If you loved going back to school time as much as I did when you were a kid, then you are going to love Microsoft OneNote. Remember that feeling of picking out just the right notebook each year? Should I go 3-ring binder or spiral? Scooby-doo or Flintstones? (Okay, so I guess I’m dating myself a little bit there.)

All things are possible with OneNote (almost), and getting started usually begins with creation of a new notebook. How you choose to organize your notebooks is up to you. You can have a notebook for every project, or one notebook with many sections in it. And yes, of course you can have multiple workbooks with multiple sections, too.

The first question when you create a notebook is where to store it. The best place is on a cloud-based server like Microsoft’s OneDrive. By storing the notebook in the cloud you can get to it from any device so long as you have an internet connection and know your username and password.

Since most people are wired constantly in today’s world, that translates to anywhere. If you are working “off the grid” and make change to a notebook on a mobile device like your phone, OneNote will synchronize your notebook with the cloud version as soon as you get to an internet network.

Add your first notebook

1. Open the program. (Your screen may look different than mine, depending on what you have done previously.)
2. Click the File tab.
3. Click the New button.
4. Click the place where you want to store the notebook. Your Computer will always be a choice, and OneDrive will also usually be a choice. If you are working for a company, it may have the company name beside OneDrive instead of the word Personal.
5. Type in the notebook name.
6. Click Create Notebook.

That’s it, you’re ready to start adding pages and sections!