Post-it notes are one of the greatest office inventions and many of us rely on them to jot down useful information. If you want to save a tree, there are many digital applications that will take care of your notes and reminders. You may have heard of popular services like Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, and so on, which can offer a variety of features such as sync across devices, collaboration, etc., and may be free or subscription-based. Ultimately, your choice will depend on what your requirements are, and personal preference. Remember that third-party services often use cloud-based storage, and you will need to be mindful of University-compliant data security.
This guide, however, will just focus on two simple solutions that most will already have installed on your desktop PC.
Windows Sticky Notes
Your Windows PC comes with Sticky Notes pre-installed. Click the Start button and type “sticky notes” to find it. A blank yellow post-it will pop up on your screen which you can type directly into. Click and drag the top of the note to put it anywhere on the Desktop. Clicking the plus (+) button will create a new note, while the cross (x) will delete the note. Right-click in the note to choose a different colour.
When you log out of your PC, Sticky Notes will remember your current notes and their location on the Desktop. Next time you log in and Sticky Notes runs, they will pop up again.
That’s all there is to Sticky Notes, as it’s a very basic application. While this keeps it simple, there are some things to bear in mind.
- If you delete a note, it is gone forever; there is no “Recycle Bin” that it can be recovered from.
- Notes are saved on the hard drive of that PC, so you cannot sync notes to another device. Also, should the PC hard drive fail, the notes will be lost.
On balance, Sticky Notes is a handy tool for day-to-day reminders (buy milk, etc.), but is not the best application to use for more important information.
Further reading: How to Use Windows 7’s Sticky Notes
Outlook Notes
Did you know the Microsoft Outlook has a Notes feature built in? It is an oft-overlooked tool, but it can be handy if you are a regular Outlook Exchange user. At the bottom-left of the Outlook window, where you can switch between different views (Mail, Calendar, Contacts, etc), click the three dots (···) and choose Notes.
Click New Note to add a note. A new note will appear on the screen which you can type directly into. Click and drag the top of the note to put it anywhere on the desktop. You will also see the note appear in the Notes view in Outlook. New notes are created from within Outlook Notes view in the same way, or press Ctrl+Shift+N from any Outlook screen. Clicking the cross (x) will close the note from view, but does not delete it.
Unlike Sticky Notes, when you close and reopen Outlook it does not reopen the individual notes on the Desktop. However, as all the notes are automatically saved in the Notes view, they can be reopened from there. You can customise the Outlook Notes view in various ways, e.g. showing notes in a list, a preview pane, and more.
At first comparison, Outlook Notes may seem a little clunkier than Sticky Notes. However, being integrated into Outlook it does have some advantages.
- As the notes are saved in Outlook you can access them wherever you are logged into the same email account (including the Outlook Web Access, where they can be found as ‘Notes’ among the list of mail folders). The data is stored in your Exchange mailbox, so does not have the risk of data loss should your PC hard drive fail.
- Every note is date and time stamped, and this updates when the note is edited.
- Deleted notes are sent to the normal Deleted Items folder, so they can be retrieved.
- Notes can be categorised with colours/labels, similarly to email messages (click the note icon at the top left of the note for a menu).
- Notes can be forwarded as email attachments.
Overall, Outlook Notes seems to be more suitable for users who need to manage larger numbers of notes that may contain important data, from multiple locations.
Further reading: How to Use Notes in Outlook 2013 for Easy Desktop Reminders
We will look at Microsoft OneNote for productivity management in other articles.
