Have you ever struggled with organizing your notes? Taking notes can quickly become chaotic and overwhelming, whether for school, work, or personal projects. This is where Microsoft OneNote comes into play.
Microsoft OneNote is an online and digital notebook platform designed to bring order to your note-taking experience. It makes it easy to create, organize, and access your notes from anywhere and on any device.
This article discusses the benefits of using OneNote.
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be integrated into OneNote
Microsoft is integrating AI into OneNote to make it easier and faster to generate the necessary content. Greg Mace, the OneNote product manager, disclosed in a blog post that the Microsoft 365 Copilot AI tool is coming to OneNote.
The Copilot AI will attempt to assist you in the background and also include a business messaging function, where users can actively seek assistance. You can request the software to generate specific information based on natural language queries by chatting with it.
The goal is to save you time and effort by performing routine tasks and creating repetitive content.
Microsoft provides the following examples of what you can instruct Copilot to do in OneNote:
“Summarize notes into bullet points on a new page.”
“Plan a trip to Paris for me, my partner, and my two teenage daughters during the spring.”
“Create a list of topics and talking points for an annual investor meeting.”
“I’m launching a coffee bean and roasting wholesale business. Give me ten company name and mission statement suggestions.”
The AI will analyze your raw notes, emails, and other data to generate the corresponding content automatically.
OneNote is highly flexible when it comes to taking notes, allowing it to adapt to your specific needs. Each notebook is divided into sections, which contain pages, and each page is essentially a blank canvas where you can add any type of note, anywhere you choose.
You can add images, text notes, and even draw with a stylus if your computer supports it. This solution is designed for students and others who need to take lengthy, discursive notes on a subject or doodle diagrams, rather than for those seeking a digital notebook for collecting brief snippets and random ideas.
Using Microsoft OneNote
OneNote is the ideal application to record and organize your thoughts if you have a lot to remember, recall, or have an idea crossing your mind. Before you can effectively use Microsoft OneNote, you must first understand its basics.
Follow this tutorial on how to use Microsoft OneNote to get started on the right foot:
1. Create Brief Notes
Have you ever been out enjoying lunch when you suddenly realize you need to call a client to schedule a meeting? In situations where you need to take notes quickly to recall your thoughts later, brief notes are ideal.
OneNote’s Quick Notes resemble traditional yellow sticky notes. OneNote will save each of your ideas and musings as a separate page in the “Unfiled Notes” section of the Quick Notes notebook.
2. Create a Notebook
Microsoft OneNote allows the creation of multiple notebooks for various subjects or projects at any time. Feel free to use the following instructions.
- Launch the OneNote client.
- Select “Show Notebooks” from the menu.
- Select the “+Notebook” button located at the bottom of the list that opens.
- In the “Notebook Name” field, give your notebook a name.
- Click “Create Notebook” next.
3. Open Notebooks
In addition to creating your own notebooks and Quick Notes, you can also access notebooks created and shared by others.
- Select “Show Notebooks” from the menu.
- Select “More Notebooks” from the list that appears.
- Select the desired notebook and select “Open Notebook”.
- If the note you’re searching for is not displayed, click “Add Account”. Sign in with the account that stores your documents.
4. Create Sections
This OneNote workaround is for those who are unsure of how to organize OneNote. You can create topical sections to better organize and personalize OneNote. For example, you can create sections for different subjects or dates.
- Click “+Add Section” or “+Section” at the bottom of the sections list on the left side of the window to create a section.
5. Switch Between Open Notebooks
OneNote also allows users to access multiple notebooks simultaneously, which is a handy feature. To navigate between open notebooks:
- Click “Display Notebooks”.
- A list of notebooks will open. Choose the notebooks you want to work in.
- Repeating these steps will allow you to switch between notebooks.
Note Taking: Manual vs. Digital
Note-taking is a popular and effective technique for organizing and retaining information. It helps people concentrate on the information and provides a reference for later.
When it comes to note-taking, research suggests that taking notes by hand is more effective for material retention than typing notes on a digital device.
Moreover, a study on word recognition and recall found that people remember vocabulary words better when they write them by hand compared to typing them on a computer.
However, there are also significant benefits to taking notes digitally. In fact, it has several advantages over taking notes manually. First, it allows for more efficient organization and retrieval of information.
Digital note-taking tools often offer features such as search and tagging, which make it easier to locate specific information. This is particularly useful when reviewing large volumes of notes or studying for exams.
Second, digital note-taking can improve the accuracy of notes. Digital tools allow for quick and easy editing, so mistakes can be corrected without the need for cross-outs or erasures. Additionally, digital tools often include auto-correct and auto-complete features that can help prevent errors and save time.
Third, digital note-taking is more environmentally friendly than using paper. By eliminating the need for paper, digital note-taking reduces waste and promotes sustainability.
Fourth, digital note-taking provides more flexibility, convenience, and efficiency. Notes can be accessed and edited from multiple devices, making it easier to work on them at different times and locations.
This can be especially beneficial for those who need to collaborate on projects or even for students who work on assignments outside of the classroom.
In Closing
Microsoft OneNote is a powerful tool that can revolutionize the way you take and manage notes. Its online notebook and digital notebook capabilities make it easy to create and organise your notes, whether you’re working on a school project or collaborating with colleagues on a work assignment.
With OneNote, you can access your notes from anywhere on any device, making it a convenient and efficient solution for staying on top of your note taking needs. So give it a try. You might just find that it helps you transform chaos into clarity in note taking.
Learn more about Microsoft 365 here.
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