Outlook and Getting Things Done

Why Outlook?

The key to an effective task management system is having a system that’s easy to use and available wherever and whenever you need it. Microsoft 365 and Outlook are used by many companies for communication and collaboration. and with a little tweaking, can replace separate project and task management apps and be available on your home computer, work computer, and your phone – seamlessly.

Folders, Not Email.

What makes Outlook a great tool for task management is that task requests come to most people via email. What most people do with Outlook that hampers its effectiveness is to use the Inbox as your collection and task management tool.

When you use Outlook this way, you’re reading emails, acting on them, flagging them within Outlook, working on requests in your Inbox, and finally archiving them when complete – which means you’re scanning and reviewing the same emails over and over again – and having to ask yourself what the next action is in each task.

How I set up Outlook

My goal is to have an empty inbox and a neatly sorted list of tasks with contexts, due dates, and specific actions. I want to be able to ask myself “what’s next?” and have a list of next actions readily available.

How do I adapt Outlook for my everyday workflow?

Go into the tasks folder and create categories @Work, @Waiting For, Agendas, and @Someday-Maybe. When you change the view to category view you’ll see your tasks in GTD categories. These will correspond to the traditional GTD categories. I’m not a fan of the location-based categories like @Home, @Computer, I instead prefer separate @Project-<projectname> categories to more easily capture multiple project tasks.
To make Outlook tasks work effectively, always use action-based task names and include a logical Next Action in the description. I fall into a trap of naming tasks based on the outcome, not the action needed. You want your tasks list to easily prompt you into action.
I have a category called @Weekly-Review where I collect planning information I want to review on a regular basis.
Set your notification period to as long a period as you can practically manage in your organization. One hour is ideal, as you want to minimize interruptions.
Use the “Delegate Tasks” function in Outlook to delegate tasks to your colleagues and track progress and updates through Outlook. You may want to inform your colleagues of what you’re doing has a handy feature for delegating tasks which I’ve used with varying success in the workplace. Here is a great link showing how to manage tasks – https://www.webnots.com/how-to-manage-tasks-in-microsoft-outlook/

Using the System

I receive tasks in the form of emails requesting information or services.
I use a traditional GTD “intake” process:
1. I’ll read an email and complete the task if it’s a quick 2-5 minute task.
2. Move the inbox to a task item with a defined next action and due date.
3. Delegate the task to a colleague if needed.
4. Create a calendar item if I need to block time out to complete the task.
5. Capture the item for future use by archiving the email or copying and pasting text into an Outlook Note.
6. If there’s no future need for the email, delete it.

Microsoft has an IOS and an Android client. I used to use a third-party tool to sync tasks and notes for Outlook, but now I recommend Nine, a wonderful, full-featured groupware client that includes all of Outlook’s workflow folders.

There are other guides to building an effective GTD system in Outlook, but this minimal system works well for me without requiring a lot of maintenance.

Posted on April 5th, 2021 in blog | No Comments »

Glowfari, Oakland Zoo

Posted on February 22nd, 2021 in android, art | No Comments »

Amazfit Bip – First Impressions

Professionally, I work with teams supporting technology in fast-moving organizations. Personally, I’m focused on productivity and organization, regardless of platform. Over the years, I’ve used paper journals, Palm Pilots, standalone desktop programs and collaboration tools for group organization. The tool is just a tool, it’s the habits and disciplines that ensure productivity.

I’ve resisted wearing a smart watch up until now as most of my productivity workflow nowadays is focused on my smartphone, Google Tasks for high-level tracking and a Bullet Journal for day-to-day note taking. I’ve written about using a Fitbit for step tracking, alarms and text notifications, but that was as far as I’d gone.

I ran across an interesting fitness tracker called a Amazfit Bip that intrigued me; it addressed all of the concerns I had about smart watches – and it’s significantly cheaper than any other smart fitness tracker I’d seen..

Cross-platform? I go back and forth between an iPhone and an Android phone. I wanted something that worked with both – unlike the Apple Watch.
Battery life? I didn’t want to be tied to a watch that I had to recharge every night. The Bip advertises a 30+ day battery life.
A watch that you have to press a button to see what time it is? The Bip has an always-on setting.
Syncing data to the cloud? There’s an app called Gadgetbridge that allows you to sync many types of fitness devices to your phone, skipping any cloud services.
Extensible? There’s a list of projects on GitHub focused on extending the platform.

The Bip is a small watch, 38 mm x 32 mm, and weighs 32 grams. It’s a slight watch, barely registering as a watch after wearing a Seiko 5 diver’s watch, a massive chunk of metal for the past 12 years.. There’s one button on the side, and a touch screen interface. You swipe up, down, left and right and use the button as a back button.

On first impression, it reminds me of a Pebble watch; the graphics are blocky, the case is plastic, and the overall feel reminds me of a Pebble – in a good way. I barely notice that it’s there.

