Michael Linenberger's Blog

July 9, 2014

Monday I got back from a great 4^th of July getaway. We drove to and stayed in Mendocino California, which is a rural and quaint Northern California coastal town (now a vacation destination). If you don’t know that area but are perhaps familiar with New England, think of almost any small coastal Maine vacation town (Ogunquit Maine comes to my mind): rocky ocean shore, old Victorian shops and B&B’s, and a nice slow pace; this is a West Coast version of that. The weather was beautiful with fog moving in and out of an intense blue sky and rolling into the redwood hills. It was a wonderful place to relax for three days.

While relaxing there I spent part of a morning perusing a local bookstore, and in the psychology section I came across a relatively new book called “Speed: Facing Our Addiction to Fast and Faster—And Overcoming Our Fear of Slowing Down.” Skimming it I decided that in my next newsletter I would continue writing on the topic of my last newsletter, about Letting go of work this summer. If this interests you, read on.

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June 30, 2014

I have been meaning to write this for a while. A reader wrote me in March and recommended I look at another Exchange-based task app that he likes. I currently recommend Touchdown as the one app to use if you want to get at your Exchange tasks from an Android device. So having another to choose from can’t hurt. The new one is called “Tasks & Notes for MS Exchange” and you can read about it at this link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.myklos.inote

As to MYN compatibility, the reader who recommended it said: “I was able to make it look identical to my Outlook 2013 [MYN] Task list and you can even make the default for new tasks to be a Start Date of Today. The only part that doesn’t work is formatting like underlining tasks where Start Date = Today.”

I have not yet tested the software, so if you try it out, leave a comment below letting me know what you think, particularly on how it sets up for MYN.

Michael Linenberger

June 26, 2014

It’s actually been there for over a week or more, but BN.com did not have the pairing right and was still showing the 3rd Ed. Nook edition paired with the 4th Ed. paperback. They just fixed that. So if you go to the paperback link:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/total-workday-control-using-microsoft-outlook-michael-linenberger/1009036264?ean=9780983364726

… it shows the right Nook version now.

Michael Linenberger

June 21, 2014

Occasionally when working with a client, I see they have created and are using an Action folder, or Needs Action folder or something like that. Basically, if they see an e-mail that has an action they cannot do now, they move it to that folder (instead of converting it to a real task).

There are two main problems with this:

1. you now have these tasks split away from your main tasks list. And so now you lose all the advantages of having all tasks in one place.
2. The other problem is that e-mail list views don’t have enough tools to use them as a task manager. You can’t date when you’ll do the action, and you don’t have multiple levels of priority.

So, I highly recommend you avoid “Action” folders in e-mail, and instead convert those e-mails to true tasks and file the e-mail away. Then work all your tasks off your task list.  That’s how 1MTD and MYN work, and that’s a much better way to go.

Michael

June 8, 2014

We just updated our instructional video for Pocket Informant Android to cover its newer version 3. That video was presented in three different training sets, and all locations have been updated:

1. On the free “Extras” page that is referenced by the One Minute To-Do List book; it’s video #6.
2. On the paid One Minute To-Do list video class (Lesson 8B).
3. And on the paid MYN Toodledo Video Course (Video 22B).

You may wonder, why might you want to use Pocket Informant—what does it offer compared to the other 1MTD/MYN suitable Android apps (like the new one from the Toodledo makers themselves, and the one called Ultimate To-Do List)? Well, the advantage of Pocket Informant is that it has a highly functional calendar and contacts tool built in as well, so you get a lot more in the app than just tasks. So if you need that, take a look.

Michael Linenberger

June 5, 2014

Summer is here and hopefully you are thinking about a vacation in the coming months. It’s surprising, however, how many people don’t take vacations because they say they have too much to do. And even if you do take vacations, are you really able to let go of your work? Does work continue to haunt you when you are away from it?

You’ll Never Get it All Done

There is a lesson here that we all need to learn, and it may be time for you to consider it: You’ll never get it all done. This is absolutely true! We all get just too many requests, and we think up just too many things to do these days that you can never do them all—you’ll never get it all done! If you feel like you can’t relax until it’s all done, well, you’ll never relax. So you need to learn and internalize that lesson, and then start to let go.

To Let Go, Prioritize and Shorten Your To-Do List

One way to let go is to prioritize well, and then focus on only a small subset at any given time. Then let go of the rest until you are ready to promote them to your list. Get them off your list for now.

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June 4, 2014

I am pleased to announce that a video course version of the 1MPM class I taught last month (as a webinar) is now available as a self-paced video class you can purchase. It includes the same material as the webinar, and about 30% more. The “more” part are advanced videos for Windows Outlook and Toodledo that were not presented in the live webinar.

To learn more about this video training, or to purchase it (lifetime access is $129), click this link.

Note that I will not be offering the live webinar again for at least 6 months, so if you missed the webinar, this video set is your current way to access the training.

(By the way, if you were a 1MPM webinar participant, you received free 30-day access to this video set—and you should have gotten an e-mail telling you how to activate that access. We’ll also send you upgrade instructions soon showing how to upgrade to lifetime access to those videos at a nominal fee).

Again, to read more about the new video class, or to purchase it, click here.

Michael Linenberger

May 19, 2014

Stressed out by your overflowing task list? Is it discouraging to see so many incomplete items that have been sitting there for so long?

Then do this: Empty Your Task List. Yes, you heard me, empty it by (temporarily) deferring all tasks to the future. In MYN, that means set the date to a future date, say 2 weeks off. Even better, as you set the date ahead, put as many as you can in the low priority section. In 1MTD that means moving everything to the low priority section. Maybe leave 2 or 3 tasks behind (ones you really need to do today), but otherwise empty the main part of your list!

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May 18, 2014

[Note: this article is an update of my 2013 article about the earlier version of TaskTask for iOS (version 3). You can still find that article at this link.] [And if you are looking for the article about Windows 8 TaskTask, go here].

As you may know, it is hard to find iPhone or iPad software that syncs tasks with your corporate Outlook Exchange Server. There is one app that works great. It’s called TaskTask (and TaskTask HD for the iPad), made by Ryan Gregg.

Once TaskTask is configured, it works perfectly for MYN. That means it groups on Priority, then, within Priority groups it sorts on Start Date descending. It excludes future tasks and it hides completed tasks. And it colors today’s tasks differently from older tasks. In other words, everything works for my MYN system. Configuration for my simpler 1MTD system is not quite so perfect, but still usable (details below).

So, if you use Outlook tasks and are on Exchange (you most likely are using Exchange if you are in a company of any size) download TaskTask now; it’s a great little app.

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May 14, 2014

As we struggle to get control of our inboxes, wouldn’t it be nice if mail that were more important to us stood out more in the mail list, and mail less important were perhaps grayed out? There are ways to do that in the Windows Outlook desktop application, and this video I just made will give you some ideas.