m | power

The tickler file is another concept that I first encountered in David Allen's Getting Things Done, though its been around for quite a while. Definitions of what a tickler file is are on the web, but the basic idea is that you put reminders into a a file for each day and open up the file for today to see what you need to be reminded of. Probably the best summary I've found is the one at 43 Folders. Go read it. Heck, read the whole site if you're into GTD.

One key to making your tickler file work is recognizing what you'll use it for. I tend to use mine to remind me of next actions that I can't act on now but will be able to later. It sometimes also has reminders of next actions that I want to force myself to see and deal with in the future rather than now. I almost never keep appointments or someday/maybe things in my tickler file. Because of this, things in my tickler file tend to make it into my next actions lists, or occasionally on to my calendar, if they're urgent enough.

Anyway, there's quite a few ways you can setup a tickler file in Outlook. The simplest, and probably the most common, is to just use all day events on the calendar. This lets you set a reminder and it will of course show up on your calendar for the day. When you want to push something out further than a month, you can just put the tickler item on the 1st of the month in which you want to be reminded. If you use the calendar regularly already, this helps make sure that you see the stuff in your tickler file.

Of course, there are other alternatives, depending on how you use Outlook and how you want to use your tickler file. One is to use tasks. Tasks also have reminders, so if you appreciate the reminder dialog you can use it. Tasks can make sense if you also use them for next actions that have no date associated with them. Its pretty easy to just filter out your tasks based on whether there is a start (or due) date - those with it are your tickler, those without are your next actions. In Outlook 2007, you can now show tasks on your calendar, so tasks with a date seem like the perfect fit for a tickler file. You can see them on your calendar and it's easy to convert them to next actions - just remove the date.

You can also use flagged mail items or the journal to keep a tickler. Flagged mail has due dates and journal entries have start dates. Additionally, in Outlook 2007 flagged mail shows up on your task lists, making it easier to think about mail as either next actions or tickler items.

Ultimately, the goal is to not let anything slip through the cracks. The tickler file can be really useful in reminding you of "stuff" when you need to be reminded. Of all the options above, I have to admit that I've used each one at some point (I've never used contacts with their birthdays to track tickler items, but technically, it could be done). After going through all these ideas I am now settling on tasks with start dates. The main benefit to me is that it's so easy to make them into a next action. I can also add reminders if I think I need to, and they fit in with everything else I keep in Outlook quite well.

A column by Jason Fry in the WSJ (registration required) talks about how he's changing how he uses his email inbox and in the process, talks about how people see the purpose of an email inbox differently. This got me thinking about how I've used my inbox in the past and how I'd like to use it. And honestly, that got me more excited about Office 2007.

One of the simplest, yet coolest, ideas that I got from reading David Allen's Getting Things Done is to use inboxes as a collection point for all the "stuff" in your life, and to limit how many inboxes you use. Since reading the book, I've gone through lots of different inboxes in lots of different places. I've got a physical inbox at home and one at work. The inbox at home has moved around a lot - from the office, to the kitchen, and finally to the ... laundry room. Yep, that's the way I come into the house, so its easy to drop the mail and other stuff in there when I get home. I've also used my phone as a voice recorder for stuff that comes up while I'm out and don't have access to a computer or notepad. Of course, I usually forget to go through my old recordings and do something with them, but its slightly better than not collecting it and just forgetting it.

On the computer, I've also gone through different ways of handling the inbox problem. For a while I sent myself an email (In Outlook 2003 hit Ctrl-Shift-M, type in my email address, type in subject, hit Alt-S), but this was clunky. But it's even clunkier to have to go to the inbox folder in Outlook and hit Ctrl-Shift-S for a new post. So eventually I just started hitting Ctrl-Shift-K for a new task. Pretty simple, not too clunky. I keep my next actions as tasks with categories (AtWork, AtHome, To Read, etc.) and so anything that was not categorized was in my "inbox". But then I had two inboxes in Outlook, my mail inbox and my tasks inbox. This just means more places to have things sit unlooked at if I'm not diligent about going through them.

So I've starting thinking of a new way to do the inbox based on the features described in Melissa MacBeth's Tasks and Time Management in Outlook blog. The basic idea is to use uncategorized tasks as my inbox. Then I can make all my mail into tasks by setting up a rule to flag incoming mail. Whenever I need to put my own ideas into the "inbox", I just hit Ctrl-Shift-K, type in the task, and hit Alt-S to save - really simple. Or just type it into the to-do bar. Now I only need one inbox. I can use my mail inbox as an archive area for stuff that's been dealt with. Archiving mail that I no longer need to track is as simple as clicking the flag on the item to mark it complete. Finally, I can use additional rules to make my inbox smarter about mail. For example, I can automatically file mail sent to certain distributions lists into my "To Read" category. Instead of showing up in my new inbox, they show up in my list of things to read, saving me the step of filing it there. That's a great place to put all my RSS posts.

