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OneNote 2013, or How to put things in order



“Pull yourself together, a rag!” - I said to myself when I realized that the work was soon finished. Or she you, or you her.

The road to a thousand li begins with the first step.
The first step was the book by David Allen "How to put things in order: the art of productivity without stress." Points over i set the course of Maxim Dorofeev "Jedi technique of empty inbox, or How to finish things."
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You can not have illusions, stepping on the warpath. Problems were not long in coming. Work on the computer required automation. It became easy, finding the right software for Getting Things Done (GTD).

The endless trials of GTD programs have not brought happiness. Comfortable work prevented a large amount of data.
It was impossible to connect tasks and data within one GTD program. The stream of letters was stored in Outlook, documents and other files on the disk, some of the information on the web resources and so on. Solving cases, we had to spend time searching for related data. There were problems with the synchronization of information on different devices and much more.

But he who seeks will always find! The solution to the stalemate was Microsoft OneNote 2013 , which, with simple settings, easily turned into a full-fledged GTD tool. Only such an approach allowed to overcome all the problems and feel the comfort of using GTD.

By its purpose, Microsoft OneNote does not belong to a group of programs for GTD and is an electronic version of a notebook. More precisely, it is a program in which you can create an almost unlimited number of notebooks. Notebooks OneNote suitable for storing any personal information and data. The internal contents of the books is divided into sections (sections). Sections contain pages. Perhaps building a hierarchy of pages.

Thanks to its architecture, OneNote is easy to configure to work on the principles of Getting Things Done.

Main advantages of OneNote:
  • free (since March 2014)
  • Data synchronization in the OneDrive cloud (15 GB for free)
  • integration with other Microsoft products
  • Available on Windows, Windows Phone, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and others.
  • collaboration is possible
  • there is a web version
  • convenient content search

For those familiar with English,
I recommend reading the article This is why OneNote is awesome ,
in which all advantages of OneNote are disclosed.


Speaking in the evening, at dawn



To set up the OneNote structure under GTD, just follow a few simple steps.

  1. Create a new notebook (let's call it “GTD”).
    So that these books are not lost, we do it in the cloud (OneDrive).



  2. Add new sections to your notebook:
    • Inbox
    • Tasks
    • Someday
    • Archive

    And one group of sections "Reference materials".



  3. Clear the list of existing tags and fill it with new values:
    • (1) Now
    • (2) Then / Postpone
    • (3) Assigned / Controlled
    • (4) Someday
    • (5) Project





The gas generator is designed to generate gas in the gas generator



And now - the most interesting thing: how to force GTD to work in OneNote.
The benchmark is the basic processing algorithm for GTD .
In my interpretation of OneNote, the algorithm is as follows.



Let's go through the algorithm.

Collection of primary information


One of the main principles of GTD is to get all unnecessary information out of your head. As David Alan says, our mind is not suitable for storing ideas, but for generating them. Therefore, all primary information coming from external sources and which requires reflection, is transferred to the OneNote Inbox section. Letters, documents, ideas, thoughts, plans and so on. For each information element we create a separate page.

  1. Outlook and Internet Explorer have a great “Send to OneNote” button.

    Clicking automatically creates a page with the contents of a letter or a web page in OneNote.
  2. You can transfer the contents of any documents by selecting OneNote as a printer.
  3. Send messages and letters to OneNote via me@onenote.com

Treatment


Periodically we carry out the processing of data accumulated in the "Inbox" section. Consider what to do with all this? How important is the information collected to us, whether it is a reference, task or project. Or is it a reminder of upcoming events? Or just rubbish?

Organization


We need to do something about it.


If the information requires us to take any action, we transfer it to the “Tasks” section.

Or do it right away if it takes less than two minutes.

We analyze whether it is possible to complete the task in one operation, or it requires more steps.
For single tasks in the page header, set one of the tags:

If it takes several steps to complete a case, mark it with the “Project” tag.
We carry out natural planning (definition of goals, desired results, brainstorming, the definition of specific actions). Add to the project page children. Child pages are a sequence of tasks that must be completed to successfully complete a project.

  1. Tasks in the form of individual pages - the most optimal solution. They can be moved in random order.
  2. To save space, it is possible to minimize the top level pages.



It is convenient to add tags using the Ctrl + 1 hot keys , Ctrl + 2, and so on.

On pages we place all information relating to the task or project.
We copy files, letters, documents, pictures, links and so on.

Although, frankly, the projects are not so simple. How to organize them, a personal matter of each. You can, for example, create a separate section for them or even a group of sections. In the section group, each tab will correspond to a separate project. This is convenient if there are a lot of tasks within the project. On the other hand, with a large number of projects there is a chance to get lost in bookmarks.


Nothing to do


All data from the "Inbox" section, which do not require any actions, is processed according to the following rules:


Scheduling tasks


There are cases that require reminding and execution at a certain point in time. Unfortunately, there is no internal reminder mechanism in OneNote. However, for those who have Outlook, there is a workaround. On the OneNote page, just add any flag from the Outlook Tasks list and a task will automatically be created in Outlook with a link to the OneNote page.



Overview


Any system requires constant monitoring. GTD will work if the user regularly reviews the data. This is a very important process as the information tends to become obsolete very quickly. A review is best done daily and weekly at specific times.

In daily work it is very convenient to use the "Tag Summary" panel. Activated by the button "Find tags".



The panel displays a complete list of tasks grouped by tags. At the same time, it is possible to regulate viewing only completed or unfinished business (the flag “Show only unmarked items”).



The expression "soak in the outhouse", said by the president,
you understood too literally!


Initially I planned and wrote an article only for work colleagues. Inspired by the course of Maxim Dorofeev "Jedi technique of empty inbox or how to finish things." As it turned out, the problem of choosing software for GTD is relevant for many. Not finding information on using OneNote with GTD in the Russian-language part of the Internet, I decided to publish an article for a wider audience. The article tried to describe the most balanced version of the configuration, worked out in practice.

Perhaps that's all. It's time to move on. The main thing to remember to mark the task of writing the article as completed.

Useful links on the topic:

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/294772/

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