Michael Linenberger's Blog

Aug 18, 2015

Did you skip vacation this summer? Perhaps you should make an effort to slide it in this fall before you lose your time. Why? It’s good for your career, per this quote from an article in the New York Times today:

Whether people take a vacation at all says a bit about career success, but the relationship is the opposite from what one might imagine. According to a study by Project: Time Off, a research-driven initiative from the U.S. Travel Association, American workers in 2013 forfeited 169 million days of paid time off, worth $52.4 billion. What was the career benefit? Negative, according to the study.

Those who left between 11 and 15 days unused were 6.5 percent less likely to receive a raise or bonus than those who used all their vacation days. We don’t know if this is because the vacation-less employees were overstressed, or because incompetent employees who couldn’t get their work done skipped vacation. But this does indicate that vacation takers are not paying a career price.

So rethink your noble plans to work right through vacation periods. Instead, take those hours you have earned, you deserve it!

Michael

Aug 13, 2015      [Updated 9/10/2015]

Microsoft has finally released Windows tablet apps for Office for four modules. They are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This has been a long time coming, as Microsoft released these for iOS and Android a long time ago.

So you can now use simplified, touch-optimized versions of Office right on your Windows tablet.

Read more here: https://blogs.office.com/2015/07/29/office-mobile-apps-for-windows-10-are-here/

Outlook

What about an equivalent Windows tablet version of Outlook? Well, it looks like the Windows 10 Mail app is as close as Microsoft is going to get to that, and it’s not great for MYN/1MTD. It has no Categories functionality, and of  course, no Task features either.

The good news is that desktop Outlook 2013 (and the forthcoming Outlook 2016) both run pretty well in touch mode on a Windows tablet, as I discuss here. Using that instead of Windows Mail is my recommendation. That way you do get full category and task support.

But if you want to learn more about the Windows 10 Mail app, see this link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488072,00.asp

Michael

July 31, 2015

As more and more people are processing most of their e-mail and tasks on their smartphones, many of the 1MTD and MYN system principles are getting harder to accomplish for Outlook users. Many of the tools we are accustomed to in a desktop copy of Outlook just aren’t there on our smartphones.

This is complicated by the fact that many large corporations are locking down their employees’ smartphones and not allowing installed third-party apps to have access to their Exchange Server. So while you can install some apps that might provide the solutions you need, they won’t work for you if they can’t reach your servers.

Switch to Toodledo?

One solution that you should seriously consider now is to stop using the Outlook tasks module and start using Toodledo for tasks. Here are some advantages of Toodledo for a heavy smartphone e-mail user:   Continue reading →

July 31, 2015

How many tasks are on your list that have been sitting there for a while, and you feel guilty about not completing them?

We tend to write down more tasks than we can do or ever intend to do, and that leads to guilt, and it also leads to your task list losing power due to its ambiguity. There are strategies you can use when you enter a new task to avoid this.

Use a Question Mark. If you are writing down a task but you’re not really sure you’re committed to it, put a question mark at its end. Example: “Write blog on new Surface Tablet?” The true action here is to ask myself later if this article makes sense; I’m yet not committing to actually writing the article. This is a pretty common situation, where you’re not sure yet whether a task is really needed, but you want to get it recorded so you don’t forget it. If you later decide that the task is not worth doing, there’s no guilt in deleting the task. Read more about how to do this here.

Use a Leading Qualifier. The other strategy you can take is to use a leading qualifier on the task that softens the intention. Here are some examples: In the task “Consider new porch light,” the word Consider is useful if you are still deciding whether to buy something—it doesn’t commit you to the actual purchase. In “Study next steps on vendor contract,” the phrase Study next steps is useful because it doesn’t commit you to completing the contract, just identifying next steps to move it forward, which is your actual intention.

Advantages

In all these cases, the advantage is when you see the task on your list you don’t feel guilty about not completing the end product—that was never your intention when you wrote it down. Rather, you can see that you only intended to consider it more or study it more. That way your more committed tasks stand out from these and get the added attention they need—the entire list does not get weakened by ambiguous tasks.

Michael

July 21, 2015

[updated 9/10/2015]

A few weeks ago Microsoft released an update to their latest Microsoft Outlook for Mac. It’s version 15.13.1. And it’s now being made available as part of the standard Office 2016 for Mac updates (you no longer have to search for it separately). In other words, it has become a full member of the Office 2016 for Mac release. And it still has no Scripts menu.

I wrote about the first release (Dec 2014) of this new version here, and I complained about the lack of a scripts menu, compared to Outlook 2011 for Mac. I hoped that it was due to its early release status. But, unfortunately, there is still no Scripts menu, and so still no way to convert emails to tasks. So, if you are using tasks in Outlook 2011 for Mac with the 1MTD or MYN systems, I would not upgrade to the latest Outlook. Perhaps later in the fall, when Microsoft releases the shrinkwrap versions of Office 2016 for Mac, this will be fixed.

But given the other weaknesses of Outlook for Mac for processing tasks, it may be time to start using Toodledo for tasks (but still use Outlook for Mac for e-mail, calendar, and contacts).

Michael

July 15, 2015

You can add tasks to your desktop copy of Outlook using Siri. Simply speak your task into Siri (in a specific manner, shown below), and seconds later that task will appear at the top of your 1MTD or MYN task list in desktop Outlook

To do this, you need to have Exchange in place, or be using an Outlook.com account as your main account in Outlook. By the way, this works by routing tasks through the iPhone Reminders app. But you don’t need to be using the Reminders app, or even launch it—it happens in the background.

Here’s how you do it:

Activate Siri and state “Set Reminder for today at 2 PM to Send out July Newsletter”

Then stop talking and wait a moment. Siri will then either ask you to confirm it, or just state that the reminder has been added. In moments you’ll see the task “Send out July Newsletter” appear in your desktop Outlook task list, at the top of your Normal priority section. (And with MYN settings it will be underlined). This way of adding tasks is incredibly easy to do and I currently do this many times per day.   Continue reading →

July 12, 2015

If you are just getting started with Outlook Categories, here is a pretty good introductory article:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-outlook-categories/

Of course, my courses provide a more complete overview, and how to use them with 1MTD/MYN, but this tech republic article is a good way to learn quickly.

Michael

July 3, 2015

I’ve been recommending for years that Toodledo users on an Android phone or small Android tablet consider using the app called Pocket Informant to access their Toodledo MYN or 1MTD tasks while on the run.

Well, a while back WebIS Inc, the company that makes that product, upped the version number to 4, and changed the name to Informant. We just caught up with that change and have released new videos to show you how to configure the software for 1MTD and MYN.

Specifically, Video #6 in the Extras page for the 1MTD book has been updated (and is still free). And Lesson 22B in the paid MYN-Toodledo video class has been updated. There are no new features that are relevant to MYN or 1MTD tasks, we’re just keeping up with menu changes and so on.

Michael

June 29, 2015

You may know that Outlook 2013 allows you to “peek” at bits of the major datatypes (Mail, Calendar, People, and Tasks) by hovering your mouse over their labels in the lower left. The People Peek may be a mystery because it probably shows nothing—rather you really want it to show a list of key contacts, as in the figure below.

The reason it may be empty for you is because you haven’t yet added any favorites. To learn how to do that, read on!   Continue reading →

June 24, 2015

Last week I discussed the Resend This Message command. Well, another command under that same Actions menu in a sent item is the Recall This Message command. It attempts to erase a message that you have sent to others, so they cannot read it. It’s been in Outlook for decades.

Finally, Gmail has rolled out a similar feature call Undo Send.

The thing you need to realize about both of these system is this: there is no guarantee it will work!  Continue reading →