OneNote is a versatile digital notebook that can help maximize your productivity. We’re going to show you how to use features like tags, reminders, OCR, and transcription to get the most out of OneNote when handling your daily tasks.
As you use OneNote in your everyday life, you should take advantage of tags to help you categorize and prioritize tasks. Tags makes tasks easier to find by making them easily searchable.
To tag a task in OneNote, select the text where you want to insert the tag. In the Home tab, click one of the tags in the Tags section of the ribbon.
You will see the “To Do” and “Important” tags, but there are more. To see them, click the arrows next to them. You can select “Question,” “Remember for Later,” “Critical,” “Idea,” “Password,” and other tags as well.
To find tasks you have tagged, click “Find Tag” in the Tags section of the ribbon. You can browse through the tags in the Tags Summary panel that appears on the right.
Set Reminders for Important Tasks
Setting reminders in OneNote ensures you don’t forget an important task, especially if you have to complete it by a certain date. You can set a reminder for a task by adding it to your Outlook tasks list. On the due date, Outlook will notify you of the pending task through a pop-up reminder, email, or push notification (if you have the Outlook mobile app installed).
To set a reminder, highlight the task and click Outlook Tasks in the Tags section of the ribbon in the “Home” tab. Select one of the tags, such as “Tomorrow” or “Next Week,” from the list. A flag will appear next to the task you have set the reminder for.
You can also select the “Custom” tag set when exactly you want to get the reminder. This will open an Outlook window with the “Task” tab selected. Tick the checkbox next to Reminder, enter a date and time, and click “Save & Close” in the Actions section of the ribbon.
You can view the list of Outlook tasks by opening the desktop app and clicking To Do—the blue checkmark icon—in the left side menu.
Be sure to click the flag icon next to the task to mark it as complete once you have done it.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is one of the lesser-known features of OneNote, but it can be incredibly helpful. OCR boosts productivity by allowing you to quickly extract text from images instead of manually typing it out.
OCR may have trouble recognizing text from handwritten notes.
To use OCR, right-click an image in OneNote, and then select “Copy Text from Picture” in the menu. With the text extracted, you can paste it into OneNote or any other program that accepts text input.
Use Voice Recording for Effective Notetaking
Suppose you’re in a meeting or having a conversation that you need to remember. You can easily record it in OneNote and transcribe it later instead of trying to take notes and listen at the same time. This can help you recall important details and action items, maximizing your productivity in the process.
To record audio in OneNote, select the “Insert” tab, click “Transcribe” and select “Record Audio” in the menu. After you’re done recording the audio clip, click “Stop” on the ribbon at the top.
To listen to the audio, click on the clip in OneNote and select the play button in the widget that appears above it.
As you listen to it, you can take note of the important parts of the meeting or conversation.
Add Collaborators to a Notebook
OneNote is a great tool for planning simple projects, and like other Microsoft 365 apps, it has real-time collaboration. Whether it is for work or a personal project (e.g., a birthday celebration or a DIY home project), you can add multiple collaborators to help with the planning, tracking, and execution.
To do that, click “Share” in the top-right corner of the screen and select “Share Entire Notebook” in the menu.
In the pop-up, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the notebook with and then click the “Send” button.
Your collaborators will get an email with a link that allows them to access the notebook.
Create Notes on Your Smartphone’s Home Screen
Whether you are on an iPhone or Android device, you can place the OneNote widget on the home screen to easily create and view notes. You need to download OneNote from the App Store or Google Play and sign in to your Microsoft account first. Afterward, you can add the widgets.
On iPhone, tap and hold a blank space on the home screen and tap the plus icon in the top right corner.
Scroll down to the list of apps and top “OneNote” in the list. In the pop-up, swipe left until you see the “Quick Capture + Recent Notes” widget. Then, tap “Add Widget” to place it on the screen.
Tap “Note” in the widget to open OneNote and create a new note.
Adding the widget on Android will depend on the device you have, but the instructions should be generally the same. We are using a Samsung device. Now, tap and hold a blank space on the home screen and tap “Widgets” at the bottom.
Scroll through the list of apps and tap “OneNote” from the list. Tap the “OneNote New Note” widget and then tap “Add” to place it on the screen.
When you tap the widget, it will open a new notebook in OneNote. You can try out the other OneNote widgets to see which ones will help you remain productive.
OneNote can boost the way you get work done with its productivity features, allowing you to get things done efficiently. Keep in mind that we can’t discuss every way OneNote can make you productive in one guide, but this should help you get started. Beyond that, it can also help you organize everything in your life.