There are quite a few cool benefits to this new "inbox". I can have my inbox always visible, if I want, by using the new To-Do Bar. If I combine that with tasks on the calendar, it becomes pretty easy to put everything I need to see into the calendar module with the to-do bar turned on. For real processing of the inbox I would still go to the tasks module so I could see flagged mail in the reading pane. Instead of living in the mail world, I now live in the tasks (and appointments) world, which just seems more right. What's important is what I need to do and where I need to go. Mail becomes just an easy, automatic way to get information into my system.

Admittedly, the titles of the last couple posts are misleading. Habits and Things aren’t in combat or anything; Neither are Getting Things Done and First Things First. I’ve just found that contrasting the different principles of Getting Things Done and 7 Habits / First Things First helps me to understand those principles better and find ways to solve my own challenges when it comes to being more productive. If you know of any other systems, principles, ideas that help you  become more productive, let me know. I'm always looking for new ideas.

One of the challenges that I and many others face with David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) is that the number of next actions, someday/maybe items, and lists in general seems to be out of control. Mr. Allen recognizes this to some extent and encourages dividing next actions into lists by context. Ideally, this means I should only have to look at the next actions for the context I’m in. But of course, to make the right decision and do the most important things will require changing context (going to work, picking up the phone, etc.), and so I still need to look at everything. I don’t, and so my brain takes back responsibility because I can’t trust my system.

This problem with GTD is a result of the focus on things. It’s all about improving your productivity by keeping track of all the things you need to do, or want to do, or hope sometime to do. Certainly, this is an important part of being productive. But because the paradigm is focused on getting things done, it has the side effect of forcing you to keep track of a lot of things. And because you get so caught up in keeping track of all the things, it leaves less time and brainpower to make sure you’re doing the most important things.

In contrast to the GTD paradigm of things, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits paradigm is about habits. To become more productive you develop habits, like being proactive or putting first things first. These habits themselves don’t help reduce all the things that need to be done, but they do focus your time and energy on those that provide the greatest return on investment.

In a more general sense, however, habits are the key to reducing all the things in your life. For example, one thing I’ve never added to my calendar or my next actions lists was to read the scriptures each day, because I already have a habit of doing it. A bad example is that I don’t have a habit of checking the oil in my car when I get gas, so I have to put it on my next actions lists or it doesn’t get done. Ok, so it doesn’t get done anyway. But if I had the habit, I’d have one less thing to keep track of. And it would get done.

So now I’m going to look through all my next actions and calendar items for habits that I can develop. What can be made into a habit, and what should be? It’s true that habits take time to develop – there is no quick fix. But in the long run, instead of just getting things done, it means I will become a different person, a more productive person. And that’s what I want my system to do.

Ok, so the title of this post is a bit over the top - I recognize that in some ways David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) and Stephen Covey's First Things First (FTF, the sequel to 7 Habits) are orthogonal - they address somewhat different problems in the time management arena. But anyway...

I was thinking about some of the different challenges I've had with both systems the other day. For example, I'm great at keeping my next actions up to date and regularly go through my inboxes, but I'm either pretty bad at reviewing and doing what's on my lists or I always find something more important to work on. It's almost like my next actions/calendar/someday-maybe/etc. just show all the stuff on my plate and the urgent (important?) stuff gets done while the other stuff just sits there. I'm just a paper pusher in that system. I rarely think to look at all my lists and when I do I rarely have time, energy, or something to do anything more than I already knew needed to be done. On the other hand, when I've done better at FTF in the past (and when I've tried to go back to it more recently) I never felt like I was on top of everything. GTD does do that for you. And FTF helped me do a better job of getting the important things done than GTD.

