Hello and welcome to the Microsoft Megabyte and.
Oh. Oh, my goodness.
Look at all the mess everywhere.
I mean, look at that.
Flagged emails, random thoughts in your notes
app scrap paper with your to dos manically scribbled on them.
It's it's absolute madness.
I mean you'd think that maybe, you know, just maybe the company
who developed products like Excel Word and Outlook might have a few other
tricks up its sleeve to help you stay organized, wouldn't you?
You think that wouldn't you?
Hmm? Well, yeah.
There are several downright magical apps to help you do just that.
So for this episode, let's chat about just four of them
and how they affect the real lives of some of my colleagues.
Enjoy.
Well, it's only Alex Humble here on the Megabyte podcast.
You're back, Alex.
Despite my various warnings, you've returned.
Thank you. Now, listen.
Are you listening. To On the day?
That's how I'm supposed to listen.
We're talking about organizational apps.
We on on our training team. We all use different apps.
And I know you're quite fond of
perhaps the most visual of all these organizational apps.
Tell us about how you stay organized.
As probably the least creative and least artistic member on the team.
I think I do use Whiteboard the most and that's right.
I give it away. It is whiteboard for me.
I have quite a process of staying organized for me.
Whiteboard is that after I pull up on my PC, usually on my surface,
since I can use the slim pen, pull it up, shot the idea down really quick.
Take a diagram.
It's kind of like my really quick scratch pad where I mean, just yesterday
I was working on my car and I needed to mark
where these spark plugs were supposed to go back in.
So eight spark plugs.
So I marked them all down
because I wanted to make sure I was troubleshooting correctly.
That's not going to go into OneNote, that's not going to go into To-Do.
Whiteboard is perfect for that.
And then if I need to take that and save it and keep that long term, yeah,
then it's going to go into one of those other apps.
But for for diagraming, for a quick brainstorming and planning,
it's really hard to beat whiteboard.
I can see like all kinds different projects
and some really strange drawings that I've got going on here
within, within whiteboard, my attempts to be artistic.
I usually you kind of use it as a catchall for
to make sure just something gets captured.
You having some idea or you're going through a project.
And this might not be long term
and might not be something you need to save forever
in an Excel spreadsheet or what have you.
It's something that you just capture right now, whether it's a seating chart
for how you're going to lay out the seating for, you know, a party.
You're hosting or where the spark plugs are on this, that
when you go back 15 minutes later, you actually know the wiring and setup.
That makes a lot of sense.
How would you say that? Whiteboard. So it's a whiteboard app.
It's free, it's available on the Microsoft store.
How would it differ
from like the Sticky Notes app or just like using Microsoft Word?
Like I think probably most people
would use Microsoft Word for capturing quick notes.
How is this different?
Yeah, and I do use both of those.
But for me, the benefit is if I am going to do a seating plan
or a seating chart for a garden or draw out a diagram, it's
going to be a real pain to do that within sticky notes or word with whiteboard.
I can very quickly draw something out using the pen, my finger, the mouse,
and then if I want to,
I can type along next to that because my handwriting is just,
oh, it's absolutely terrible.
So it's that mixture of of typing, handwriting and diagraming.
It's really tough to do that anywhere else as quickly as you can within whiteboard.
Okay.
I don't mean to allow me, but if you glance out the window,
you're the car that you're appearing is actually rolling out into the street.
So, Alex, looks like you got to go. Got some urgent business.
Everyone out there, take a tip from Alex.
Try whiteboard, won't you?
Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Ryan.
You're Adrian.
I finally conned you into joining the podcast.
Thanks so much for helping us out.
We've been coworkers now for a long time and we work on a ton of projects together
and you are basically tasked with keeping an entire team organized.
So when I thought about who to invite to talk about their favorite organization
or tools for Microsoft, obviously your name was top of the list,
but I'm curious
what you use in your personal life from these apps and services,
because I think that's what's going to be most relevant to everyone.
You know what?
It sounds crazy, but this app is the basis for everything.
For me as a project manager
with you all,
as well as a project manager of my own household.
Right. Managing my children
is there's so many moments that I'm just hanging out,
doing something with the family or or out and about.
And the wife gives me a call.
It's like, Hey, I'm going to need you to take care.
Get this or, or don't forget that
your oldest son is getting off the bus at this time. Yes.
So instead of just putting those things down in a simple note
to do, has been able to help organize my life tremendously, to set like
specific times that I need to be somewhere that it's going to alert me.
I can even link in
and share a to do list with my wife at the same time.
So she tells me, and we really need these ingredients for this meal tonight
instead of me
just having a note, I can actually have a to do list and check off each item.
So when I get home I have a story to tell.
If something is missing, no joke.
So I am with you on all these examples.
I use the same app.
So we're just talking about Microsoft, To-Do, and this is again
a free app you can get in the Microsoft store,
you can get it on your phone, Android, phone, iPhone, your iPad,
whatever the case is, this app is phenomenal.
