Michael Linenberger's Blog

May 31, 2011

Here are two excerpts from the new third edition of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook. They are on creating rules in Outlook 2011 for Mac to automatically categorize mail coming into your in-box, based on sender or subject line. This is a fantastic way to save time on topic filing and beats similar folder-filing rules since it leaves the e-mail in the Inbox where you can read it before dragging it out of the Inbox.

First, from pg. 245:

If you are filing e-mail using Outlook Categories, as described in Lesson 8, consider this. Probably the least enjoyable part of any e-mail organization system is filing. It takes time to decide how to file e-mail and assign categories or drag to folders. Wouldn’t it be great if your e-mail were categorized automatically? Think how much time you would save. If e-mail arrived precategorized, all you would need to do after you read it is drag mail in bulk to the Processed Mail folder, which is what you do anyway.

While automatic categorization of all of your mail is not possible, you can do it with much if not most of your mail. The two primary ways to auto-categorize is to do it based on sender name or based on a keyword in the mail.

On the Mac, if your intention is to categorize incoming mail based on sender, a built-in feature makes this very easy. You merely assign the category to the sender’s entry in your Outlook Contacts list, and then check a box at the bottom of the Edit Categories dialog box (see Figure 8.5 in Lesson 8), and it is all automatic. Again, you get to the Categories dialog box by CTRL-clicking any e-mail in its Categories column, and then choosing Edit Categories… from the shortcut menu.

Next, from pg. 251, how to create an Outlook rule based on subject line contents:

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May 31, 2011

Here’s a Windows Phone 7 app that syncs tasks with Exchange. It’s not yet MYN compliant, but still it’s a start. But some background first.

One of my great disappointments with Microsoft as of late is the short-shift they are giving to client support for their Exchange tasks data. I am sure it is just lack of market demand, but other than in Windows Outlook, tasks are becoming a poor sister to the main data set of e-mail, calendar, and contacts.

This showed up first in the iPhone: Apple and Microsoft left Exchange task syncing out of package. Same with Android—no task syncing natively. Windows Phone 7 also left tasks out, which was surprising. And then Outlook 2011 for Mac shipped with far fewer task features than in the Windows version of Outlook.

So it has been up to third-party developers to fill these gaps; and they have on the mobile front. TaskTask filled the gap on the iPhone with an excellent app, and the superior app TouchDown filled the gap on Android.

And now we have third-party app on Windows Phone 7 that can sync tasks with Exchange. It’s called Appa Mundi Tasks, from a company of the same name.

It is not yet MYN compliant—it has almost none of the MYN-required view features. However I’ve communicated with the developer and they are willing to add them. You might want to contact them and tell them you want the MYN features—it would probably speed rollout.

So it’s good to see Windows Phone 7 being added to the Exchange Sync Task world!

Thanks to the reader who pointed this app out to me (sorry, I could not find our communication to get your name again—post a comment and I will give you the glory!)

May 28, 2011

I am pleased to announce the the next MYN Outlook Webinar is now scheduled for Tues July 19 through Friday July 22, 2011. This consists of four 1.5 hr sessions that start at 1PM PST each day. This popular webinar series is only held three times a year, with a maximum of 15 students in each session, so sign up soon to be sure to get your spot.

In the webinar you will learn the entire Core MYN Outlook System.

More Information, and Registration

Taught by Michael Linenberger, the author of the #1 best-selling Outlook book, this live four part (1.5-hr each) hands-on webinar training teaches you the core of the MYN Outlook system—a system that emphasizes new and proven best practices of e-mail and task management that will for the first time get your workday under control.

This class assumes no prior knowledge of Michael’s Outlook system, rather it starts from scratch.

Here’s what you get:

• A live 4-day (1.5 hr. each), webinar by Michael Linenberger, teaching all core segments of the system.
• Hands on; you have Outlook running and will follow along.
• Step-by-step Outlook configurations installed in class.
• Hands on exercises practicing all core components.
• Small class, 15 students max.
• Generous time after end of hour for questions and answers with the author.
• You leave the class proficient at the system.
• Designed for Windows Outlook 2003 and 2007/10 (no Mac Outlook coverage, sorry).
• A copy of the book will be sent to all participants after their paid registration (ships within 4 business days).

No extra software assumed or required, just a web browser on your computer, and simultaneous access to a full copy of Outlook 2003 of 2007/10 to do exercises during the webinar.
(Optional ClearContext software is not covered).

More Information, and Registration

May 27, 2011

In recent weeks I have met a number of people in the Outlook seminars I teach who tell me they do the following: they delete all mail they are “done with,” including important mail, and then use the Deleted Items folder as their long-term storage area for later searching. They point out that that in this case the Deleted Items folder becomes the equivalent of the MYN Processed Mail Folder. And they point out that deleting in bulk saves time over selectively saving some mail into the Processed Mail folder.

Here are the reasons not to do that:

1. What about all the mail you really do intend to fully delete? How do you really delete those? If it’s only a few e-mails, then saving them also is not a big ‘deal’. However, I do actually fully delete about 1/3 to 1/2 of my mail (making instant decisions based on titles). And keeping those would significantly impact my storage space and later “eye-ball” searching overhead.
2. Outlook sometimes purposely erases the contents of the deleted items folder—so it is not a reliable long term storage area. It usually gives a warning before it does it, but I could see the case where I am moving fast and click the wrong answer.
3. Outlook puts –all- deleted items in that folder too: deleted tasks, calendar items, contacts; why save all those too? Again, sometimes you really do want to get rid of things (like duplicate contacts or an old contact with incorrect contact info) and Outlook might find these in later searches and that may lead you astray.
4. I don’t know the answer to this, but it would not surprise me if Exchange does not back up the contents of the Deleted Items folder. So if your servers went down and you had to restore, all that mail would be lost.