As I thought about these issues and considered another attempt to use the FTF system, I was struck by the personality behind each system. Both men, Stephen Covey and David Allen, are highly successful in business and both consider themselves successful in their personal and family lives also. However, I can definitely relate a lot more to Mr. Covey, just because he has kids. Now, Mr. Covey has nine and I've only got two, but I also know that, when you're counting children, two is closer to nine than zero. Of course, my parents are very glad I'm learning this and expressing gratitude for their own sacrifices. I'm learning that children present challenges in time management that are different in both kind and degree to those presented by other adults or even other people's children. When work, church, and community responsibilities leave me only a little time to be with my kids, its hard to stop, look at my next actions, and work through the list. My kids almost always win, and they probably should. That makes choosing what few things I will do in my spare time much more important: will I do the dishes for my wife, fix the broken closet door, read a good book, pay the bills, send in a $10 rebate form, or mow the lawn? The ideas in FTF help me make that decision. The ideas in GTD just make my list of choices longer.

Now, I know I've been somewhat unfair in presenting this battle of the planning systems. GTD and FTF can co-exist. They are just sets of principles that can help you manage your time and actions. Some of the principles overlap nicely, such as having a weekly planning and review. Ideally, I'd like to find a way of merging all these principles into a coherent system that helps me focus on the important things while still staying on top of everything. But I'm thinking now that I should start from FTF and incrementally add the principles espoused in GTD rather than the other way around because of my particular situation. For all the rest of you, there may be some value in comparing your current circumstances to both David Allen and Stephen Covey; it may help you choose which system makes the most sense for you.

Stephen Griffin has another great update for the replication API at http://blogs.msdn.com/stephen_griffin/archive/2005/09/28/475027.aspx.

I recently learned more about how hotfixes work for Outlook (and I assume, all of the Office apps). After we release a new version of Outlook, large companies occasionally come back to us and ask us to change something immediately. Sometimes it's a bug fix that affects them, or a change to the design of a feature. If approved, these hotfixes are created and a KB article is written to document the fix, which is then released to the public in the next service pack. These hotfixes aren't released on office.microsoft.com before the SP release because they need the extensive testing that we do for an SP release and that the company requesting the fix can provide. Because of this, someone might occasionally come across a hotfix KB article that matches a problem they're having, but which is not yet available as part of an SP. Typically, these hotfixes will be made available if a Microsoft's customer support determines that it's the right thing to solve someone's individual problem. Additionally (as per this article), customer support may waive the support fee if the hotfix solves the problem.

Productivity Tip: Ctrl-Shift-K is my friend. Whenever I think of something I need to do, I just hit Ctrl-Shift-K and up pops my new task. Enter it, type Alt-S, and voila!

There is an update out for the Outlook Integration APIs documentation. It fixes some errors in the documentation and includes replication APIs that enable you to create your own store provider based on the pst store provider that can synchronize with a server.

So, I've been looking into why Office, and therefore Outlook, doesn't offer symbols to ISV developers creating Office solutions in the same way that Windows symbols are available to those writing software on Windows. It took way too much time and emails to get to the right person for this, but I finally did, and here's what I learned. We (i.e. some people in Office) are actively investigating the value of providing symbols, given the cost to publish them.

Cleaning up the .pdb files for public consumption is costly. The first challenge is removing language that isn't appropriate for public consumption. Additionally, symbols in code from third party vendors need to be excluded. ISV developers need to be able to step through code and see Office symbols but not symbols from third party code - this can take a lot of work.

Also, up to now there has not been a call from the Office development community for symbols, so no percieved need exists. Even if there was a perceived need, it would need to fit into the Office long term strategy for it to happen. Though I personally would love to see all of Office and Outlook specifically become a better platform for productivity tools, I recognize that others may know better than I if that's the right way to go.
However, the right people are looking at the problem, and I've volunteered my help if the work ever does get done.

Well, I took the dive into ActiveWords. There is a lot of potential here, and I think the vision that the company has is awesome. For now, it's a great way to get my stuff done a little faster. I have found that it has also inspired me to learn more keyboard shortcuts in order to speed up my computer use even more, not to mention reducing the strain on my mouse hand. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to speed up their computer usage.

That said, as a developer, I've run into quite a few issues that sometimes make it difficult to use. The one in the front of my mind right now is the "undo" problem. ActiveWords tries to undo your typing if you trigger the last word typed by sending delete keystrokes to the application. A true solution to this problem is difficult. What about if the user is in a list box and their activeword scrolled the listbox? What if they have text selected and their activeword replaced the text? Or to make things really fun, what if the user had just pressed Alt and are in the menus for a very complex program? Cases like this can hamper productivity, thus defeating the purpose of ActiveWords. To really make this work it almost needs to be built into the operating system and supported by all applications - a keystroke undo that has some minimal history to it. An alternative is for ActiveWords to somehow determine the type of context you're in and do an appropriate undo (e.g. ctrl-Z in many applications).

