Using OneNotefor GTD Methodology?

Question

I'm trying to implement GTD (Getthing Things Done) Methodology by David Allen.  I've never used OneNote (or Evernote) until now.  I was going to implement "The Secret Weapon" setup (http://www.thesecretweapon.org/)  but then I got to thinking that since I use Office (like 90% of everyone out there) and I've finally standardized on SkyDrive (as opposed to Google Drive or DropBox) that it would be 'cleaner' and more consistent to try to stay within the Office Ecosystem.  I also recognized that with tighter integration between Outlook, I could reference tasks in Outlook within OneNote and easily link back and forth.  Admittedly, after I started looking in depth at Outlook and OneNote for GTD, I started to see a lot of overlap.  It seems there are a lot of new features in Outlook that are designed to make Outlook be able to be used for GTD!  But then OneNote isn't relegated to only using the format of an e-mail to store information.  But then Outlook has the task list and the calendar.  What to do? What to do?

There's really two purposes I need addressed: one is GTD, or task management, and the other is information collection and organization.  The thing is, many times the two are closely related.  You may have project tasks to complete but need to reference Project Support Materials.  (These materials aren't solely e-mails.)  I quickly realized as far as GTD task managment, Evernote was far superior to either Outlook or OneNote. It seems obvious the designers at Microsoft did not design either of these products with David Allen's GTD in mine, although both can be 'bent' to pull it off, it's just not optimally functional.  I realize part of the problem may be that I'm not familiar enough with all the features of Outlook and OneNote.  It seems Outlook is closest to being a GTD tool, in fact a company has written custom macros to address this.  (http://www.gtdoa.com)  But the cost is pretty high consider 5-seats to Office costs only $100/year.

I used to be an Outlook user, then moved to Thunderbird and was happy, now I'm back on Outlook.  It seems going with Evernote, I could change email programs in the future and not worry about losing all my GTD stuff.  Also, I'd hate to rely on a third party plug-in that isn't standard functionality in Outlook, who knows where it will end up and how well it will be supported?

But, I still really want to standardize on SkyDrive and the Free Web Apps to be able to share project materials with clients or family members, as most are already using Skydrive and/or Office and Office Web Apps.  But I really hate to separate PSM's into OneNote from the project tasks in Evernote.  I may just need to look deeper into using Outlook for GTD using task lists in Outlook.  I believe these lists are shareable.  Unfortunately, I use my own server with IMAP for email and outlook.com for my calendars so I can't share task lists.

I'm thinking I may have to go with a three-pronged approach.  Outlook for e-mail.  OneNote for note taking and infromation collection and project support material storage, and Evernote for GTD task management. The thing is I already am using Bontq for client project task management but that's not a good system for GTD so I may have to use 4 apps and just use GTD for personal tasks.  I'd rather not do that.  I'll need to look at the sharing and access control features for Evernote to see if it can be used as a replacement for a client-facing project task management system.

The main problem is that OneNote's tag system is sorely lacking from a GTD perspective.  You can't build a page list based on a cross reference of multiple tags.  The OneNote web app, to give access to outsiders for free, is sorely lacking and the skydrive search function doesn't even search the content of the notebooks!  I hate I can only see tags on pages as icons. Anyway, here's what I'd like to do with OneNote:

http://www.thesecretweapon.org/emptying-that-inbox

(Here's how they set it up: http://www.thesecretweapon.org/prepping-evernote-for-tsw)

There other benefit of Evernote of being open source is you can find plug-ins to do pretty much anything you want. But the actual note-taking and the syncing  of OneNote is better.

Answer 1

I took a different tact to Jim and use OneNote as the center of my day, having moved from Evernote. They main thing to do is really get in to your head that OneNote is just like a "real world" filing cabinet, just infinite.

I use the OfficeLens app to photo/scan all paper correspondence straight to my inbox. All email that needs keeping gets archived into archive folders in Outlook, but anything that is either actionable or I want as reference gets sent to One Note

Having empty Inbox folders has been liberating.

The biggest shortcoming of OneNote vs Evernote is in tags and searching. ON desktop allows you to use tags, but they can't be searched and the searches can't be saved. There's no tagging at all on other platforms. That's a real big miss for OneNote that MS needs to sort out!

Answer 2

Ms reps supposedly look into these forums for feedback on how OneNote works, so hopefully someone would pick it up.

Answer 3

I have had great success using a combination of Microsoft Outlook and Onenote to implement Getting Things Done. I use Outlook as my runway for active work and then move messages into OneNote at a project or staff level.

I wrote a book that describes the framework I designed and implemented, it is called Control Your Day. Check out www.controlyourday.net for more information.  You can download the first chapter of the book and the step by step implementation guide right from the site.

I am available to answer any questions

Jim McCullen