Michael Linenberger's Blog

Dec 21, 2011

As you know, in my Outlook Book, I give very specific advice on how to process and empty your Outlook Inbox. That advice includes converting all action e-mails to tasks, filing mail in one folder, and using the Outlook flag tool only for deferred replies that you intend to get to by day’s end. The goal of all this is to empty the Outlook Inbox quickly and to manage any tasks in there responsibly. I have a nice step-by-step process for this that I show in the book (it’s summarized in Appendix C), and for simplicity I keep those steps short.

But it occurs to me that as I follow my own recommendations I hit a lot of gray areas, and so the process I use in my real life goes beyond the simple instructions in the book. To be fair then, I thought I should write down my real-life Outlook Inbox process that extends the steps in the book—doing that may help someone with their own special cases.

So that’s what I have done below—I’ve provided a write up of how I process my mail. Of course, doing this means I have to get into some detail to describe the many subtleties I encounter, and doing that will make this write up a bit long. Also, some of this may seem overly obvious. But so be it! That is the price of being helpful. So I hope this rambling helps you with your Inbox processing.

Continue reading →

Dec 20, 2011

In this season of giving, here’s an add on to Outlook that prevents too much giving—it’s a module you can download from Microsoft that blocks Reply All.

Now, this is not a full solution, because it only works for people on your same Exchange system, meaning users in the same company; but that’s still a big plus.

Here’s the main way it works. When you are ready to send a message, you can mark it so that recipients cannot Reply All to that message. It also goes beyond that. You can also set it so -all- outgoing messages automatically have that setting enabled, or to prevent Reply All for all messages you receive. As the article in the link below humorously suggests, maybe you would like to sneak onto the computers of certain people in your company and make that setting?

Here’s the Cnet link with all the details:

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57344703-285/how-to-prevent-reply-all-in-your-outlook-e-mails/

Michael

Dec 15, 2011

Here’s one solution to spending too much time in your e-mail, which is a bad habit that even practiced MYN users can get into.

Why is the e-mail trap so easy to fall into?

One reason we end up reading e-mail all day long, and so not getting our “real” work done, is because e-mail incorrectly answers the question “what should I do next?” It’s just so easy to keep reading the next e-mail that’s in our list, and then the next and the next. It’s right in front of us and it feels like we are busy and occupied and doing good work. But it diverts us from putting our real work in front of us, and focusing on it.

Here is one way to get your real work clearly “in your face” right from the start so you work on it first. It is to start each day creating what I call the Day Focus list, and you can do that right inside the MYN task list. Continue reading →

Dec 15, 2011

I continue to be amazed at the rapidly changing smartphone market share numbers. This just came out from NPD Group on U.S. smartphone sales:

Google Android: 53%

Apple iPhone: 29%

BlackBerry: down to 10% (yikes!)

Michael

Dec 5, 2011

If you’ve read my recent books, you know I recommend that you have no more than 20 items in the Opportunity Now section of your 1MTD or MYN tasks list. Recall that’s the middle part of the list—the part that is not absolutely due today—it  might be due tomorrow, this week, or even as late as 10 days out (but no later). Items in excess of 20 you move to the lower part of your list (the Over-the-Horizon section—the part you check only once a week).

This 20 item limit in the middle section is to make sure you review this list at least once each day. If it’s longer than 20 you won’t review the whole list each day and something may slip by.

But another way to look at this 20 item list is this: you need to let go of some of the tasks on your list and this is an important lesson to learn. We all tend to hold on to our written tasks too long, especially if they are recorded in a computer or handheld device—those things never forget and our list can quickly get out of control.

Enforcing the 20 item rule forces you to let go. It is a cleansing process.  By doing this you are asking yourself “What can I let go of so I can move on to more timely or important items?”

This is good to do. We all get trapped in old goals, old impressions, old urgencies, even after their natural time as passed. This helps clear that. And don’t worry, if you put them into the Over-the-Horizon section, you can always find them later; they aren’t lost. They just aren’t in your face every day, which is a good thing. Or better, delete them!

So let go of those old tasks and focus on a core set of fresher tasks that represents your latest thinking. You’ll be glad you did!

Michael

Nov 18, 2011

For using MYN, I recommend only one App for iPhone/iPad to take your Outlook/Exchange tasks on the road, and that’s TaskTask. Well, they just updated to v3.2 and so I have new configuration instructions for MYN. I have entered those new instructions in my main TaskTask post at this link.

And read about the updated features here.

Michael

Nov 16, 2011

[Mar 4, 2014 update: it appears this app has been discontinued]

There’s finally a BlackBerry app out that works well with both 1MTD and MYN. It’s the new version 2.5 of Pocket Informant BlackBerry. It uses ToodleDo as its tasks server and so syncs well over-the-air with your computer. This new version includes changes that make it MYN (as well as 1MTD) compatible.

I just placed a video showing how to configure it for 1MTD and MYN on the free 1MTD video extras page; that’s the same page you may have used to watch other free 1MTD videos referenced in that new book. That page has been updated and the link for video #7 is now active—that’s the BlackBerry video you want. If you haven’t already downloaded the 1MTD book, you’ll have to register when you first access that page. Again, the video works both with 1MTD and MYN, and the page for the free videos is here; go to video #7.

And if you want to use BlackBerry with Exchange and Outlook tasks, see this link instead.

Michael

Nov 15, 2011

I’ve posted a couple times recently here and here about Ultimate To-Do List. It’s an Android Tasks App that recently became MYN compatible; it uses ToodleDo as its tasks server.

Well, I finally got around to writing up some instructions on how to configure Ultimate To-Do List for 1MTD and for MYN. Below are those instructions.

Continue reading →

Sept 22, 2012 Update: the article linked below was taken down by theinfoboom.com. Link no longer works.  Michael

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Nov 11, 2011

If you are thinking about installing iCloud and you use Outlook, read this article first:

http://www.theinfoboom.com/articles/apple-icloud-outlook-it-just-works-approach-creates-new-it-woes/

Michael

Nov 7, 2011

I’ve been playing with the Android Ultimate To-Do List (UTDL) task app some more and am really liking it (I wrote about it here last week).

One thing I just noticed that makes it better than Pocket Informant Android (PIA) is that it recognizes the Top priority in tasks (a ToodleDo feature). PIA does not.

In PIA’s favor, though, tasks set to a start date of today in PIA have a different color, where in Ultimate To-Do List they do not (that different color is useful to identify new tasks that just pop in, and useful if you use the optional Target Now urgency zone designation in MYN).

Overall I am liking the cleaner look and feel of the UTDL. But like that PIA has a powerful calendar.

So it’s a toss up on which to use—I leave it to you.

Michael