Just Microsoft, To-Do sharing the list, like you say, is so big of a deal.
We have one.
My wife and I share a list that's just about movies
we want to watch with the kids because, you know, like you like,
have those thoughts as you're walking to the grocery store. I was like,
hey, we aren't we have never seen up we never watch up with the kids.
But that's a thought that just goes away.
So when that happens,
I pull it out, like open up the movie to watch list and to do at it.
Boom, it's been captured.
Yeah.
Brian, have you ever tried out the integration
with Outlook or any other mail client where.
You can talk to me?
But I know I see that it's possible, but how does that work for you?
Oh, it's phenomenal.
So once it's linked to my email or anything that comes into my email
that has any type of time stamp on it, it will immediately
put it into the My Day tab,
which is it's incredible.
I don't know what type of air is being used, but being able
to click on my day as soon as I open my surface duo in the morning and to see
appointments and things that have came through to my email
as well as stuff that I've put in for previous days, you can really organize
it day by day and just attack what needs to be done immediately.
Yeah. How about those suggestions?
You open up the To-Do app, you hit my day and it says, here's some suggestion.
And by that it means things that you said you wanted to do a couple of days ago
that you well, never got around to, did you?
Which is awesome because it's like those. Yep.
Those are the things I forgot to do.
I forgot to pick up my kid from baseball camp
and now he's been sitting there
for two days on the street, thanks to Microsoft to do just.
Exactly, exactly.
Now, it has really helped me organize my life tremendously from work
and from home.
I really help everyone out there who has a family is listening
because this is an app that can transform how your family communicates.
And I don't know about you, Adrian.
Has this saved a lot of like Facebook messages, text messages,
like a bunch of back and forth when you and your wife that just
because like yeah it's just details details details whereas now you just go
and you add it to the list and you know, you both can see it.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And especially having notifications on so once my wife adds
something to our list, it will immediately notify me.
So instead of having to wait for a text and things like that,
I know immediately know.
Adrian man
he knows immediately that's the take away is saying organize for Microsoft To-Do.
And you know what you should, too.
Thanks so much, Adrian.
And now we have Kyle. Kyle,
do you ever stay organized and if so, how?
Well, I believe you're having other guests talk about some of my favorites.
But what if these notes are just for you?
What if they're just, you know, your school notes for a classroom?
You don't need to share them with anybody.
It's just how you take notes and couple that with what if you learn
predominantly through handwriting studies have shown, I don't have them with me.
I'll just pull a statistic out of thin air.
85% of people learn better.
And you're going to see that. You're going to check that.
Yeah, we'll check it out later when they handwrite notes,
when your notes are handwritten versus typed versus just reading something,
if you can write it back, you remember it better.
That is the mentality behind the the newest of these productivity solutions
Microsoft has put out.
It's free in the store.
It's Microsoft Journal.
Well, okay, so free in the store, meaning the Microsoft Store,
you get all your apps and stuff.
It's free.
It's a free app and it's called Microsoft Journal. Okay.
Okay, okay. You talk to me about this. What is Microsoft Journal?
It's for people who think in ink,
it is 100% touch and handwriting focused the first time you open it up.
Even if you're on a traditional desktop,
the instructions are like, tap here, draw around this.
It gives you a lot of instructions
on how to use the different sort of intuitive tools and gestures inside.
But it is 100% focused on inking and touch.
It's like
building a handwritten composition notebook, if you want to think about one
note, is like a big three ring
binder with tabs and folders and different organizational elements.
A journal is just like that
traditional composition college ruled notebook.
Yeah, but it does stuff no traditional pen and paper notebook could do.
Like if I put a star next to something, it flags that as an important item
and then I can open this panel on the left hand side
and just search by things that I put a star next to.
If I start bullet pointing things, it recognizes I've made a list.
And then if I need to reference
that list later, you can search by oh where my list sat.
Oh, they're on page five and 23 and 107. Wow.
Okay.
As you're talking, I'm
thinking about some people I know from from older generations
that are used to doing that kind of notation in a physical binder
and flipping through, looking for all the stars,
looking for all the arrows that indicate tasks and things to do.
And you're saying this is the same thing,
but digitally, and it'll automatically highlight
those as the action items that are associated with those icons. Yep.
And underline action turns things into headings for different pages.
You can search by your headings for all these different pages.
It truly is like the evolution of all the handwriting stuff
that's been done in one note, so totally built for people using
a surface Slim Penta and a surface pro eight.
Something that's really meant for Slim handwriting on the go.
Whenever you need to take some notes, post out journal.
Okay, you talk about other people now, but what we want to know,
what we want to hear about is how you use Microsoft Journal.
How has it affected your life? What do you use this app for?
All right. This is the this is the real dope and skinny.
And your your listeners
are going to get insight into me that they'll never have seen coming.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm running a small Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Say it isn't so. Yeah.
