Get Everything Done

Hi Mark,
I have recently taken on a more complex leadership role in my organisation, and although my work practices were ok I felt I needed a more efficient and intentional way of working. Do it Tomorrow has given me exactly that. Thanks.

My one frustration is that I'm a completely electronically-oriented person and use Outlook calendar as my diary and Outlook tasks to manage my work. However, I don't find this works well for the task diary system you advocate.Although you can list start and end dates for tasks, there is no good way of viewing a whole days tasks in the manner you suggest in the book. Do you know of any Outlook add-ins that achieve this? What I really want is to be able to right-click on a day in the Outlook calendar and bring up a task list for that day. (Maybe this suggestion will inspire a programmer somewhere!)

Carolyn

Dear Carolyn,

This is how I use Mark's system on Outlook ( actually Entourage - Outlook for Mac):

All the tasks I collect one day I list for the next day in "Tasks". I label it "Action This Day"( after Winston Churchill's term) , colour it red and set it at the Highest Priority.

If I don't complete the task that day I change the colour to blue and label it "Work" and lower the priority to High.

If I still do not do it the following day I change the colour to gray and label it "Backlog" and set it to Normal.

I rank the list using the Priority button and the list lines up with the next day's work at the top, the previous day below it and the backlog below the first two.

So at a glance I can see by colour and exclamation mark the rank according to Mark's system.


As I complete the task I take it off the list.

I use the list to track my efficiency but that's the obsessive part of me.

Hope this helps.

Cordell

Can't you just look at the day in your calendar and have the task pad showing in the calendar view? You can pick and choose the fields you want to show using the field chooser and filter out those tasks that aren't "todays". Right click on the top of the task pad to Customize Current View. There is a great website for Outlook stuff with lots of links and info - www.slipstick.com - they have a link there to utilities and add-ons with lots of plugins and solutions for Outlook.

Thanks for your replies. Outlook is flexible in some ways - and I am experimenting with which layouts and views suit my needs. I've also been trialling an add-on called Taskline - still deciding whether it will work well for me.

Even with the slight frustration of not feeling Outlook provides me with exactly what I want, my work is being transformed by the Do it Tomorrow system! I have become a little evangelistic about it - and have to be careful not to become annoying!!

hi Carolyn could you post where you got Taskline from? I would like to have a look at it.

Thanks

Nicky

I use Outlook at work and have been struggling to make the various bits of it work together nicely for some time without a great deal of success. Outlook Tasks, in particular, seem to generate an awful lot of resistive energy if I try and use them.
Since reading DIT, here is what I've started to do.

. Use a paper Task Diary as described.
. When processing email, if there is any email that needs further action I do 3 things. (1) set a coloured 'follow up' flag (legend below). (2) drag it to the appropriate resting place in Personal Folders (e.g. a customer folder or a 'work in progress' project folder . (3) make an entry on a suitable day in my paper task diary.

No need to put stuff into a special action folder - that would make things even more fiddly. Just set up a custom search for each coloured flag that you want to use. When you clear the flag it disappears from the list like magic! My colours are; Red - associated with task diary entries. Green - Reading material (a Daily Task for me...) Blue - interesting or reference. Purple - something I might like to look at when I have a spare minute or I have a spare slot for a new commitment.
It might sound fiddly but seems to work for me because I have periods when I get high volumes of email and I don't want to faff around trying to find the email(s) that support their tasks. Watch this space. I report back if it continues to work...

I just keep a tasks window open, grouped by due date and sorted by %age complete, role (which I use to group batches) and subject.

I stick emergency and same day tasks in yesterday's date show they show up separately below the line.

Outlook Today works well for seeing today's tasks - you need to customise it to "show only today's tasks" to make it work in 'closed list' mode. The only problem is it can be a bit slow to load (first time in the day only). You should also customise Outlook Today to sort by priority (descending) - then you can make your 'current initiative' the high priority task.

If you need to see another day's tasks, as opposed to today's, you can use advanced find - in the "time" field you can select 'start date' or 'due date' as you wish. You may need to add the advanced find button to your toolbar ("customise").

One thing I've found useful is to have a couple of low priority tasks called "talk to my boss about" and "things to think about". Then whenever I need to ask about something, I just make a quick note in these and so I don't have to keep remembering it. "Things to think about" is where I put the "might do one day" or "I really ought to" stuff, and then I periodically review it. If you set Outlook Today to also show tasks with no due date, you can have these 'reminder lists' appear at the bottom of the page.

I used the method above very successfully and without any paper lists for a long time as a senior manager. Recently I've changed role to something with lots of long-term tasks such as essays and my task list has changed in style, though still with the basic principle of a "will do" for each day. I've customised the Outlook task list, with different coloured fonts for stuff I either need to start today have already started. That's better for me now than Outlook Today as I can see both start date and due date, and I have a good view of the due dates which are coming up so I can plan these long-term tasks.

Note: If you can't customise Outlook Today (the button at the top right) there is a fix on Microsoft's website for this. In some versions it's disabled.

Hi Carolyn,

Thought you might give a try to http://jello.wordpress.com/blog/
Enjoy!

Hi,

I use MyLifeOrganised (MLO) which is a task Outliner. I have managed to adapt it well to suit DIT. You may want to take a look at it.

Its a separate piece of software obviously to Outlook but it does synchronize tasks between the two. So you could adopt the approach to Outline your tasks in MLO, then just transfer the relevant items into to Outlook for action. Or just use MLO for everything.

The download has a 45 day trial period, so you have enough time to play around an experiment. Also has sync to Pocket PC.

Just an idea

All the best

Steve

There is a book called Total Workday Control, that actually describes a way to set up Outlook that works perfectly for DIT. Its really a thoroughly tested method for using Outlook that takes advantage of all the tips described above. Very good, simple instructions for setting up Outlook too.

I was going to mention, but the other Mark (from Texas) beat me to it! Yes, TWC does help one configure Outlook so that the To Do window in Outlook 2007 = Closed List.

I have just tweaked my categories to allocate stuff a la Will-Do, I'm also experimenting with using OneNote 2007 (GREAT software) to be the first place to record thoughts and tasks, then only link/copy/activate in Outlook when I am compiling tomorrow's close list the day before tomorrow.

Only this week I got notification of Michael Linenberger's TWC 2nd Edition which I have ordered. I emailed Michael L and mentioned DIT. He quickly replied and said he had never heard of it (something to do with "across the pond", Atlantic!), but had looked it up, liked what he saw initially, said it fitted in with his current approach, and has ordered the book.
I copied Mark Forster who graciously thanked me and wanted me to keep him informed about TWC developments. But I'm sure it won't be long before he and Michael are swapping emails.

See http://www.michaellinenberger.com/BookTWC