I'd been using Outlook Tasks to remind me about jobs. I'd type in the details and/or copy an email and set the reminder data. I'd give everything a reminder date, which thinking about it wasn't a good idea. Items that weren't important immediately were given a reminder about six months ahead. These were mainly ideas about marketing, private stuff like restaurants to go to or ideas about changing my way of working. Every six months I'd have to spend a day or two changing the reminder dates on about 2,000 Tasks! People would suggest OneNote but I'd never used it before. Today I started copying everything not urgent to OneNote and deleting my Outlook Tasks. It's perfect. I can make a start on categorising with a view to improving the categorising later while still having the ability to search in the short term.
I wish I had done it years ago.
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one note
Hi Peter
Yes it is really good. I think it has to be one of the most under rated pieces of software. A lot of schools use it and it comes with the Microsoft student office pack. A lot of Students rave about it and wonder why so little use it in a work environment.
I love using it really helps me organise my clients.
See windows 10 in comment below
I completely agree, OneNote is fantastic. I use it mainly for note taking rather than reminders and deadlines. If you really want to up your productivity to the next level, try OmniFocus. Not sure about availability across platforms but I use it on my Mac and i-Devices!
OneNote vs Evernote
Thanks for the tip. Any one tried OneNote and Evernote, and have a preference? And if so, why?
Evernote
Thanks for the tip. Any one tried OneNote and Evernote, and have a preference? And if so, why?
I've used Evernote for over 5 years, I chose it over OneNote because it was available for free across all platforms whereas OneNote (at the time) was only supplied with certain microsoft office packages and was standalone on that machine. From memory OneNote became free to all c 2 years ago but I've not gone back and reviewed it as an alternative as I'm happy with Evernote.
I do now pay for Evernote premium c. £35/yr as that gives me a greater upload capacity which I needed when syncing between PC/phone/tablet/laptop etc.
Thanks Peter
I looked at OneNote a couple of years back and, for one reason or another, didn't really pursue it. Having read your post, I decided to look again and now I'm hooked. As you say, I can now delete a lot of tasks from Outlook and start to organise my work a lot better.
I'll get you a pint at the next Tick 'N Bash :)
Trello
If anyone has used both, I would be interested in any comparison to Trello which I've switched to recently (in conjunction with Google calenders).
Might take a look
I might take a look at this - anything to add variety, rather than spending huge chunks of the day gazing at Outlook.
Onenote 2016
Hi Peter
I meant to say one note came with Student pack re Windows 7 and below. Windows 10 provides onenote 2016 as a APP and free . tt works well sharing with other PCs- phones and other platforms on the microsoft One Drive.
All my kids love OneNote. They were introduced to it at school and still use it now. Never got it myself. I guess it's something you have to use to understand why it would be useful. Maybe one day.
Sorry for dragging up an old thread but wanted to add my two cents. I've tried Evernote and OneNote on different occasions and in both cases have found that the time and energy maintaining and organising them didn't really yield any benefits. For me it was adding an additional piece of software into the mix without removing any of the apps I was using.
For example, I can already keep a list of todo items in outlook and for emails I create a subfolder in my inbox for each client and when the email is dealt with I file the email in that folder. Emails are already a type of todo list so all to do items and reminders are already in outlook. If I ever need to make a note of something I email it to muself and the I can add it as an outlook task from my inbox. Most accountants maintain their client folders in windows for workings, excel and word files etc so by adding OneNote to the mix what are we achieving? I understand it's useful for taking notes if that's what you primarily use it for but as a task manager I don't see the benefits.