In the moment, there's a lot of moving pieces
when you when you run a campaign even out of a book,
which is what I do because I'm not creative. But
the main notes happen in one note.
But in the moment when I'm in the actual thing and I'm just with
I don't want to pad and paper because that creates a mess.
So when I'm tracking the fights, the turn order and fights and health
and all the different stuff
that needs to be managed in the moment, Journal is perfect for that.
Oh, great.
And then it gives you
a record of, of the campaign, of, of the activity that you've been at.
What is it called?
What is a.
Campaign is.
A campaign is I do like okay.
And unlike sticky notes, which are small and they still have some touch elements,
but you have to you have to manage the size of them.
And it's very easy to delete a sticky note like a journal can be
one consistent thing and you just keep adding pages
and the journal app allows you to create multiple journals.
So inside the app
there's a book for the campaign and I can create a new book should I,
you know, take up some adult education
and want to learn about evolutionary biology?
I'd have to write for that.
Like you guys have multiple journal journals.
In Microsoft Journal.
It's free in the Microsoft Store. Check it out.
Just one of the many organizational tools we're talking about today.
Carl, enjoy your raid.
Enjoy the caves.
And I hope you get some amazing treasure.
And that the.
Town no, no, no.
Crier is a fan of your.
I'm I'm running a troll.
My goal is to kill my friends.
Oh, I see. That's that's the that's the message.
That's the takeaway. Yup. On pen and paper.
Digital pen and paper.
And it's Tony Hannides. Hi, Tony.
Hello, Brian.
How are you?
I'm doing great, but I'd be doing better if you would.
Revealed to me one of your favorite organizational tools from Microsoft.
Honestly, one of the apps that I use on a daily,
at least twice a day is going to be OneNote
and for a multitude of reasons, but especially right now, because I don't know
if you know this, but I'm planning to get married next week. But
that's incredible news.
I mean, I didn't know you got anyone to agree.
Yeah, it was.
Listen, there.
Was nothing to. It.
We don't have to dig deep.
And truly, that is that is of course, I already knew that.
But yes, it's wonderful news.
And I think it's a perfect use case
scenario for what you're talking about, because OneNote is a free app.
It's available on iOS, on Android, on Android, ten pieces
on Mac OS devices on the Web.
But it can do so much.
They can do so much.
It can honestly be a little bit intimidating.
And what are you using it for then?
Let's let's make it real with a real use case scenario from your life.
So every single like main topic of setting up, you know,
setting up a wedding
and like organize a, organizing the venues,
the groomsmen, the bridesmaids, every single
one of those topics has its own page within a OneNote notebook,
and that whole notebook is shared between myself and my fiancee.
So at any beck and call, we can update the notebook accordingly.
So when she makes her own dress for the flower girls.
Wow, talented.
She can, you know, take a picture of it and put it into the flower girl fold page.
Yeah.
Conversely, when I figure out, well, this is the way that I want
the cake to be designed, we can have that collaborative experience
kind of throughout the whole day.
Instead of having it in a separate chat with some other like chat program.
I ask you, Tony, how would this how do you think this would play out
without one note?
Because I totally understand the vision you're talking about.
In fact, when I think of a wedding planner, I'm thinking of the stereotypical
upper class fashionista type person with their
with their leather notebook that they're paging through and organizing.
And it's a three ring binder, basically.
Yeah, you've digitized that process.
And pretty much. Shared.
What do you think this would be like?
What tools would you be using if you didn't have OneNote?
Definitely.
You have Franklin Covey, little attache kind of thing.
Yeah, a lot of text messages back and forth, let's.
Say a lot of text messages, phone calls like physical sticky notes
that would that would be the big thing, like physical sticky notes around her
desk, around my desk of, hey, I have this great idea
whether we do it or not, it's still an idea.
An idea. And I still have to get it written down.
Slip and slide. All right. That's an idea.
Or air conditioning inside by where
we're going to be sitting, because it's going to be in Louisiana.
So we need air conditioning. Like where how would we place those.
Phone numbers for vendors and all that information?
Everything.
Yeah, that's why we're.
Just like, you know, the big one that everyone
doesn't really put a lot of emphasis on until kind of late is the playlist,
which should be on the playlist, and we have to figure that out right now.
So obviously things like, you know, a little bit of line dancing
here, maybe a little bit of Creedence Clearwater, maybe a little bit of more
or less traditional, depending on what your mood is for.
And then you just literally just make that playlist a sharable page
or just copy and paste that
page to your deejay or whomever is gonna be in charge of the music.
All right.
I just as you're going through all this, I assume one of the pages
is the RSVP list, and I look forward to it.
You know. Writing I can't see you.
I'm have- I'm having-
II'm going through a tunnel- He always brings this up whenever I try to.
Get invited to a party. Sound engineer?
What? You're gone too!?
Tony Hannides
starting out a new chapter of life the right way using Microsoft OneNote.
Thanks so much, Tony.
Of course.
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