Organize your New Year with OneNote

If, at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 2014, you decided to be more organized in 2015, OneNote could be just the thing you’re looking for.

Pre-installed onto every Lumia smartphone either as a standalone app or within the Office app, OneNote is designed to be your pocket notebook that’s packed with features.

The first obvious feature to point out is that unlike a physical notepad you don’t run out of pages after a couple of weeks. The pages are practically limitless, allowing you to create new pages as you need them.

One way to stay organized is to make use of the “to-do” feature, which gives you the ability to create lists with ease.

Select the to-do feature, type in all the tasks you wish to accomplish, and check the boxes as you go. Nothing could be simpler or quicker.

Depending on what you’re into, you may prefer a more media-rich approach to note-taking.

If you’re a musician and spend the day composing your first breakout single, OneNote’s audio feature switches on the microphone of your smartphone and can record anything it hears, whether it’s you singing a tune or playing a guitar riff.

Rename that Notebook to “My #1” and you’ll easily find it again.

Instead of auditory cues, you may prefer a visual one. For that, you can add pictures to your OneNote.

For many, it’s not uncommon to see something in a store, in a park, at a friend’s house or anywhere and think, “I must remember that later,” particularly if words can’t quite describe what it is you’re seeing or feeling.

You may have created a Notebook called “Redecorating Ideas” where you can add all those photos of color swatches, picture frames, rugs, armchair styles, and anything else that goes into creating your home.

Adding photos to a OneNote notebook is a great way to capture the beauty of something. As the year progresses and you’ve made a few purchases, you can update your Notebook by either ticking a purchase off from a list, deleting it, or replacing the picture for your inevitable upcoming 2016 project.

Away from your Windows Phone, OneNote Clipper is a way of clipping anything on the Web from news articles to blog posts.

OneNote Clipper captures an image of a web page, adds it to your OneNote and includes a link to the original source.

Of course, for whatever type of note you create, you’re not limited to just one option. You can include all of the above in a single note, which can include a multitude of formatting options.

OneNote syncs from your device to the cloud; that means that no matter whether you created the OneNote on your Microsoft Lumia 535 or your Surface Pro 3, you’ll always have the exact same version, no matter the device.

It’s also worth pointing out that you can pin each note to your Start screen for easy access. Plus, you can share your notes with other people—that’s ideal if you’re keeping a household or workplace organized.