How I use OneNote as a digital diary

The central theses

Organize personal thoughts in a digital journal using OneNote with separate notebooks and sections/subsections for easy access and clarity.
Customize daily notes with handwriting tools, templates, and password protection to create a zen digital journal with robust privacy options.
Benefit from OneNote's cross-platform availability, affordable pricing, and numerous features to create beautiful daily entries.

Gone are the days of writing down your daily thoughts with pen and paper. In this day and age, we have numerous digital solutions to record our daily experiences and untangle the complexity of our minds. Although there are dozens of journal apps, I prefer OneNote to keep my personal notes, thoughts, and digital journal in a single place. Although OneNote doesn't have as many features as dedicated journal apps, it has more than enough tools and privacy options to create a little magic in the form of a digital journal.

In this post, I'll explain step by step how to use Microsoft's note-taking tool as a digital diary so that you can discover the author within yourself and replicate the method in your OneNote account.

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Create a separate notebook

To keep my personal thoughts separate from other notes, I created a separate notebook for my digital diary. Here's how to create such a notebook in your OneNote.

Open OneNote and look at your notebooks on the left. Select file above.
Click Newchoose a storage location for your new notebook (choose OneDrive to sync notes across devices) and select Create notebook.
OneNote immediately creates a new notebook. You can view it in the sidebar.
Right-click on it to open the notebook properties. You can change the color and display name and take a look at the current location in OneDrive.
You can also move your notebook up or down in your OneNote account list.

Add sections and subsections

Now that you've created a notebook, it's time to add sections and subsections to it. I chose to include years as sections and months as subsections to keep my daily entries organized. This way, I have a clear idea of where my daily notes are without having to think twice about it.

Go to your newly created notebook in OneNote.
Expand it and right-click on the Default section. Select New section group. Rename it to 2024.
Choose New section and type the name of a month. Repeat to add the other remaining months of 2024. You can right-click on any section to change its color.

When we reach the end of 2024, you can create a new section for 2025 and enter the months as subsections. You can click the dropdown arrow to hide all subsections and create a simplified view in the sidebar.

Create pages for daily entries

Now you've successfully created a new notebook and added relevant sections and subsections. Next, it's time to fill it with your daily entries. When you create a new note, OneNote automatically adds today's date and time to your note by default. If you want, you can add the day of the week as the note title and get started.

OneNote has an extensive toolbar at the top that helps you jot down the perfect daily note. You can change text type, size, and color, and even use a highlighter tool to compose your notes. OneNote also offers a number of bullet styles, a numbering library, and tags. Tags are an interesting option that lets you add terms like tasks, important, question, highlight, address, idea, password, and other tags to your daily notes.

There is also the option to customize your tags and add new ones based on your preferences.

Handwriting tools

Do you prefer to take your daily notes with the convenience of a pen? If you use OneNote on an iPad or a 2-in-1 device like the Surface Pro, you can take handwritten notes by following these steps.

Open OneNote and go to a relevant subsection to create an entry.
Slide to view menu and select your preferred line and page color.
Switch to Pull and select the pen you want with color and thickness. You can also use a highlighter for your daily notes.
There is also the option to insert stickers into your daily notes.

Create templates for quick entries

This is where OneNote really stands out from its competitors. You can create a custom template that you can reuse for your daily notes and use it to quickly jot down your thoughts. I created a template where I included several common questions about my daily schedule and added several checkboxes for tracking my routine. You can add your own custom questions and save the page as a journal template.

Open OneNote and create a new note. Enter multiple headings as shown in the screenshot below.
You can also add checkboxes to track your daily habits.
Once your shared note is ready, switch to the Insert Menu and open Page templates.
Click Save current page as template. Enter the template name and select Save.
From now on you can easily Insert > Page Templates Menu and select your daily template to start writing a note.

For more useful OneNote templates, see our post below.

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Protect your personal diary with a password

Your digital diary contains personal notes and these should be protected from prying eyes. Fortunately, there is the option to protect an entire section with a password.

Start OneNote and right-click a subsection you want to lock.
Choose Protect this section with a password.
Choose to set a password.
Enter your password and confirm it. Select OK.

It's very important that you save your password in a password manager. Microsoft can't help you if you forget your password.

Benefits of creating a digital Zen journal in OneNote

Still not sure whether to use OneNote as a digital diary? It offers numerous advantages.

Cross-platform availability: Unlike other apps like Apple Journal or Day One, OneNote is available on all platforms. Whether you use Windows, Mac, iPhone or Android, you can review and create your daily notes anytime, anywhere.
Price: All OneNote features are free, you only have to pay for OneDrive storage when you reach the 5GB limit.
Characteristics: OneNote is packed with useful features for taking all kinds of everyday notes.

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From brain dump to beautiful diary

If you think your daily thoughts deserve a nicer home, explore OneNote as a digital journal. It's certainly an unsung hero of the Microsoft 365 suite and its versatility never ceases to amaze me. OneNote also offers robust collaboration tools so you can seamlessly share your digital journal with loved ones.

If OneNote isn't your thing, there are plenty of OneNote alternatives you can try. Check out our separate guide for the best modern note-taking alternatives to Microsoft OneNote.