Perfect Notetaking? The Power Is In Your Pocket!

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty forgetful. If I'm out and about and come up with a good idea, see something interesting, need to remember something important, I'll fail every time. So, I've been known to write notes - the end result of which is an awful lot of paper strewn all over the place. I've also tried writing memos onto my phone, which is much less messy. However, it leaves me with a list of odd words, no context, no order, no obvious answer to the pressing question 'what was I supposed to do with that'?

After many years of not getting anything done as a result, I figured out what I needed: a Note Butler. Yes, thanks to my Note Butler, I can now be sure that everything I have to know and will be using in future is correctly sorted, easily accessible, and in a thoroughly understandable context. Every moment of every day, a man in a nice suit - he's called Geoff - stays within a couple of feet of me, and if I come across anything that will be important later on, I explain it to him and he files it away in one of his many pockets. When I need to use that information later on, Geoff will put his impressive cataloguing skills to use, and within a couple of hours will have the relevant notes neatly laid out on my desk. It's an easy solution - well, for me anyhow. I think it might be a little hard on Geoff. I don't like the way he looks at me in the early mornings, particularly when he's been up all night filing and organising.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a better solution to this problem than a sharply dressed and increasingly downhearted Geoff? A solution which would allow detailed notes to be taken anywhere, kept in context and ready to use at any moment? Well, Geoff tells me - although he may just be trying to get out of work - that I can use Microsoft OneNote on my phone now. OneNote has been around for quite some time as part of Microsoft Office, to use on an ordinary computer: it's a digital notebook, allowing you to collate notes and information from many different sources and keep it together in one place, so when you need to use a particular set of notes everything is ready for you. The digital notebook can comprise typed text, photographs, downloaded content, even handwritten and audio content.

But it's always been on the computer back home or in the office. Being able to take written or spoken notes and keep them in the digital notebook is certainly a very handy tool, but you'll still have bits of paper or recordings to manage. With OneNote now available on a mobile phone - or online through a web app, if using other computers on the go is more your kind of thing - everything you'll need to know and use later can be brought together in one place right away, with no mess and no confusion. And seeing as the one place now fits in your pocket, there's no reason to ever lose track of or forget those notes you needed to make.

There's another big advantage of making notes on your phone with OneNote. As it's Microsoft Office software, it couldn't be easier to move information and images from your notes into other Office applications - such as Word, Excel or Publisher - and create from them highly effective content. And wasn't that the whole point of making the notes in the first place?

You can't always be sure when you'll come across information that will be important for your business - and even when you do know what to expect, you won't always be at your desk in front of your computer. You could rely on being able to remember that information; you could scribble down a note and hope you can find and make use of it later; you could hire a guy like Geoff to follow you around and keep everything together for you; or you can keep all manner of notes and pictures perfectly organised and ready for use on your mobile. It's no choice at all, really, is it? And I'm sure Geoff will be glad to finally put his feet up.