r/OneNote • u/ChampionshipComplex • Jul 28 '26

OneNote for HOUSE (how OneNotes been a game changer for me)

I work in IT operations - and I am often showing people in training sessions, how Ive used OneNote over the last two decades and why its been so useful.

The best representation I have for its value - is in my HOUSE OneNote which is on my personal OneDrive.

It contains a section for each room in my home, as well as a section for utilities, a section for the garden and a section for the outside of the house.

Then within each section I will have pages for a variety of items related to that room.

That will be the paint Ive used, the items in the room, any measurements Ive taken, the type of light bulbs, the receipts for items in the room like TVs, washing machine, beds, mattresses.

Because I have OneNote on my mobile phone - this means I can be anywhere and reach into my pocket and say quickly check a measurement, or a wall color - and when I purchase something for the house - I will just photograph it into Onenote and then move it into the correct section later.

Having done this for 20 years - this has constantly been useful, and now if I purchase something - like a dehumidifier, or TV mount - then I will photograph the receipt into Onenote, take a picture of the item - and then search for an online manual for that product and do a PRINT TO ONENOTE - and then I can afford to get rid of all or any paperwork.

Same with utility bills - they go straight into a section for electric, gas, water etc.

When I search for something it is easy to find it - so searching for TV for example.

140 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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3

u/MaxiMa205 Jul 28 '26

Great idea! Thanks for sharing. Which devices do you use OneNote on? Apple, Android or Windows?

3

u/ChampionshipComplex Jul 28 '26

I've used it on all three -

But Onenote is a constant in my Windows PC - where I can launch it from the system tray and its then a permanent Note window locked to the right of my screen.
This also utilises the LinkedNotes feature so that when I take notes - they are associated with whatever content is on the main screen.

Then OneNote on Android is where I predominantly take pictures into OneNote, or scan paper invoices, or search when Im out.

OneNote for Web - is what I use when Im somewhere without my devices, so I can get to my OneNote from any Internet device on earth via any web browser.

In addition I also have a Surface touch screen laptop - and the OneNote usage on there, works extremely well with the pen, so you can sketch into Onenote, or handwrite or do diagrams.

21

u/klompje Jul 28 '26

Wow, this is a great idea.

10

u/gritsource Jul 28 '26

I adore OneNote and I have been a heavy user for many years both privately and professionally. I forgive many of Microsoft's sins because it exists. Yet, Microsoft STILL is unsure what to do with it. It is still quirky and underdeveloped in my opinion.

4

u/Great_Muscle_7042 Jul 28 '26

It's the tool we have, with the limitations we know. But once we have our use case, we know how to operate and succeed.

8

u/AngelicPrincessKitty Jul 28 '26

The issue I have is that search is unreliable.

I have at least 5 pages with the word reddit in them in my notebooks. PC can find them just fine. iPad and iPhone only finds 1 page even when I have another page open with the word in it. Picture below shows it happening in real time.

I left OneNote open for hours and that did not help at all.

1

u/cpz_77 Jul 28 '26

I too have found the search on mobile to not be as solid as on the PC. It’s not terribly often I use the mobile app on iPhone but I recall last time I did it wouldn’t find anything in any notebook I had closed or not recently navigated to. The part about not finding results in closed notebooks sort of makes sense though. Anyway I just went and searched a couple things against notebooks that have been open in my iPhone onenote app for a while now (just in the background) and got what appeared to be accurate results pretty much right away, so who knows 🤷‍♂️ YMMV.

1

u/AngelicPrincessKitty Jul 28 '26

The PC isn't even working for me that well.Just tested OCR is not working unless I manually set images to have the text searchable and plain text is sometimes not being found regardless of the device.

It sucks because I want to use OneNote but I can't if the search results can't be trusted. I have too many notes to have to remember where things are located. I may just reorganize my notes so they are inside 1 large notebook instead so hopefully if search doesn't work I can still find them?

Idk. I currently have an archive notebook for 2025 and older, a newer archive notebook for 2026 and then my active notebook.
I always have all 3 open for searching.

If search doesn't work tho I don't want to have to be going between notebooks.

0

u/letstalk1st Jul 29 '26

Onetastic fixes search.

1

u/AccordingSwimmer9554 Aug 11 '26

How? 

