stuff - I only use it in the Windows desktop app interface, which I think would be the way to go to do your initial organizing. I also don't know which of these tips may not work in the other interfaces.
Other organizing tips:
You can nest pages (drag a page name so that it is indented to the right underneath the page you want it to nest under), and doing so allows you to collapse that nest. I find this very helpful for reducing visual clutter in a section.
If you type a page name like this [page name] a page with that name will be created and automatically linked to where you typed it. Unfortunately, it does not automatically nest that page (the created page will be at the bottom of your list of pages in that section.)
Not sure if you're already using To Do lists in OneNote, but it's pretty easy to tag any line on a page as a to do item. Then you go to Home -> Find Tags and it will pull up all your To Do items into one list on the side. You can also click "Create Summary Page" to create that list as a page in your notebook. If you select group tags by Section from the drop-down before creating your summary page, it will sort your to do items by what section tab they were pulled from. There's a lot of power in the To Do list feature, although I found it was just off enough from my needs that I use Trello for my to do list and have relegated OneNote back to note taking only.
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Other organizing tips:
You can nest pages (drag a page name so that it is indented to the right underneath the page you want it to nest under), and doing so allows you to collapse that nest. I find this very helpful for reducing visual clutter in a section.
If you type a page name like this [page name] a page with that name will be created and automatically linked to where you typed it. Unfortunately, it does not automatically nest that page (the created page will be at the bottom of your list of pages in that section.)
Not sure if you're already using To Do lists in OneNote, but it's pretty easy to tag any line on a page as a to do item. Then you go to Home -> Find Tags and it will pull up all your To Do items into one list on the side. You can also click "Create Summary Page" to create that list as a page in your notebook. If you select group tags by Section from the drop-down before creating your summary page, it will sort your to do items by what section tab they were pulled from. There's a lot of power in the To Do list feature, although I found it was just off enough from my needs that I use Trello for my to do list and have relegated OneNote back to note taking only.
posted by misskaz at 2:02 PM on May 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You can also create groups of tabs (also called a section group) in a notebook, if nesting pages isn't enough for you.
As far as syncing goes, make sure that your notebook is in Sharepoint/OneDrive. You can move a local notebook to Sharepoint or OneDrive if you need to. If it's already on Sharepoint/OneDrive and not syncing, I'd try closing the notebook and reopening it; it *should* just sync automatically once it's there, and if it isn't, something's bugged.
I'd second the idea that if your goal is to manage workflow or track tasks, OneNote isn't necessarily the best tool unless a simple to-do checklist is all you need. If you use Teams, I believe there are a few add-ins for it that offer project management capabilities like that, though I don't have any personal experience with any of them.
posted by Aleyn at 6:10 PM on May 29, 2018
As far as syncing goes, make sure that your notebook is in Sharepoint/OneDrive. You can move a local notebook to Sharepoint or OneDrive if you need to. If it's already on Sharepoint/OneDrive and not syncing, I'd try closing the notebook and reopening it; it *should* just sync automatically once it's there, and if it isn't, something's bugged.
I'd second the idea that if your goal is to manage workflow or track tasks, OneNote isn't necessarily the best tool unless a simple to-do checklist is all you need. If you use Teams, I believe there are a few add-ins for it that offer project management capabilities like that, though I don't have any personal experience with any of them.
posted by Aleyn at 6:10 PM on May 29, 2018
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Syncing has never worked right for me, so I have no help for you there. I prefer the Windows interface, so I would use it to perform the sorting. You may not need to delete and reinstall if you close the app on all other devices while working on the Windows version.
For organizing, you need one section per large project or area of focus. Under each section, you make pages for each issue. I have my own notebooks at work and also a set that I share with my team. If I need something in both, I try to set up a link rather than duplicating information. I have my own personal To Do as the first page in my main notebook and it is a checklist. I try to date the item when I check it off and link it to the relevant page if it is a subtask of a larger project. I don't like having more than one to-do list, so tasks are only listed in one place. You may want to start an index of sorts, but check to see how OneNote handles links when you move pages.
posted by soelo at 1:22 PM on May 29, 2018