Is This the Ultimate Binder or Notebook?

The notebook or binder has been around a very long time and for good reason. It is a very useful organizing tool--it is reasonably flexible, portable, durable, and expandable. The notebook or binder also has its shortcomings--it is bulky, cannot be easily searched, cannot be backed-up, and cannot be shared without losing access to it. The major shortcoming is that it is not integrated with our computers--through which we receive most of our information. The binder is a 20th century technology that is not adequate for 21st century knowledge work.

Although I still have some binders, I now rely on what I consider to be one of my most important and effective productivity tools--Microsoft's OneNote program. This is one of the best software programs that I have. I use it to organize all of my major projects, to keep up with documents and reference material, and to integrate my emails, appointments, and tasks with Outlook. The following picture provides a snapshot of some of the components of the program.

In my opinion, OneNote is the ultimate organizational tool. The best way to appreciate the power and flexibility of this program is to watch the following video:

The program is inexpensive, easy to learn and easy to use. The features include:

• Support for multiple notebooks—create a notebook for each class one takes or project one works on.
• Table support, including easy creation while typing using just the Tab and Enter keys.
• Hyperlinks into/between notes. Create an indexed personal or shared knowledge web and point to notes in OneNote from other documents or emails.
• Server-hosted shared collaborative notebooks (like a rich, offline, editable wiki). Any user can edit online or offline at any time, and changes are automatically merged, as well as marked with who made them and when. Additional features allow highlighting changes made since one last viewed the notebook, or any pages one has not read yet.
• Search system is now indexed constantly in the background for much faster response.
• New ink model for ease of use as well as new features such as lasso selection.
• Drawing tools (for diagrams, flow charts) work with pen, mouse, trackpads, etc. to get cleaner looking results vs. hand drawn. Shapes can be repeatedly stamped for easy reuse.
• Support for email tools other than Outlook (emailing notes only).
• Drag/drop support for easy rearranging of pages, sections, and notebooks.
• Integration with Microsoft Office Outlook, including note pages linked to Contacts and Calendar items, as well as buttons to send emails to OneNote and direct creation of Outlook tasks in OneNote, which sync two-way with Outlook.
• Integration with Internet Explorer, including buttons to send Web pages to OneNote for research and data collection purposes.
• Automatic text recognition in scanned documents, clipped images or photos of documents. Target text is highlighted in context in the image
• "Print to OneNote" capability to allow documents or web pages from any application to be sent to OneNote where they are indexed and made searchable
• Support for embedded files such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF etc. placed on a page but kept in native format so they can be launched and viewed/edited in their source applications.
• Support for OneNote "packages", which consist of subsets of your notes plus embedded documents and recordings wrapped into a single file for easy distribution and sharing.
• Support for searching audio and video files (match on phonetic equivalent of a typed word)
• Save notes as PDF or XPS (XML Paper Specification) files for perfect fidelity when sharing notes with others who do not have OneNote.
• Built-in "napkin math" calculator for quick in-meeting calculations. Type simple equations using arithmetic or trigonometry and OneNote solves them in-place (e.g. "19.72/12=", followed by a space results in "19.72/12=1.64")
• New "full-screen" view with minimal UI to optimize screen real estate for note taking.
• Support for blogging any content in your notes to common blog sites (requires Word 2007 to be installed)
• Two-way sync with Windows Mobile-based Smartphones running OneNote Mobile (included with OneNote 2007). In addition to text notes, voice and photo notes taken with the device (such as business card photos) are indexed and can be searched using the PC version of OneNote.
• Additional extensibility (API) to allow customization and tools that import or export data from OneNote to connect it with other systems (such as Customer Relationship Management tools or a Document management system).
• Windows Desktop Search 3.0 (WDS) enables fast search on your computer using indexing technology. It helps you to find your documents, email, music, photos and other items. The search engine in Windows Desktop Search 3.0 is a Windows service that is also used by applications such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Office OneNote 2007 to index application content and deliver instant results when searching within an application.

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