By Jonathan Edwards YouTube link on the topic for visual learners here!

Key Takeaways

• We’ve got a problem in today's world. We've got so much information to consume, and the problem is our minds aren't designed as storage devices.
• If you’re a Microsoft 365 user, there's an application called OneNote, and it could be the answer.
• Microsoft OneNote enables you to create and share digital notebooks, including To Do lists, with other people and your Outlook account.
• Microsoft OneNote offers robust features including tagging for faster and easier search, page templates and a web clipping tool.
• You can use OneNote on your iPad with an Apple pen and keep all your devices in sync.

We’ve got a problem in today's world. We've got so much information to consume, and the problem is our minds aren't designed as storage devices. We need technology. If you’re a Microsoft 365 user, there's an application called OneNote, and it could be the answer.  

Today's modern world operates at 100 miles an hour. We might be browsing social media and see a recipe that we want to make. We might be on a train and have an incredible idea about a sales initiative that can boost our business or we might receive an email and want to act on it, but not just then.

Then it comes around to Saturday night, and we're wondering what to make for dinner. That recipe is long forgotten. It might be that our business has a slump in sales, and we're scratching our heads wondering how to fix it. That email we're going to act upon is gone, and we don't even remember who sent it.

That’s modern life. Our minds are brilliant at creative thinking but they're not as good as storage devices. That's why we need to lean on technology. As Steve Jobs once said, “technology should be like a bicycle for the mind. “

Microsoft OneNote Tutorial

Microsoft OneNote is a powerful note taking application that can help us move forward. It’s a competitor of companies like Evernote and Notion.

OneNote has been around for many years, but I don't see many people using it. That may be because they don't know how to. They haven’t had Microsoft OneNote training, but this blog aims to change that.

Microsoft OneNote Tips: Notebooks Sections & Pages

Within Microsoft OneNote, you get something called “notebooks.” Now this sounds like a notebook you might buy from Amazon or your local stationary store, but Microsoft OneNote gives you a digital version. You might have a notebook for your recipes, or you might have a notebook for your business. You might just have a general notebook for the different areas of your life.
Within notebooks, you have sections. Let’s think about this physically. You might buy a notebook from Amazon, and there might be different tabs inside. All these sections do is help you separate the different parts of your notebook.

The core ingredient of Microsoft OneNote is something called pages. These are just separate notes and separate pages within your sections within your notebooks.

Access Microsoft OneNote

How do you access OneNote? There's a couple of different ways. You can use OneNote over a web browser, or you can install OneNote on your computer.

Microsoft OneNote Online (Web Browser) 

• Log into Microsoft 365 with your username and password
• View your home screen
• Go to Applications on the left side
• Click on App Launcher
• Choose OneNote

You’ll see all the notebooks that you have or have access to.
From here, I can select to open any of my notebooks or I can click and start a new notebook.

Microsoft OneNote App 

I prefer using the Microsoft OneNote app that I installed on my computer. To check if OneNote is already installed on your computer, type OneNote into search.

If it's not installed on your computer, what you can do is go back to your Microsoft 365 homepage and download the Microsoft OneNote app from there.

Microsoft OneNote: Create a Notebook

When you open Microsoft OneNote, you'll have a standard notebook, a default notebook. You can do several things with this.

First:

• Right click
• Select properties

Then you can:

• Rename the notebook
• Change the color of the notebook

You can also add emojis to the name of the notebook:

• Press the Windows key full stop to access emojis

We might want to add a rocket to a sales notebook, for example.

To create a new notebook:

• Go to File
• Select New

Make sure you create your notebook in OneDrive. It’s always the best idea to create your notebooks in OneDrive because they’re stored in the Cloud.

Within your notebook, you can create sections.

• Right click on “Section”
• Rename

Once we have a notebook and different sections, we might want to create pages. For instance, we might have a marketing notebook with a section for social media and pages for YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Once we’re happy with our notebooks, sections and pages, we can start making notes.