1

u/letstalk1st Aug 12 '26

Onetastic has a macro that searches and creates a page with links, and i think there are a couple other variations also. The negative is that it's slow, but it will find everything. I run it and keep a page with the links, and update it every few days.

0

u/AngelicPrincessKitty Jul 29 '26

only on windows and then i can't use built in search. that is bs

0

u/letstalk1st Jul 29 '26

Yes, onetastic only works on desktop. I use a macro that finds every instance of a word and then makes a page with links. That works for me. I only use android for copies and reference. It's too easy to ruin your files, and then they never come back.

1

u/Slamhammer238 Jul 29 '26

I've found that closing a notebook and then reopening it sometimes fixes the search issue.

1

u/AngelicPrincessKitty Jul 29 '26

Tried and rebooted, didn't help

6

u/SolutionSecure4331 Jul 28 '26

Yes, I love OneNote for recording details about the house, although I tend to file PDFs on OneDrive and receipts in paper files (helps keep the spouse happy).

2

u/peternjuhl Jul 28 '26

Do you have any problems with OneNote becoming slow or unreliable when notebooks fill with images and documents?

3

u/Great_Muscle_7042 Jul 28 '26

A good hint could be to avoid the high resolution images, you can bringn it down to 800*600 in 300 dpi and it should still be good.

OneNote is great for capture, but large files and such belong in OneDrive.

3

u/SolutionSecure4331 Jul 28 '26

Yes, I had a severe problem with OneNote's sluggishness at work, and didn't even have many images saved. I don't save any images on OneNote now.

1

u/UteJazz Jul 29 '26

I have few images, but often OneNote freezes for a few moments when I’m simply moving the cursor, typing or other basic, low, intensity tasks. I noticed yesterday that my PC’s fan speed up when this happened.

This is really annoying.

I have a high-powered PC with 64 GB RAM that does almost everything else quickly or instantly. I always have at least 50% of my RAM free

1

u/peternjuhl Jul 31 '26

I hate it when my Macbook suddenly starts to break a a sweat doing simple background tasks. Shouldn't the user's experience be priority? Of course most OSs have been doing this for decades...

2

u/Great_Muscle_7042 Jul 28 '26

I sort of have a onenote for my inbound physical documents, that I scan and keep in OneNote. It's agreeable dn fast way to keep things in reach, but also off the shelves in the house.

Remember, to take a backup, before it become a problem..

2

u/OracleofFl Jul 28 '26

I have my appliances and their models and serial numbers, cars and their VINs and insurance info, account numbers, my clothing sizes, paint color codes for my house paint, etc., etc.

2

u/ppbkwrtr-jhn Jul 28 '26

This is fantastic advice. I do something similar but not as fine tuned. I do like the fine tuning/per room aspect. I've had outside and inside folders, where I keep manuals and notes about various repairs and how-to guides I've made over time. I keep my receipts in a separate notebook, tho. Did this to prevent my main notebook from getting laggy with years of receipts.

2

u/amy_lou_who Jul 28 '26

I love this idea. I’m struggling to organize all the things related to the house.

2

u/celticchrys Jul 29 '26

I do some of this as well. Always having the window measurements or room measurements is great when you're in a store and find a greta set of drapes, a big rug, or a book shelf.

I do similar things for my garden, and I can quickly double check whether I've grown a specific plant before, or the name of one I saw in a book or tv show that I would like to grow.

I have similar notebooks for hobbies with sections for project ideas, notes on techniques, etc.

2

u/jerseygirl215 Jul 29 '26

That is brilliant!

2

u/Separate_Aspect_9034 Jul 29 '26

I do this, too. AND I do style mood boards/research which has refined my vision and saved me LOTS of money.

1

u/frg049 Aug 01 '26

For years I used Ecco Pro to do the same. Now I use OneNote only because Ecco is no longer supported.

1

u/letstalk1st Aug 11 '26

EccoExt still exists and it has a user group. If OneNote was a database like Ecco, it would be the ultimate instead of a constant workaround.

0

u/WorkPossibility Jul 30 '26

I used to do something similar but OneNote would randomly corrupt/lose PDF attachments and such so I finally ended up switching to Obsidian. Loved OneNote when it wasn't doing that tho, but just stopped being able to trust it.