Tickler File Outlook

[apinaud]

I am looking for help for Outlook Experts.

I am interested in use outlook as a tickler file, but I have found the following issues:
1- If I set outlook to send in a future date, Outlook mark the existence of an email, I am worried that I get numb to the idea of emails there and emails that really need to go out stay in there because of errors.

Is there anyway to create separated outbox, so I can have ones that are ticklers and the ones I use everyday.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Meza]

Hi apinaud, I'm not quite sure what you mean by emails staying in there because of errors?
But perhaps a better thing to do would be to drag an email that you want in your tickler file onto the calendar, where you can then set the date when you want it to be brought back to your attention.

 

[apinaud]

Thanks Meza, I try that but then I start filling my Calendar with things that are not really hard landscapes.
Let me re-explain myself, because I think I wrote that last post too late at night.

If you set up outlook to send yourself a message in a future date, the message sits in the outbox until that date occurs. the problem can be that the numbers of emails can be really big, and I do not want to scan on all those emails if an email get stuck (because the size is bigger than the max size the network allow and that kind of errors).

If there any way to create something like a second outbox?

I though create a second email account only for the tickler file, and terefore have a separate personal folders with their own outbox. This option will work, I am just looking for something cleaner and simple but with the same power.

Any ideas?

thanks

 

[ggrozier]

Why use emails?

For everything I need to be reminded of I set up a task and use the due date. I don't use emails at all. Then I print off my task list each week or each day as necessary (from a view that shows just the next 10 days or so of due dates), or check it on the computer in the morning. Why do you need to use email? Couldn't you print out the task list and use that, even if you're going out of town? It would always be with you, and if something new comes up and you need to add something to the task list, you could just write it in on your printed list and then update Outlook when you get back to the computer.

I'm pretty new to using Outlook so I'd really like to know why you use emails for ticklers. If I set up an email for every task or meeting or reminder I'd be even more snowed under.

I'm hoping that the OQO (the really small Windows computer that came out a year or so ago) will be getting better reviews soon, because that would be the answer to a lot of these problems regarding synching with Outlook and pda's--I've tried several pda's and don't find it's worth the trouble of carrying them around and synching. It would be worth it to have a small, full-powered computer that could run Outlook and other Windows apps and would fit into my purse. I bought a little Vaio like that a couple of years ago but returned it because I couldn't read the screen. Now I'm ready to wear my glasses all the time if that would help.

I see from your blog that you have a new tablet pc. Is that portable enough that you can take it everywhere with you? If you can have your Outlook with you all the time do you need to use email for your ticklers?

 

[kewms]

I agree with the person who wonders why you want to use email for this. Why not do something like set an alarm for an ordinary task?

If you do want email, the best bet might be to send it from somewhere outside your own Outlook setup. For example, there are lots of online reminder services that will send you email at some specified future date.

Katherine

 

[Tom Shannon]

1- If I set outlook to send in a future date, Outlook mark the existence of an email, I am worried that I get numb to the idea of emails there and emails that really need to go out stay in there because of errors.

You might try using flags for emails to be sent at a future date. Unflagged mail wasn't sent because of errors.

As has already been suggested, I use dated tasks. These seem to be discouraged in the book for everday lists so anything dated can be used as a tickler or as a deferred task. Filtering them out of my standard views until they come due is trivial.

Tom S.

 

[apinaud]

First of all let me thanks all for your responses.

I will do my best to explain why I like to use email

My tasks are really sacred territory for me, only projects, s/m and next actions goes there. I have a really paperless environment, I think I receive 5 or less pieces of paper per week. so it is too much work to create a paper tickler; but going back to the issue, Why email. I receive almost everything in email, Email will give me the advantage of automate the process, I will be able to set up thing in a way that tickler will be put in my inbox everyday without any special thing, no need to look in the folder, or anything. Maybe my situation is a little special in the sense of the amount of information I receive is all electronic, all that I want is that get to my inbox, that is the reason I am thinking on emails, if there is a way to mark (maybe flags, I have not try it, need to learn it, thanks for the tip) and email and desapear it from my inbox and get it back in there at a certain day (the tickler concept) I will not need email at all.