• Right click on a page
• Right click the collapsed ribbon to expand it

You’ll see a wealth of options for taking your notes:

• Create headings and sub-headings
• Insert tables
• Create new notebook sections and move them around
• Add new sections

Microsoft OneNote: Tag Notes to Find Them Again Easily

Click on the Tags button to see preloaded tags, including:

• Idea
• Question
• To Do
• Book to read
• Web site to visit
• Music to listen to
• Remember for blog

You can also add your own customized tags.

These tags are powerful for organizing your work in Microsoft OneNote when you imagine you have multiple notebooks with lots of sections and thousands of pages. You have so much information that if you start tagging things, you can click Find Tags and get a list of tagged items. You can see all your To Dos together, all your questions, all your ideas.

What’s more, you can customize both the font color and the highlight color.

Microsoft OneNote: Tips for Tables & Media

Click on the insert tab to insert a table into your notes, along with lots of other things:

• Online video
• Your own video recording
• Page templates

You can also record a video from Microsoft OneNote to insert.

Microsoft OneNote Templates

Microsoft OneNote offers several existing page templates, including:

• Business project overview
• Planner
• To-do list

Microsoft OneNote Web Clipper

Another feature I really love is the Web Clipper. You can install it from OneNote.com, log into your OneNote account, and use Web Clipper from your Microsoft Edge browser or other browsers like Chrome.

What it enables you to do is record information you find online and organize it within Microsoft OneNote.

We’re always accessing internet pages and thinking, “Oh that might be useful.” It might be a recipe to make for a dinner party in a few weeks. It might be a book to read. It might be a location you want to go on holiday.

We always get inspiration when we search online, but we quickly forget about that if we don’t make a record of it somewhere, and that’s where the OneNote Web Clipper comes in.

If you want to save a web page to your notebook, you can use the Web Clipper to paste in the entire web page or add a bookmark.

Microsoft OneNote Integration with Outlook

I think Microsoft, over the last several months, has really put a lot of effort into integrating all of their apps together.

When it comes to Outlook, we all receive emails all day every day. How do we get one of these emails into OneNote?

• Go to the email you want to add to a notebook
• Click the OneNote tab
• Select a specific notebook destination

You can also synchronize your To Dos in OneNote with Outlook.

• Hover over the OneNote To Dos you want to add to Outlook
• Click on Outlook Tasks at the top
• Select the date you want to complete To Dos
• The To Dos will appear in Outlook under My Day

As you complete a task in Outlook, it’s automatically checked off your To Do list in your notebook.
OneNote and Outlook talk to each another, and it’s a really good integration.

Microsoft OneNote for iPad

Think about the analogy comparing OneNote to physical notes, where you actually write with a paper and a pen. Some people prefer that, and you can actually achieve that with OneNote using an iPad and Apple pencil.

Once you download the OneNote app to your iPad, it’s an exact replica of the OneNote account on your laptop or desktop. All your devices are synced.

First, go to a page in your notebook or create a new page. At the top of the page:

• Go to Home
• Select Insert
• Select Draw or View

When you’re taking notes with a pen, it’s nice to make it feel like a notepad. You’ll be able to customize your paper style to your taste:

• Set background color
• Add lines to the page
• Choose pens and highlighters

Use your Apple pen to make handwritten notes. You can leave these handwritten notes as is or convert them to computer text.

• Make sure you’re in the Draw view with the Draw tab highlighted
• Use the lasso tool to draw a circle around the words you want to convert
• Click on Ink to Text

Sharing Notebooks in Microsoft OneNote

Once you’ve got all these notes, you may well want to share your notebooks with other people in your organization. You can do that quite easily.

• Go to the notebook you want to share
• Click Share in the upper right-hand corner
• Select who you want to share the notebook with
• Choose whether to share the entire notebook or certain sections
• Create passwords for notes that are sensitive

More to Explore in Microsoft OneNote Training

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog. OneNote is a powerful application, and you can design it and set it up exactly how you want it to be. Keep learning with the Microsoft OneNote Tutorial Video or explore more Microsoft 365 topics.