How to use OneNote for creating a digital home inventory

Why make a home inventory?

A home inventory is a record of everything you own, or at least, that you keep in your residence. While it can be a time-consuming process to create, the reasons to have a home inventory can vary. Here’s some important reasons to consider making one.

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• Insurance. One of the most common reasons to have a home inventory, in case of disasters like fires or floods, where you’d be filing a homeowner’s insurance claim to recoup some of your costs. You can add information like costs and serial numbers to your inventory so they’re there when you need them.
• Estate planning. Creating a home inventory for estate planning purposes can help you designate which heir gets what.
• Moving. Not only can this help you if you do have to file an insurance claim after moving, but it can also help you track down which of your items you haven’t unboxed yet, or what you still need for specific rooms.
• Everyday life. Sometimes it’s helpful to know what books are already on your shelves, how many pairs of black pants you have, and what’s currently in the fridge. It can help figure out what you’re missing and avoid repeat purchases.

Why digital and why OneNote?

While there are specialized home inventory apps out on the market, OneNote is a great choice to create yours, particularly if you already use OneNote for your other organizational needs. Here’s some benefits to taking your home inventory digital.

• It’s accessible anywhere. A hard copy of your home inventory won’t do you much good if it literally goes up in smoke. With OneNote, not only is your inventory preserved digitally, but you can also access it across devices with cloud storage, no matter where you are, at a moment’s notice, which is exactly the kind of access you might need in an emergency.
• It’s free. OneNote is included free with your Microsoft subscription, whereas other apps might have you paying a separate fee.
• You can set up password protection. Your home inventory can have sensitive personal and financial information, and with OneNote it’s easy to restrict access to these details.
• You can use a mix of mediums. This makes it easier and possibly more fun to create your home inventory. For example, you can record a voice memo with a story about a precious heirloom, embed photos of the objects in question to record their current condition, or scan in relevant paperwork and link it as a PDF.
• You can organize it however you need. One of the best advantages of OneNote is creating a system that works for you, whether that’s multiple tabs, notebooks or charts.

How to sit down and make your home inventory

Making a home inventory might be time-consuming, but it will be well-worth it when the time comes to consult it. Here’s two approaches to consider as you begin creating your lists.

• Go room by room. Approaching your inventory project, doing one room at a time can help you break down the overall task into smaller, more manageable chunks—and can be an intuitive, user-friendly way to orient yourself.
• Keep it itemized. As you look around your home, natural categories like “appliances,” “jewelry,” and “artwork” might stand out to you and may be an easier way to group your belongings.

To keep your inventory current, you can handle updates either on a monthly or quarterly basis or when you receive purchases. But try to regularly plan updates, otherwise you’ll have much more to sort through later, and you risk being unprepared if case disaster strikes.

While making a home inventory can be a daunting task, OneNote makes it easy to categorize your possessions and their pertinent information. Organization never looked so good.