Fortunately, the ActiveWords team also created the ActionPad to handle cases where using an activeword is not feasible. When using the ActionPad, which is similar to Win-R replacements like SlickRun, you must first type a shortcut (Ctrl-Space is the default) before typing your activeword. The ActionPad has the advantage of all the built in scripting capabilities of ActiveWords, which are very powerful and I'm sure will improve.

One other thing - to really appeal to your average non-technical user ActiveWords is going to need to populate their wordbase with a lot of common stuff (App Paths reg key for example) and making automatically populating the wordbase easier (import all .lnk files in a folder, such as the Start Menu).

One thing I've been impressed by is ActiveWords customer responsiveness. Despite the challenges I've faced in using ActiveWords, I bet they'll improve their product quickly and in the right directions because of their openness to suggestions and the relationships they build with their customers.

Buzz Bruggeman has started an interesting discussion about Outlook as a platform. Since starting at Microsoft, I've spent a lot of my time supporting (and trying to support) developers coding on top of Outlook, both within MS and outside of it. However, Buzz's comments reminded me that despite that I haven't done much of my own coding on top of Outlook. I would like to do more, partly to understand the current pain that obviously exists for developers coding for Outlook, but also because there are lots of little features I would personally love to have, that just aren't a priority for enough users to get built into the product.

I also see how valuable a thriving Outlook developer community can be to our bottom line. It's the developer community that has made other platforms (notably Windows and Palm) so successful. I would certainly agree with Buzz's comment that "My gut tells me that Microsoft never intended Outlook to be a near industrial strength personal CRM system." But why not make it possible for others to build that on top of Outlook? (Obligatory plug for BCM, which is working to do just that.) Or anything else for that matter?

OutlookSpy just added support for the Outlook Integration APIs. If you don't know what OutlookSpy is (from their website) ...

OutlookSpy is the ultimate Outlook developer tool. Integrated directly into Outlook, it provides fast and convenient access to all Outlook Object Model objects, lets you examine values of the properties, call functions, browse object hierarchy and monitor Outlook events. CDO is supported too!

If you're developing on Outlook a tool like this (such as MdbView) is a necessity.

For the last couple months I've been working to draft the Outlook Integration APIs. After I drafted them, they were then passed on to the User Assistance team, who created a set of help documents. After going through a few rounds of reviews, they were finalized and published on MSDN. It's been a unique challenge to work on documenting what were previously internal APIs for public use in a way that would make them useful yet also protect both our IP and Outlook's stability. Stephen Griffin has a good summary of the APIs as well as some corrections for errors that slipped through the various editing passes.

I also fit in a month of parental leave after Christmas to enjoy our new son Cade and to work on painting projects. A nice break from work, and now work is a nice break from painting.

I found PocketInformant shortly after purchasing my PocketPC (Dell Axim), and have been very pleased with it since I got it. My favorite features are the saved views, category grouping, and drag-n-drop to change or add categories. I use categories extensivily to organize my tasks by context (e.g. at home, at computer, etc.) and being able to move stuff from one to another is very useful. Of course, it does force me to use just the one task folder, as it relies on ActiveSync and Pocket Outlook for the task data. A more comprehesive solution that could sync multiple folders of tasks, calendars, and contacts would be really useful. I currently keep a projects list by marking them as important and a perhaps list by marking tasks as low priority. This works ok, but it would be nice to have that additional information on tasks that I'm working on for sorting, etc.

Categorization is a hard problem to get right, because many people would use it to classify items on multiple axes. For example, I have a set of categories that are only used for next actions I'm working on, but I also have a set of categories that reflect areas of focus in my life, so that I can categorize "Plan dinner out with my wife" as something to do at the computer ("@ Computer" category) and also as part of my work to be a good husband ("Husband" category). I could also add another classification with categories for projects ("Fall in love all over again" category/project). However, in both Outlook and PocketInformant, if I just want to look at my next actions (organized by category/context), I will also see the other two categories I've placed this task in. Ideally it would be easy to add a new classification system (Categories 2) that allows separate entry, filtering, etc. to make it easier to organize along the important axes. Obviously, things like categories (labels in GMail) is a good start. Now, how can we step back a level to make it easier to organize categories into useful and usable groups, without avoiding the dreaded hierarchy? Sounds like a fun problem to solve.

Wes Haggard has created a great little utility for running apps - Run++. I've started using WIN-R more and more often, and this is a great replacement. I love being able to shorten down all the programs I run regularly to one or two letters. This is a great free alternative to ActiveWords.