Michael Linenberger's Blog

May 7, 2011

Here is a note from a reader who is using Remember the Milk (RTM) with MYN. He show you one way to set up RTM. While I greatly prefer ToodleDo over RTM (due to support of start dates and many other reasons), if you are a die-hard RTM user, this note will be helpful.

Michael

Hi, Michael:

I bought your book for my Kindle app in my iPad2 and I like it very much. For years I’ve been using GTD, complex Outlook task and flags management, AutoFocus 4 logs, etc. and after using your MYN these weeks I feel much more effective, much less stressed and simply better and happier professional.Thank you.

I’m using Remember The Milk for iPhone/iPad/browser and I’m very happy with it. I’d like to share with you how is my set up.

Continue reading →

May 6, 2011

If you start using Android with Exchange you will notice that the Contacts list gets very confusing.

Well, Bob Thordarson, the CEO of BluCapp, Inc. helps explain how it works—it helped me figure it out. Here is his note to me:

As for Android. The way the Android Address Book manages contacts is troublesome for so many people. The device keeps each contact list as separate tables or Contact Type. So, in your case, you will see the native Android Contacts, Gmail Contacts and Outlook Exchange contacts lumped together in one list view where in actuality the device keeps each as separate tables based upon Contact Type and does not merge them together. The All tab on the People screen combines all contacts into a single view. You can filter the lists to only display one Contact Type, but you sacrifice seeing all of your contacts in one location. To view only contacts of a particular type, for example Gmail and Facebook contacts, press MENU, tap View, and then select a contact account type to display.

He wrote up a more complete explanation and I have attached it as a file: Android Contacts for Outlook Users 101 – Bob Thordarson

Bob’s company makes a product that resolves duplicates across all your contacts, by the way. It is called Scrubly and it looks like a great product, so check it out.

http://www.scrubly.com/

Michael

May 6, 2011

A reader contacted me and suggested we look at Bhive as an MYN task app for BlackBerry. It syncs with Exchange Outlook and appears to have most of the needed MYN features (we have not tested it yet). The one MYN requirement apparently missing is that dates within priority groups do not sort the right direction. But it could still be useful and it is inexpensive.

If you try it out, let me know how it goes. Here’s the link:

https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/7327?lang=en&curr=USD

Michael

May 4, 2011

As you may know, ToodleDo is the tasks software I recommend you use if you cannot use Outlook for tasks. It actually has a few advantages over Outlook. Here’s one advantage that I like: it has an optional  priority level higher than “High” —it’s called “Top.” And there is one very good way you can put that optional Top level to work for you: indicating Significant Outcomes.

Normally in MYN I say to ignore any priority levels other than Low, Medium, and High in ToodleDo. That’s because MYN only needs three priority levels to map to its three MYN urgency zones, and using too many priority levels can be distracting.

Significant Outcomes

But the Top priority in ToodleDo is a good way to show Significant Outcomes, or SOCs for short. You may recall SOCs from my books (see pg 140 of the new 3rd edition of the Outlook book for example, or pg 98 of Master Your Workday Now). But briefly, SOCs are the bigger things you intend to work on or accomplish in the near future. They are the current projects or goals that you want to make sure you keep your attention on in between meetings and urgency-driven work. You intend to keep recurring work going on them so you can make progress on them. These don’t fit well in most to-do lists because they tend to get lost in the long list of small actions—they need more prominent visibility. Continue reading →

Apr 28, 2011

Saw this article, on how to add holidays to Outlook; seemed like it could be useful to many of you:

http://www.nwitimes.com/business/columnists/april-miller-cripliver/article_8a0383e9-ebb4-5070-9f25-292dbb6ecb08.html

Michael

Apr 26, 2011 (updated Mar 3, 2014)

Here we are, in this world of cloud computing and full-time mobile access to the Internet, and so I think it is time to clarify a concept I’ve been tossing about recently—that of a Tasks Server—something that also lives in the cloud.

