Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

This post is designed for those jumping into note-taking software, those who have made a mess of their Evernote notebook (or upset with crashes) or those looking for an affordable multi-device solution to managing notes. And as a bonus, I’m going to tell you how to integrate handwritten notes and other physical entities (they still exist) into this workflow through a collection of apps.

First, my elevator pitch for why keeping an efficient and effective note-taking system is important.

In a world where information is everywhere, we’re both expected to know how to manage this information quickly and effectively apply it to situations. It’s actually a burden of sorts — expectations are higher on everyone, from employees to teachers, to students. But what it really comes down to is the system in which you manage your knowledge and thoughts… you know, all the good stuff you pull from the world’s information. Your notes essentially become part of you, an extension of your mind as precious as a memory, something that allows you to hold ideas together that surpass your bodily limits.

Case in point — Charles Darwin. The man who brought one of the most elegant theories to our world was a well organized and effective note-taker. In fact he penned (among other things) the term “natural selection” in a notebook and sat on the idea for nearly twenty years. It should make one wonder what idea they currently have sitting in their notebook that might have an impact like Darwin’s.

Having said that, we’re going to start with…

Microsoft OneNote.

It’s free with up to 5GB of storage, which is quite a bit of room. I have the free version, and I access it on my phone, iPad, and through Chrome at work. You can scan, annotate (somewhat), add files, embed Youtube videos, write, draw, and add audio notes. OneNote is your one-stop shop. It does a good job with everything but perhaps it can be argued that it’s not the “best” at every individual component — as expected. However, from using Evernote, which is quite similar, I can tell you I enjoy OneNote due to its price (additional storage options are reasonable) stability, and ease of use.

How do I use it? On a day-to-day basis, I use it as a web clipper. Essentially that means it’s a glorified bookmark manager. However, one’s ability to add notes to each clipping (or, “bookmark”), or to clip content multiple ways (screen grab, text only, full page, or a simple bookmark) sets up your clipped content to be annotated or to efficiently copy the contents to other pages/notes.

Inside of OneNote you have a pretty decent word editor as well. What I like about it is the non-linear structure of the page. While it starts as a typical word document, you can also place notes horizontally. You can use this to annotate, or, you can insert other material that helps you make sense of things. For a better idea, take a look at how I manage my Introduction to Philosophy Notes, a course I’m (as of this writing) taking online.