Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 2nd Ed.
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook is a book for the over-extended office worker whose workday feels out of control. It shows how to regain command of an over-committed workday and an overflowing, unmanaged e-mail in box. It does this by teaching the author's system of time, task, and e-mail management, and it shows how to implement the system in Microsoft Outlook.
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 2nd Ed. Accessories
 Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play
Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life
Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft® Outlook® to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other)
Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized
Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Seize the Work Day: Using the Tablet PC to Take Total Control of Your Work and Meeting Day
The One-Page Project Manager: Communicate and Manage Any Project With a Single Sheet of Paper
Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 2nd Ed. Reviews
Ultimately this shows how to set up tasks and define rules and perhaps a bit of color coding. If you've bought into the GTD way of task management, you may reach for this book to help you tame your email and to do lists with Outlook.
If you know GTD and you're good at Outlook, then this book is very basic and almost useless. If you just use Outlook to read email, this book will be an eye-opener.
this book will disappoint. But overall, this is a very basic book on some Outlook features slightly tailored to GTD.
The book definitely has lots of information in it and is a nice companion to the system. I was hoping for more of an advanced book which used the deep Outlook features in a very unique and productive way.
But for those of us who already use tasks, categories, etc.
Linenberger alludes to in his book the benefits of having an empy inbox and control over my schedule are much, much larger than that. I was having serious stress issues with the number of projects that I handle simultaneously, and using this system I have eliminated about 75% of this stress. Although I bought the book thinking it would help me to tame Outlook, as Mr. Mr. I can actually be "present" at home now instead of thinking about what I MAY have forgotten or missed. Mr.
Linenberger presents a well thought out, efficient and effective method for using Outlook that I easily adapted to my own needs. I'd been tinkering with Outlook for a while trying to use it to manage my email and scheduling, but it just seemed too complicated. The day I first started reading the book I set about cleaning out the 2000+ emails in my inbox, and after a day and a half my inbox was empty. More importantly, I have been able to maintain an empty inbox each day for the past three weeks so I am sold. This book has allowed me, more and more, to leave my work behind at the end of the day (which is still well into the evening but not quite as late as before).
Linenberger has done me an invaluable service by writing this book and it is worth every penny.
It's very effective for tracking all current tasks by contact. And a great program to extend Outlook functionality for Treo and Palm users is Keysuites software, www.chapura.com.
Michael's book provides a simple framework for quickly processing email and prioritizing the resulting tasks.
I also recommend Outlook users get very familiar with using the Activities tab in Contacts to track tasks. Like many people, I have too many top priority emails and tasks to ever complete.
They are both excellent. I prefer Total Workday Control.
I bought both Total Workday Control by Michael Linenberger and Take Back Your Life by Sally McGhee. He then describes his system for handling a high volume of tasks, so regardless of how many you complete, you always know what needs attention so you can avoid surprises.
I found this update version easier to used than the original. I use the ClearContext plug-in for Outlook.
It took me about 3 hours of reading the philosphy behind the system (this is important - don't skip it) and another 2 hours of setting up and tweaking Outlook. The first day or two afterwards were strange as I tried to get accustomed to the system, but now, after a few weeks, I couldn't live without it. Before this book, I really, really, really tried to like and use GTD, but I could never internalize the methodolgy and use it effectively. In contrast, TWC/Manage-your-NOW just makes sense to me. It's not all about email management (that's a minor concern for me, although having a perfectly empty inbox is wonderful for your stress level) - it's really a great tool for managing the dozens of tasks that pop in and out of your head all day long along with the medium and long-term projects that have been staring at you from your task list for the last year or so. Bottom line - it's a good book with a good system - definitely worth your time to try it.
|