Activity tracking is nice, you can track running, cycling, treadmill and walking, and it will calculate the calories burned more effectively than just tracking steps. No swimming, it’s IP68 certified water resistant, but more splashproof than waterproof. What’s surprising for a watch this small is to have a 3-axis accelerometer, GPS and GLONASS radios.

In addition, it features multiple alarms, a countdown timer, compass, barometer, altimeter and GPS displays.

Notifications are nice – the Bip supports text messaging and application push messages.

Phone handling is nice, too – there’s the ability to answer or decline a call from the watch, and ringing is almost instantaneous. With the Fitbit flex, there was a 1 to 2 ring delay.

Battery drain is negligible; I’m on track to get about 20 days of battery life out of its first charge.

Posted on November 27th, 2020 in blog | No Comments »

Photowalk

Aptos Creek

I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy, and taking time to get out and take some photos.

Posted on November 17th, 2020 in android | No Comments »

Checking in, working from home

I hope this post finds everyone productive and well. We’re coming up on 8 months since my office closed down and sent people to work remotely, and I wanted to share some of my experiences with working through 2020.

Office Space

I was lucky that I have a dedicated space with a well-worn, well-loved vintage office desk, decent networking, and a supportive office chair. Others have made portable spaces, turned unused corner spaces into a work space, or turned closets into workspaces that close up at the end of the day.

Networking:
Decent networking is critical to work-from-home success.

If you own your own wireless router and it’s more than a few years old, consider purchasing a new one. Newer routers support faster wireless standards, have better coverage, and will make your workday easier. You’ll need to ensure that your laptop support the same standard. In a nutshell, 802.11A, B and G are effectively obsolete, N is better, and AC is a good choice nowadays.

Some modern routers come with built-in guest networking, parental controls and easy, phone app-based administration tools.

If you have a large house, consider mesh networking. With a mesh network, a primary router plugs into your internet connection, and secondary units extend wireless coverage to parts of the house the primary router wouldn’t be able to reach.

Printing:
I’ve gotten into the habit of scanning any paperwork and saving it to the cloud. I’ve continued this working from home. I have a Canon Pixma MX920 multi-function inkjet printer. I can print and scan both sides of the page and create PDF files out of scanned pages. You can load up to 50 pages into the document feeder and let it automatically feed pages to be scanned and automatically converted into a single PDF file. You can copy pages when needed, and you can even fax, if anyone still supports fax. For documents that need signatures, you can easily print, sign, and scan documents.

Collaboration:
My company uses Microsoft Teams company-wide and Slack within specific groups for collaboration. Each fits different needs, but the same basic concepts apply.

Use your presence indicators! If you’re out of the office, change your status. Check your collaboration tool to see if it can update your status based on your calendar or activity. Teams, for example, can mark me as “in a meeting” or “on a call” automatically.
Respect the working time of others, especially if working across time zones.
Use video for one-to-one and small team calls, voice and screen sharing for larger meetings.
Remember to mute your microphone when not speaking.
Invest (or get your company to invest) in a good, comfortable USB noise-cancelling headset with microphone. It’ll improve meeting experiences, and help drown out that dog next door that won’t stop barking.

Balance:
If you have an office environment that you can close off at the end of the day, do so! I have a work laptop, and shut it down when I’m done working. My phone goes into quiet mode, the only notifications I’ll get after hours are emails from select individuals at my company.

Get outside. If you have a pet, walks are a great excuse to get out a couple of times a day.

If you can, avoid eating at your desk whenever possible. Get up, sit in your kitchen (or outside, if possible!) and separate your meal time from work time.

Posted on November 11th, 2020 in blog | No Comments »

Zeno 34

Zeno34

One of my favorite subjects. Zeno Place, Canon S100 Powershot.

Posted on July 6th, 2020 in digital | No Comments »

Flamingos

arty flamingos

Posted on June 25th, 2020 in android | No Comments »

North Beach

Posted on January 19th, 2020 in android, art | No Comments »

OneNote 2016 is back!

Microsoft stated in 2018 that OneNote 2016 would no longer be actively maintained, and that OneNote for Windows 10 would be the supported version moving forward. Users noted that installs of Office365 reportedly remove OneNote 2016.

Microsoft has since reversed their stance, according to The Verge:

“We are literally merging all of our modern code back into the legacy 2016 codebase to create a unified single codebase that we can ship and deliver OneNote from,” explained Ben Hodes, product manager of OneNote, at a Microsoft Ignite session today. “The reason we’re doing this modern merge is to get back to a single codebase and start to deliver these features in the coming year and a half.”

The new features include:

Modern sync services to sync notebooks faster
@mentions for OneNote inside of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Search integration to find the information in your notes
New meeting notes features
Tasks and To Do integration
Accessibility improvements
Next-generation canvas
Dark Mode

Microsoft had been steering customers to the version of OneNote that ships with Windows 10. It’s a slick Windows application with a pen-friendly UI, but it felt inconsistent. Sometimes, for example, the page list would be hidden, and you’d have to click on the categories list to make it re-appear. Nice to conserve screen real estate, not so intuitive.

