With spring quickly approaching, it's the perfect time to add Office 365 to your spring cleaning list and get organized around the house, office, kitchen, and everywhere else that needs a bit tidying up.
If you’re looking to get a jumpstart start on your spring cleaning, I have put together some really helpful tips and tricks you can use to keep your life organized all year round. Microsoft Office 365 has been my go-to organizer for years. So if you’re ready to simplify your day-to-day life, here are some of my favorite benefits that make Office 365 almost like having a personal assistant:
OneNote
First and foremost, I want everyone to know OneNote is available across ALL of your devices, even MAC! Unlike downloaded versions of software, you can use OneNote on all of the devices you love including PC, Mac, Tablets, Windows Phone, iPad, iPhone, and Android! Using the Office 365 subscription, you can appreciate OneNote anywhere and everywhere.
If you're like me, you're busy. OneNote Web Clipper lets you quickly clip all or part of a web page to OneNote, and save it for later. Clip images, pdfs, videos, or a visual bookmark of a page. Best of all, you can access them from any computer, tablet, or phone - even when you're offline.
Here are some my of my features available on all OneNote platforms:
- The new web clipper lets you quickly save web pages to your OneNote notebook.
- The new me@onenote.com service lets you email notes directly to your notebook.
- The cool new technology Office Lens lets you capture documents and whiteboards with ease using your phone. It even flattens the image (even if taken at an angle) so it’s easier to read, and makes the text searchable so you can find it later!
- Send blogs and news articles directly to OneNote from services you love like Feedly, Weave, and News360.
- Create rules that easily connect things to OneNote via IFTTT. Think rules like, “Autosave all your Instagram photos to your OneNote” or “send all tweet responses to OneNote.”
- Scan documents to OneNote with Brother, Doxie Go, Epson and Neat. We’ve also united with apps like Genius Scan and JotNot for mobile scanning as well.
- Take notes on paper using the Livescribe smartpen, and send them directly to OneNote!
So how will I be using OneNote for my annual spring cleaning?
Taxes. To start, I STILL need to file my taxes so, OneNote is ideal for transferring my invoices, receipts, and business expenses into one organized place, the only challenge, getting my husband to do the same! This makes preparing taxes a breeze. Also, Office 365 has a tracker for charitable donations, so none of those good deeds gets overlooked.
Keepsakes. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to create digital copies of my children's artwork, class projects, photos, first visits from the tooth fairy etc. and store it all in OneNote.
My kids bring home just about as much paperwork as I do. With things like report cards, medical history, sports schedules, recitals, dentist appointments, and school calendar dates can pile up on the kitchen counter, refrigerator, or left on my desk, never to be seen again. Use OneNote to organize these documents in searchable, organized tabs. The perfect spring cleanse!
Does it break your heart to get rid of that hand turkey painting or macaroni art? Do you have boxes of artwork and craft projects in your office, storage, or in the garage? De-clutter by taking pictures of or scanning the art and storing it in OneNote. You can keep the original pieces that are most important, and have digital copies of the rest! This is great because then you can access and share your stuff on-the-go with OneNote Online and OneDrive. I do this ALL of the time to share my little artists' masterpieces with our family!!
Recipes.I’ve also been growing quite the list of my favorite cooking recipes in OneNote. This OneNote recipe book template is the perfect place to organize your spring recipes and get them out of your paper cookbook, and have them completely digitized. If you don’t believe how comprehensive OneNote is for recipe taking, take a look!!
Use Office templates help you get organized this Spring cleaning
OneDrive. Scan and save your recipes and organize them using this Recipe Tracker, or customizable OneNote recipe book. You’ll never have to dig through that pile of old recipes again, and thanks to OneDrive and Office Online, if a friend asks you for your famous raspberry cheesecake recipe, you’ll always have it in the cloud!
Weekly Chore List & Schedule. Use this schedule and list to keep you on track with daily and weekly chores; so you are never drowning in laundry, or spending hours cleaning your house or running errands again!
To Do List. Make a list, and check things off; it’s that easy! We all know it’s not, but let Microsoft help you get that list started. Before you know it you will be checking things off and finding time to sit in a hammock with your favorite book, in no time. We can dream, right?
Vacation Items Checklist. Get you and your family organized for all your travel plans this Spring.
Clean Out Your Digital Closet with Outlook.com
The first day of spring is less than a month away, and the ideal time to clean out your email using Outlook.com. Use the five tips below from the team at Outlook.com to declutter your inbox:
General Shortcuts
The shortcuts below work across the whole program, so you can get more done whether you're reading emails or adding meeting events to your calendar.
1. Learn Outlook's keyboard shortcuts. Like Word, Excel, and other Office apps, Outlook has unique keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to waste time moving your mouse around or drilling down through menus. Learn the ones you use most and you'll speed through your Outlook tasks.
You can also switch between mail, calendar, contacts, and other items in the navigation pane by hitting Ctrl + [the place number of the item]. So, if you write a to-do list in OneNote, you can easily convert it to a bunch of tasks with deadlines and reminders on your calendar.
You can add automatically add calendar meeting details like date, location, topic, agenda, and attendees, to your notes. Then you can email the meetings notes to your team using the “Email Page” button.
2. Get emails that aren't sent directly to you out of your inbox. In an old post (still worth looking at if you're using Outlook), Scott Hanselman details his GTD organization method for Outlook. One of the best tips is to use a special "Inbox – CC" folder to gather all the emails that aren't sent directly to you; that way, the inbox is focused on only the most important emails. To set this up, go to Rules > New Rules…. Then click the "Advanced Options" button. In the Rules Wizard, select "where my name is not in the To box" and then in the next screen, "move it to the specified folder." (Alternatively, set up a VIP email folder and move "emails sent only to me" into that special folder.)
3. Use email templates to never write the same email twice. Tired of sounding like a broken record? For those emails you send often, such as requests for information or reminders of due invoices, save the email as a template via File > Save As… > Outlook template. Then, to use the template, go to New Items > Choose Form… and look in your "User Templates in File System" to browse for the template you saved. Or, even quicker, double-click the OFT file from Windows Explorer to create a new message from that template. You can also use text expansion to accomplish this across any program on your computer.
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