OneNote: notes that survive

OneNote fails when everything lands in one notebook: one notebook per area of life, sections per project, pages per note. Names carry dates («2026-10 — vendor calls») so the list sorts itself and old pages are obviously old.

Sync conflicts come from offline edits on two devices. Close the loop daily: sync before closing the laptop, and keep the «quick notes» section tiny — it is an inbox, and inboxes need emptying, not admiring. Search across all notebooks finds anything in seconds, which is the whole point of writing things down.

Sharing without mess

Share sections, not whole notebooks: the recipient gets exactly the project, and your private pages stay private. Agree on one editor at a time for heated pages — simultaneous edits create conflict copies that someone must merge by hand.

Paper bridge

Phone photos of whiteboards and paper land straight into OneNote with searchable text, which makes the phone camera the fastest scanner you own. Review the auto-filed images weekly and rename the keepers — «IMG_2026» is where notes go to be forgotten.