OneNote integrates with Outlook’s calendar feature, allowing you to open a new page in OneNote to capture notes. Outlook would open the OneNote 2016 application with a meeting template, but OneNote for Windows 10 would open the web app. I find that I either work with web apps or local Windows apps but don’t like to mix the two. I’d rather use all web apps or all local apps. While it worked at first, Outlook’s built-in support for the OneNote web app seems to be conflicting with the OneNote plug-in. All things point to re-installing OneNote 2016.

Why not move ahead with OneNote for Windows? I spent the better part of the year working with Outlook for Windows 10, but over the past several years I’d become too accustomed to the older interface, which stayed relatively stable through OneNote 2010, 2013 and 2016. My Getting Things Done methodology uses tabs on the top, and I’m used to it that way. Hopefully, we end up with a current code base with a flexible UI that works equally well with desktop apps and web apps.

OneNote 2016 is a free download from Microsoft and can be downloaded from this link.

Posted on October 23rd, 2019 in blog | No Comments »

Stairs Downward

Posted on July 7th, 2019 in pentax mx-1 | No Comments »

Stamps

Posted on May 11th, 2019 in android | No Comments »

Oakland Photowalk

Posted on May 10th, 2019 in android | No Comments »

FitBit Flex 2 – Just “enough” Smart

I’ve been a Fitbit user for several years. I started with the original Charge, and most recently a Flex 2. I liked the fact that they were just smart enough — I wear a traditional watch, so I don’t need a smartwatch. I have my phone with me most of the time, so I don’t need the distraction of app notifications on my wrist.

Distractions kill productivity, multiple studies have quantified the time it takes your mind to switch from one context to another and get back on track after a distraction. Smart phones play a significant part in distraction in the workplace, social and family life, and it’s important to manage the distraction that an always-on, internet enabled device provides.

When I wore a smart watch, I found myself paying attention to every email and every notification from every app; it was as if I had my phone on my wrist. With a Fitbit, I’m notified of incoming of text messages and phone calls with a discrete flashing LED and a vibration, nothing else. E-mail and application notifications can wait until I’ve blocked time out for them.

It’s about providing the most focus to the task at hand.

Posted on March 8th, 2019 in blog | No Comments »

Violins, Coolpix 995

Violins at the Dickens Fair, 2018

I found a Nikon Coolpix 995 at my local thrift shop; mint condition, with a good battery, filter kit (circular polarizer, UV, and 2 neutral density filters), wide angle attachment, strap, charger and case – for $10.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted on January 3rd, 2019 in coolpix995 | No Comments »

Place Setting

Posted on August 21st, 2018 in android | No Comments »

Brick/Stickers

Posted on July 25th, 2018 in android | No Comments »

Productivity Podcasts

Like many people, I spend too much time commuting to work – I’ve made a decision to focus on the quality of my family’s life, and that meant moving to a place where jobs in my field are over a hill. I choose to make the most of my time, and podcasts became my media of choice for those longer commutes. While entertainment podcasts make s I listen to several podcasts focused on productivity and wanted to share them with you:

Jocko Podcast – A no-nonsense primer to hard work and discipline as the key to getting what you want. Along with his co-host Echo Charles, Jocko Willink relates his time leading SEAL teams, working as a motivational speaker and organizational consultant with excerpts from books on warfare and leadership and interviews with great leaders and men. His own books, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, and Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual summarize his leadership and motivational style.

Tim Ferriss – Tim Ferriss has been a net.personality for some time, starting with his 2009 book,The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, and following up with The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and The 4-Hour Chef in 2012. His most recent books, Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World, and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers call on his podcast guests, ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Foxx, Edward Norton, Tony Robbins, Maria Popova, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Amanda Palmer, Malcolm Gladwell, Vince Vaughn, Rick Rubin, Reid Hoffman, Jon Favreau, Whitney Cummings, Mike Shinoda, and 200+ more.

Beyond the To-Do list – Beyond The To-Do List is another great podcast focusing on productivity, personal development and work-life balance. BTTDL has weekly guests discussing these topics and more.

Getting Things Done -The podcast from David Allen, the writer who changed my productivity strategy with his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. David’s ideas regarding workflow, capturing and getting things out of your head and into a system worked for me. The system works whether you capture information in a Hipster PDA, journal, 3-ring binder, tickler file, spiral notebook or electronic system.

The GaryVee Audio Experience – Gary Vaynerchuk is a phenomenom — part entrepreneur, part cultural/brand icon, and all hustle. He’s an inspiration to never give up, to change, adapt, and above all, hustle. He’s written two books and expanded his podcast.

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