Using Outlook for Getting Things Done

I have been sharpening my implementation of the GTD behaviours recommended by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done*. Until recently this had been supported by a kluge in the way I use Microsoft Outlook - it worked, but it was clumsy, and I was getting very frustrated with it.

So, I am now using - and am very happy with - NetCentrics' Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In. I was motivated to do this because my close friend and pastor Paul has been experiencing phenomenal results with his implementation of Eric Mack's eProductivity tool for Lotus Notes to support him in applying GTD to his life. Paul has written extensively about his GTD and eProductivity journey on his blog and his twitter.

I am happy with Microsoft Outlook; which I have been using for many years. I have integrated Outlook with a number of web-based 'cloud' services for online access, backup and syncing with my Blackberry. It would not be easy to replace Outlook in my workflow. However, I desired getting something like Paul's results, and sought a GTD add-in for Outlook. I contacted Eric and he recommended Netcentrics as he has no plans to also adapt eProductivity to Outlook.

Here are my observations after nearly a month of using NetCentrics' Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In:

• it is a solid tool which has facilitated my quick extraction of commitments from emails, meeting notes, etc - so I now increasingly run at 'inbox zero' and have an increasingly reliable list of Tasks respresenting the commitments I have made to myself and others;
• I am not yet happy with how I have defined my Projects and Sub-Projects - the main issue being it also blends the Roles I perform as well as the Projects I'm working on - I need to better learn how GTD and Netcentrics supports Roles as distinct from Projects;
• I haven't yet nailed the concept of a Context (Action in Netcentrics) but for now suspect this is more that I am still learning GTD concepts and applying them to the complex mix of roles, clients and projects for which I am responsible as a husband, father, consultant, entrepreneur, writer and church leader - rather than any issue with Netcentrics itself;
• I have started undertaking a type of Weekly Review, usually every couple days, and Netcentrics provides useful support to it - but I would also like a tool like the eProductivity wizard Paul has described to me;
• I have stopped syncing my tasks to my Blackberry as I haven't yet found a way to filter it across all dimensions of Project, Sub-Project, Task and Action - while the Blackberry continues to be my almost ubiquitous capture tool (I have another post coming on the different modes in which it performs that role for me) I can't yet trust it to tell me at any given moment what I should be doing, or even to present me with a contextually relevant filtered list to choose from - so I'm not yet at the 'empty brain' point where I can rely solely on my GTD system as I still tend to carry my immediate task list in my head;
• the Someday functionality does not seem to be consistent within Netcentrics - a Task seems to get flagged differently when you 'Someday' it compared with when you simply change its Action to Someday - and this flows through to the ability to filter out those Tasks;
• I would like to bring the Netcentrics icons on to the front toolbar ribbon of the various Outlook forms I use (emails, tasks, appointments) rather than having to constantly switch toolbars - I'm pretty sure this is simple using standard Outlook but haven't yet made time to find out how.
  

I will continue to write about my GTD and Netcentrics journey.

* I will receive a 10% commission if you purchase this book through this link.

Comments

[Paul Gardner]

Thanks for the link Gavin :)

[Christina]

What is the benefit of adding GTD to Outlook? It seems to me that everything you can do with GTD can already be done with Outlook. You just have to be organized and on top of things to do it. Am I missing some fantastic feature of GTD that I don't know about?

[Gavin Knight]

hi Christina

thanks for your comment

previously I did use standard Outlook functionality to support my implementation of the GTD methodology - primarily using a manual combination of tasks, calendar appointments, categories and filtered views - however, it was not smooth enough for me and my work style - thinking about the GTD dimension was too much in the foreground, rather than thinking about the actual work I was tracking

when my friend Paul told me of the eProductivity add-on for Lotus Notes and how powerfully it had enabled his implementation of the GTD methodology (in his case within Notes) I wondered if there was a similar add-on for Outlook - it turns out there is and it is produced by Netcentrics, and that is what I have implemented and described in this post.

it seems to me the Netcentrics add-on takes a combination of standard Outlook functionality (not unlike my manual implementation) but makes it smoother by adding buttons to toolbars which run macros to do some of the 'heavy lifting' I had previously been doing manually - and enables me to better focus on my actual work, rather than on making Outlook track it GTD style

Netcentrics provide a free trial of their add-on - I suggest you download it and give it a try - if it doesn't improve your use of Outlook then simply stop using the trial and revert back to standard Outlook

however, for me, there is enough value in the add-on so I paid for it and continue to use it

[Eric Eckberg]

I to have been using the GTD Add-in for Outlook as my Trusted System for GTD. Two of the biggest advantages of the Add-in are:

* A toolbar that lets you deal with emails, easily turning them into an Action, Delegating them to someone else, Defering them to a later date or just Snoozing them for a day or two.

* Ability to organize Actions under their appropriate Project/Subproject. Even though all items are Outlook Tasks, it's easier to filter out only the Actions using the provided GTD Views.

There are many more features, but to me, these are the two biggest advantages to using the Add-in as opposed to just using Outlook "out of the box" and configuring it for GTD.

The latest version of the Add-in increases the ability to link other Outlook items such as Journal entries to a project. I've written a post on how to create an Outlook macro for reporting back journal entries for time reporting.

Eric

[Gavin Knight]

thanks Eric