We all know what an e-mail server is—it’s a server available on the Internet that allows us to view and send mail from multiple devices. We know that as we add additional devices to our technology suite, like smartphones and tablets, the first thing we need to do is hook them up to our main e-mail server so that the device can be useful for checking our main mail account. All smartphones these days make that possible. That way you see the same mail on your phone as you see on your computer, and you can send from the same account from any one of them.

Well, I think we need to have the same multi-device access to our Tasks. And we can. Continue reading →

Apr 23, 2011

If you’ve read my books you know that I say not to use flags on mail in your in-box except for one very limited use: put them only on mail you intend to reply to soon—use them for nothing else! This also applies to stars in Gmail, or any other similar markers.

Why limit their use like this? Because flagging lots of mail leads to a huge waste of time. Think about it. If you flag an e-mail to act on it later and let it sit in your in-box, once it sits for more than a couple days, you’ll forget what’s in the e-mail. That’s because the subject line of the e-mail usually has nothing to do with the needed action—the original reason you flagged it—so later you are forced to open and re-read each flagged item. Such rereading of mail, when done a lot, is a huge waste of time. Plus, if when you reread it you decide not to take action yet, that means days later you’ll need to reread it again; and then again days after that, all in the name of searching for the right time to act on your flagged items. So you end up reading many items four or five times each—this adds up!

Worse is when later, in a fit of guilt, you recall a specific e-mail action request and you decide to go find it to act on it. You then spend way too much time looking for it (again, because the subject line of the e-mail is usually not a clue). You have to open and read many other flagged mails looking for the particular one. What a waste!

Continue reading →

Apr 17, 2011

I am very pleased to announce that that the new Android app Pocket Informant now supports MYN tasks. It’s a great app and it fills an important place in the MYN-compatible mobile app list. If you are using MYN with ToodleDo and you use an Android device, you should get Pocket Informant and configure it for MYN as I show below. It’s available on Android Market. Here’s the full story:

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As you may know, at the end of March, Got To Do was canceled by its maker (see my previous blog entry), that created a gap in the MYN tool suite; it left us with no recommended Android tasks app that worked with ToodleDo and MYN.

So I am very pleased that Pocket Informant (PI) Android is now available. Just this weekend the PI team made the final changes needed to support MYN—they added the ability to hide all future-dated tasks—and that made the app feature-compatible with MYN; I now endorse it completely. Its task manager is full of features and its calendar module is second to none (using that is optional).

So if you need a ToodleDo-compatible Android app, buy Pocket Informant off the Android Market (it’s about 5 bucks) and then configure it for MYN per the instructions below (I make no money off those purchases; I just like the software). You can watch an overview movie and read more about Pocket Informant Android here. And when you are ready to configure it for MYN, read on. Continue reading →

Apr 17, 2011

Got To Do, which is a venerable Android tasks app, stopped distributing at the end of March.

Some background. If you don’t use Exchange and are using MYN tasks, then I hope you are using ToodleDo as your tasks server (it is the tasks server I recommend for non-Exchange users). ToodleDo supports a number of Android apps but only one worked with MYN: Got To Do and I highly recommended it. However, at the end of March, Got To Do was canceled by its maker, so that created a gap in the MYN tool suite; it left us with no recommended Android tasks app that worked with ToodleDo and MYN.

The good news is that in my next post I talk about the replacement: Pocket Informant. It is a great app. So read that post.

Michael

Apr 14, 2011

On Wednesday, Microsoft released Service Pak 1 for Office 2011; in doing so they fixed an Outlook bug I complained about in my new book.

I mentioned the bug in a note on page 63 of the third edition of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook—it prevented users from re-sorting on columns within Smart Folders, and made life a bit difficult for MYN users since Smart Folders are how we divide tasks on the Mac into urgency zones. Anyway, that bug is fixed now.

Microsoft also now allows syncing calendars, adds junk filtering on Exchange, and adds a resend command.

See details on these and a list of other changes at this link:
http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/microsoft-unveils-office-2011-for-mac-service-pack-1-20110414/

Michael