OneNote 2007 and GTD

[carlc]

If you made a OneNote-project task to an Outlook-task, then the next action is another task, do you write this task only in Outlook or first in OneNote, to have the complete project task history? There is no way to get an Outlook task to the task list in OneNote, or?

paper-edv,

The tasks in Outlook can either come from flagging an item in OneNote, or directly in Outlook (CTRL-SHIFT-K). Ultimately all of the tasks will end up in Outlook. You can manually push completed task information back to OneNote, but I don't think there is a need to do this. The reason is that each task contains the project [tag] (See description here for details). Since WDS indexes across Outlook and OneNote, you can quickly get a complete project history by searching on the tag. It's also a lot of extra work to push completed task details back into OneNote ; )

 

[carlc]

RE: Now I get it!

But, If I understand correctly, in Outlook you'll get a single list with all your open tasks, right? Don't you feel the need to group them by context? Anyway I guess it can easily be done using Outlook categories.

Nuno,

I do still use Outlook categories to manage contexts. After flagging an item in OneNote to create the task, I right click on the flag and select "Open Task in Outlook". As soon as the task opens, I use ALT-G to open the category pane and assign the context. I wish there was a quick way to have the context/category assigned right from OneNote, but unfortunately that's not supported yet.

-Carl

 

[nununo]

I get it

Hi Carl,

Perfect. Not only this makes even more sense than what I was doing, this way I can avoid using tags summary and so I don't have to worry about that bug.

Thanks!

 

[nununo]

Why Section groups instead of multiple notebooks?

Hi Carl,

I noticed you're using a section group called Done to group your archived stuff. But why don't you use a separate notebook instead? Once you're in a section group you cannot see the other sections and have to click "up" to go back to the upper level where you see them. With a different notebook everything remains visible at all times.

I realize you have one notebook per year but I guess it would be fairly easy to, at the end of each year, move everything from the "Done" notebook into the "2007" notebook.

Or am I missing something?

Nuno

 

[nununo]

Calendar actions

Hi,

While tasks are easily synchronized between Outlook and OneNote, I still didn't find an elegant way to do the same for calendar items.

Now, to move a task to the calendar, I manually create a calendar entry in Outlook and then mark the task with a special tag called @calendar but this can get messy and confusing since they're not synchronized.

Anyone has better ideas?

Thanks,
Nuno

 

[carlc]

RE: Why Section groups instead of multiple notebooks?

I noticed you're using a section group called Done to group your archived stuff. But why don't you use a separate notebook instead? Once you're in a section group you cannot see the other sections and have to click "up" to go back to the upper level where you see them. With a different notebook everything remains visible at all times.

Nuno - Nice idea! That also has the added benefit that at the end of the year you really don't have to move anything. If it's in the "@Done" notebook it just gets archived. You can then create another "@Done" notebook to catch stuff for the next year. If it's not in the "@Done" notebook, then it's still in progress and shouldn't be archived anyway. I like it!

-Carl

 

[carlc]

RE: Calendar actions

While tasks are easily synchronized between Outlook and OneNote, I still didn't find an elegant way to do the same for calendar items.

Nuno - I think there's an easy way to do this... These instructions assume Outlook 2003 but should be similar for Outlook 2007... Right click on the task icon in the list and (with the right mouse button) drag that task onto the calendar icon in the same Outlook window. You should get a pop-up menu. Pick "Copy Here as Appointment with Shortcut". That's it. You now have a calendar appointment with a shortcut back to the original task inside of it.

Hope that helps.

-Carl

 

[nununo]

Calendar items

Hi Carl,

I'm glad I could help

I'll try to create a calendar item like you say. So what you mean is:

- Generate a task in outlook from OneNote
- Use the Outlook task to create a calendar appointment
- Delete the outlook task

But still in the end I get a one way link, right? There's still no way to go from the OneNote task to the Outlook calendar appointment.

Nuno

 

[Stodge]

Carl,

In your blog you say you planned to share more of your Autohotkey scripts in the future. Is that going to happen? I'm keen to see your system of logging events with a date stamp in OneNote using a hotkey as it seems a brilliant capture tool for on the fly thoughts.

