I don’t use Word to write correspondence. I use email. Consequently, Word was a rarely used tool to in my work arsenal. I did use Word to write application documentation. Usually these documents running into hundreds of pages. Usually screen snapshots and notes for those screens. Word is a wonderful product.
Work notes, meetings, task tracking, ect were kept on paper. Actually in notebooks.
Today, at least since the pandemic turned me into a work from home kind of fellow, most of my note taking is done in one Word document, and most meetings and notes from those meetings are kept in another Word document. (2024_notebook.docx, and 2024_meetings.docx)
notebook
The notebook is grouped by application, and project.
In the application section I have a list of applications, under each application are Jira tasks, and under the task are checklists and notes associated with that task. The project section has a list of projects, under each project are a list of Jira tasks, with associated checklists and notes.
Todo - add screen snapshot of notes
meeting notes
The meeting document contains multiple sections, one for each meeting. These sections start with a header of a date stamp and a title.
Then it contains a list of people in that meeting (or at least the first 5 or so)
Then it contains any notes associated with that meeting.
Then finally there I’ll add a todo section of there are items for me to follow up on.
I Arrange the meetings so that the newest is on top. Things work better that way.
I’ll recorded who attended, notes from the meeting, and at the bottom a Todo section containing things to do after the meeting.
Between these two documents most of my writing is done including drafts of documents i prepare for other purposes.
completed notebook
I do have a third document 2024_completed.docx. Once in awhile when i feel like the document is to large, I’ll review the notes to the tickets and older completed ticket notes will be moved into the completed document.
During the year.
One thing i notice about Microsoft’s software… they are not good at writing search functions. With Word, the search function is pretty food, until it becomes eratic.
I think once a document starts exceeding 50000 words the search starts to break down. When this happens i start thinking about purging my notebook.
I place a ***** as a header on the document, so the first thing I’ll do is search for ***** and from their I’ll scan down down looking for sections that make sence to delete or archive into one of those completed documents. In my case since my notebook is organized by Jira tickets, i look for the notes on the closed tickets.
Notes for deletion are then cut out of the notebook and pasted into the bottom of the completed document.
I’ll usually delete 10,000 or so words from the notebook after which the search function goes back to working reliably. I’ll mark the point where I’m finished reviewing with ***** that way, when I’m ready to purge more from the documentation, you can continue at this point.
New Year
At the start of a new year
• I’ll create a new notebook document. I’ll move over the active jira ticket notes.
• I’ll create a new meetings document
• I’ll create a new completed document
My Macros
Macros for h1-h5
Macro for today’s date - f5
Saving word documents into the cloud offers the ability to auto backup. But a couple of warnings
• Sometimes auto backup turns off
• I have lost data, last week my notes from e to p disappeared,