To summarize, I think you want to make a clear distinction between what you really never want to see again, and those things you do intend to possibly search later as reference material. There is a big difference in how you treat them, and in how Outlook treats them. So don’t mix them together.

Michael

May 23, 2011

One thing GTD (David Allen) and I agree on is that nearly all tasks you put on your task list should be Next Actions. Using next action tasks leads to this fact: most next action tasks on your list do not have firm deadlines—they are intermediate steps to larger outcomes and it’s the larger outcomes that have the true deadlines.

Here is an excerpt from my new Third Edition of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook about this topic (page 75):

Somewhere during the history of task management training, someone created a rule that says, “If you do not assign a due date to a task it won’t get done.” That rule sounds good, doesn’t it? It sounds so proactive. That is why nearly all automated task systems include a due date field. But as I mentioned in the Introduction, this is not a good rule. Why? Because the way the rule is usually used, which is to set artificial due dates on most tasks, it is an attempt to trick yourself, and you are not so easily tricked. It reminds me of the people I once knew who set their wristwatch ahead ten minutes thinking it would help them be on time to meetings. In reality, it Continue reading →

May 19, 2011

For those of you using a Palm Pre or some other WebOS device (now owned by HP), here is a tasks management software package that appears to work with MYN. It’s called Done! and you can see a screenshot of it here to the left. It links into ToodleDo as the task server.

I have not tested it (we don’t use WebOS here), but I talked with the developer and it sounds like they have all the features needed for MYN. If you try it out, let me know how it goes. More info at this link.

And thanks to Mike for bringing it to my attention in a blog comment!

Michael

May 16, 2011

I just posted an updated ToodleDo WhitePaper. Inside it is the following table that summarizes my mobile solutions recommendations. The table assumes you are syncing with a tasks server in the cloud. The tasks server (Exchange or ToodleDo) is shown on the top axis and the Mobile OS’s are shown on the left.

Michael

May 12, 2011

Here’s an excerpt from the newly updated Outlook book. It is about what to do with “squishy” tasks, things you are not really sure how to proceed on. Like that big report you need to write and you do not know what to do next for it. If you just enter “Write Report” on your task list, you will skip over it every time since there is no clear next step. Well, I say the next step is to… “determine the next step”—write that down! Here’s the book excerpt (page 138) that addresses that:

Sometimes, when you enter a task, you cannot decide what the next action on a task is or you do not have time to decide. That’s okay. Just write “Determine next step for… [task name].” That creates a bridge to further activity when you can later identify follow-up steps. Other useful bridges: “Plan work on… [task name]”or “Start work on… [task name].” Sometimes just getting started on a task allows you to think it through, and by writing it that way you do not commit yourself to a large block that you might skip over when you see it on a busy day. Small-effort tasks like this are often useful as must-do-today (Critical Now) tasks to get you moving on a project that may be stalling out.

Look through your current task list and see if any tasks that have been sitting there a long time can be helped with this approach, and let me know how it goes!

Michael

May 10, 2011

I often get well intentioned comments stating that e-mail will be dead soon, with all the new reliance on social media.

But I’ve never believed that would be true for business communications. While social media may carry some of that traffic, I feel there are just too many reasons why company e-mail will remain the preferred method there.

And Microsoft has just backed me up on that with a recent survey they contracted. From Information Week:

a survey Microsoft commissioned from MarketTools of 1,268 professionals and students age 18 and older shows that 96 percent (including 92 percent of the 18-24 year olds) expect their email communication in the workplace to stay the same or grow over the next five years. Email is actually the most effective means of workplace communication–beating out face-to-face meetings and instant messaging–according to 53 percent of those polled.

See the full article at this link:

http://informationweek.in/Software/11-05-10/Microsoft_says_email_not_yet_dead.aspx

Note most of those surveyed are from the Facebook generation (age-wise).

The survey also shows that most of those surveyed want a way to show social media communications along with their e-mail, in a unified in-box.

Michael

May 8, 2011

I was talking with the managing director of a large (100K+ employees) management consulting company at a social event the other evening and he described their main problem with e-mail these days. He said that their managers who travel a lot skim through their Outlook-based e-mail on their smartphone quickly, and then end up leaving messages marked unread that then never get the action they need—they don’t get revisited in a timely fashion—so lots of things drop through the cracks.

This is so familiar and it’s a classic case of needing to convert action e-mails to tasks—a key teaching of the MYN system. But how do you convert action e-mails into Outlook tasks on your mobile device?

Well, it greatly depends on your task server and what mobile OS you have.

But in my mind there is only one really good solution: TouchDown—the rest are merely workarounds. However, you must have Exchange and an Android device to use TouchDown. If you do, Touchdown is by far your best solution because it allows you to convert e-mails directly to tasks, and they show up immediately in your Outlook tasks list. And the TouchDown tasks view on Android formats well for MYN. TouchDown is the only mobile app I know of that allows converting e-mails directly into Outlook tasks, and in my mind it is a great reason to favor the use of Android over iOS or BlackBerry.

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