Setting OneNote up to avoid future space & organization problems

[Pardes]

I’m a new OneNote user and would like to avoid redundancy and monstrous file
sizes when working with a multitude of professional and personal notebooks.
Any advice? Can you point me to specific topics of how to set things up
initially so that I’m not creating a monster?
I’ve been reading all the OneNote blogs and search hits I can find about
this but there is very little specific information on how to wisely organize
a system.
Thanks for your help! And I am completely obsessed with OneNote.

 

[sbt]

Hi Pardes!

First of all, it's not too difficult to reaarange things in OneNote. Pages
can be transferred between sections and notebooks. If you are worried about
file size, inserting links to files that you don't need to write notes on
takes less space. Personally, I don't worry too much about this. I figure I
will create an annual archive notebook, put everything I'm not too likely to
need it in and back it up in a couple of safe places. Then I'll delete the
file on my TPC.

I use the Getting Things done system for basic organizing, with a tickler
file set up with pages for each day of the month, and each month of the year.

The search function makes it pretty easy to find something you've lost track
of.

Really, an organizational system depends a great deal on your personal work
style, the kind of data you're working with, and how long you need access to
it. Think about those questions. Explore any kind of organizational books and
articles you can find. It doesn't need to be specific to OneNote. Use the
ideas to create what you think will work for you. You can always tweak it as
you go along.

SBT

 

[Pardes]

You are right about backing up annually. Excellent idea. Plus Amazon is
winging me a 500 gigabyte portable external drive so I should have enough
space, actually enough space to really get me in trouble. Redundancy is my
middle name....

Thanks for the help!

 

[exciter]

Think hard on it:
Customize a template and you may want to set it the onyl template ever.

But also, it may be hard to give an advice beucase you will see how ON
reacts to your needs as you work on it.
After using it a year, you may realise that you could have created a
template differently.
Then it will not be possible to change the template one by one in every
folder, section....
Unless future ON versions will allow us to change the existing templates at
once.