OneNote and OneNote Journal Power Toy

I’m grateful to the Yahoo GTD group for turning me on last fall to OneNote Journal Power Toy, a OneNote add-in from TabletDev.  Through a single click or by pressing Windows-J, you can create or access a OneNote page with today’s date on it, organized in a notebook by month.

I’ve never been one to keep daily journal-style notes, but the convenience of this power toy has made me rethink how I approach note-taking and using Outlook.  Every day, I launch a daily notes page using the power toy.  As I take notes all day -- from calls and meetings, from stuff I’ve read, or as thoughts occur to me --I jot them down on the daily notes page.  This turns my daily notes page into a “virtual” inbox, where I can capture everything from that day. 

Here's a sample of notes from this morning (changed to protect identities, of course):

Combining OneNote and Outlook makes it easy to process and track my notes.    When I complete the note, I also "tag" it with an icon that associates it with a  specific client.  Later, by going into "Show tagged notes," I can pull up all references to any specific client or category, regardless of date, creating a handy way to revisit notes during a weekly review or flag stuff as reference.

If I have time after I make the note, I process it immediately.  Depending on what it is, I can create a "project page" in OneNote (which links to my projects list in Outlook) or I can create new entries on my next actions lists in Outlook.  (Pressing CTL-Shift-K in OneNote creates a linked task in Outlook.) 

If I don't have time to process the notes immediately, I flag the entry with a custom check box I've created with the name, "Process."  Just as I can sort by category or client tag, I can also pull up all items marked, "Process," which gives me a way to pull up all things I still need to process on one screen.  It also helps me ensure that I don't forget to process something as I move from day to day.

By turning on the Tags Summary, I can get a quick view of all the items I've tagged:

If I want, I can even toggle a few options and collapse some categories to show only incomplete items on my "To Process" list and/or incomplete items I've sent to my next action lists in Outlook:

All of the items in the Tags Summary box are clickable, so I can jump directly to the original note where I created them.  By clicking on the red flags in the tasks, I can open the item in Outlook or mark it complete via OneNote.  The "Process" check boxes are interactive, so I check/uncheck them, as I complete processing.

(BTW, the list of tasks above does not reflect the wording of the next actions as they appear on my NA lists.  I usually tweak those to make them true next physical actions when I put them on my NA lists, but OneNote and Outlook don't sync that change.)

One thing I'm still trying to adapt in a more seamless way is integrating daily notes with Windows Mobile.   I found a Power Toy on the OneNote Power Toys blog that lets me send any OneNote page to OneNote Mobile, which is a handy way to keep daily notes current on my Windows Mobile phone.  But, I haven't found a great way to get note FROM my phone back to the daily notes page.  I can type notes in OneNote Mobile and sync them through ActiveSync, but I typically take handwritten notes in the WinMob Notes app.  Right now, I'm emailing myself the notes I take, pulling them up on the desktop, and pasting them into my daily page.  It's more than a little clunky, especially since OneNote 2007 doesn't read handwriting from WinMob.  (Stupid move, Microsoft...)