 

[carlc]

RE: Calendar actions

So what you mean is:

- Generate a task in outlook from OneNote
- Use the Outlook task to create a calendar appointment
- Delete the outlook task

But still in the end I get a one way link, right? There's still no way to go from the OneNote task to the Outlook calendar appointment.

Nuno - I think I missed what you were trying to do... I was describing a way to link an Outlook task to a calendar item (nothing to do with OneNote). So, in that case, you don't want to delete the Outlook task (otherwise the calendar item will link back to nothing).

I think what you really wanted to do was generate a Calendar item directly from OneNote. OneNote 2007 doesn't support this quite as nicely as it does for tasks, but here's how I would do it:

• Open OneNote and find the text/line/action
• Right click on that line and select "Copy Hyperlink to this Paragraph"
• Without leaving OneNote type Alt+Shift+A to open a new appointment
• Paste the hyperlink into the body and enter the subject, date, time, etc.
• Click "Save and Close" button

Hope that helps.

-Carl

 

[carlc]

RE: Autohotkey scripts

In your blog you say you planned to share more of your Autohotkey scripts in the future. Is that going to happen? I'm keen to see your system of logging events with a date stamp in OneNote using a hotkey as it seems a brilliant capture tool for on the fly thoughts.

Thanks Stodge, I hope to get that posted in the next week or so. I'll leave a reply here once it's up.

-Carl

 

[nununo]

Calendar items

Hi Carl,

Yes, that was it. Unfortunately OneNote still doesn't sync decently with calendar items. But your tips (copying the link to page, shortcut to create a calendar item from OneNote) are still quite useful, thanks!

Nuno

 

[carlc]

OneNote DROE Tool Available

In your blog you say you planned to share more of your Autohotkey scripts in the future. Is that going to happen? I'm keen to see your system of logging events with a date stamp in OneNote using a hotkey as it seems a brilliant capture tool for on the fly thoughts.

Stodge - I finally got a chance to post my tool for quickly adding notes to my Daily Record of Events in OneNote. You can download it here. I'm calling this a Beta release : )

Regards,
Carl

 

[carlc]

Minor Update to DROE Tool

I posted a minor update to the DROE Tool. There are three changes in this release:

1. The download now includes a detailed README file with installation/upgrade instructions, screen shots, and troubleshooting tips.
2. The check to make sure that the OneNote DROE page successfully opened is now case insensitive, so it’s a bit more forgiving.
3. Toggling the tray icon now also displays the version information for the tool.

You can download the latest version on the Downloads page. Thanks especially to Tripp C. for helping to troubleshoot the previous version.

-Carl

 

[JackC]

Disappearing OneNote tags

Here's an edited version of a longer message I left on Carl's site which may help people who are having problems with the tag summary in OneNote.
-----
Make sure you add some text when you insert a tag onto a page. Sometimes, I would add just an urgent tag next to some pre-inserted text and wonder why it wouldn’t appear in the summary. A phone icon isn’t enough on it own - add “call Bill” or whatever and then it will pop up in the summary. “Call Bill” will also be the hyperlinked text that can launch the original page.

If you can’t see a particular tag in the summary, remove the tick from “show only unchecked items”. If you use icons without check boxes (like the phone or exclamation mark) they don’t appear unless you uncheck the box.

Hope this helps

Jack

 

[showells]

I've found that if you untick and the re-tick the “show only unchecked items” that all of the missing tags re-appear in your tag view. You'll need to do this every time that you refresh the view

cheers

Steve

 

[carlc]

Good catch, thanks Steve!

I guess you would need to un-check, re-check, then uncheck again if you want to refresh and also see tags without check boxes included per Jack's suggestion above?

 

[carlc]

OneNote 2007 Setup Screens

Here is some additional information... There was a key piece missing from my original instructions, that being the detailed setup screens. I captured the relevant screens and published them along with some notes here:
Setting Up OneNote 2007 for GTD.

Hope it helps.

-Carl

 

[rolfessenden]

Syncronizing tags across computers

I use ON for my GTD system, but I sync my notebooks across 3 pcs. Does anyone know how to synchronize tag definitions across all 3 pcs without doing it manually? That is a pain.

 

[JackC]

Syncing OneNote tags

I use purpose built syncing software. There are many in the market.

I use Allway Sync a quality freeware app to sync my ON settings on multiple machine.

Jack