Also I do not like alarms, because I think they interupt my focus, the only thing I use alarms for is hardlandscape because they need to happen at certain time, otherwise, I avoid alarms.

I also consider the online reminder services, but I will love to have everything integrated in outlook, since will give me the search capability, and I will not need to depent on anything else.

To the answer of the Tablet, I am in love, for me the tablet is a laptop with ink capabilities, I am not interested in write in ink on outlook, or write memos, but I love the idea of receive documents, write my comments in ink and send those back. Also I like to be able to take notes, in the tablet and do not need to have paper around. But it is important, I am not using raw data in ink into my system, I process everything with the keyboard, it is more a laptop with ink than anything else. Also the capability to rotate the screen is fantastic. in regards of the tablet I will recomend check it. I am in love with mine.

 

[kewms]

Outlook's customized views are pretty powerful. You can just put whatever the item is directly in your inbox with a future date, and use views to hide it until it becomes current.

Katherine

 

[ggrozier]

Maybe a paradigm shift? (if that's the right expression)

Ok, N/A's, S/M's, and projects are sacred. Agreed. But ticklers are also sacred. And they fit really well into the N/A, S/M, and Project organization. As a matter of fact, the N/A's themselves could be set up as ticklers, in a sense. You want to be reminded of them (but no alarm--I agree on that, they're very disruptive).

How do you have the N/A's set up? Are they a separate category? You could have another category for the Ticklers, with the due dates, and the view set up to show you everything that is coming up within the next ten days. You could have a view for just the Ticklers, just the N/A's, or everything together. You need to see your ticklers just as much as you do the N/A's, and wouldn't it be more efficient, or easier, to set them up as tasks with due dates, rather than worrying about setting them up as emails? Whether you print them out or not is a minor detail--you could set them up as tasks and never print them out, just as you don't print out your next actions.

I don't see why you'd want to send yourself an email so they would show up at the right time, when you could set them up as tasks and pull up a view--this would have two advantages--ticklers, n/a's, s/m's, and projects would all be consolidated under tasks, and you wouldn't be getting so much email. And you wouldn't need to worry about the emails being wrong. Furthermore if you're relying on email, what if your email server goes down? You might miss something important. I find outlook's email works fine if I don't try to get fancy with it, but when I try to make use of some of the bells and whistles things mess up and folders disappear. And I never can figure out what I did wrong. In this case, you seem to have the worry of why outlook isn't doing the emails distracting you from what you want to get done.

I know that you want things the way you want them. I'm the same way. But sometimes if I think about things I can see them a different way. Which sometimes just causes me to dig in deeper, but sometimes I change my mind.

 

[ksangler]

email tickler file

I created personal folders in Outlook labeled 01-31 and Jan-Dec. Just like David recommends for the paper system. If I receive an email that I need to act on by a certain date, I drag it to that day's folder. Every morning I review that day's folder. I get 40-60 emails per day...drives me crazy, but quickly dragging and dropping helps me clean out my inbox and keeps it paperless.

 

[Tom Shannon]

OK, here's a suggestion. The default for your Outbox is to show the number of items. You can change this so that it only shows the number of unread items (like your other folders) by right clicking on the Outbox folder and choosing "Properties". Click on the "Show number of unread items" box and close. Now mark all of your ticklers as read. These will still be sent on time if you do this. All unsent items will show up as unread and the number of items in the folder title will reflect that.

Tom S.

 

[dragynox]

Hi all,

I try to stick with the basic Outlook functionality as much as possible, and I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate the Tickler File into Outlook.

What I have just settled on is to make a new Category of Tasks named ^Tickle that sits next to the ^Concerts, ^Maybe, ^Projects, and ^Someday lists. The carrot symbol keeps these lists below my @Context lists.

When I add a task to the ^Tickle category, I always add a due date. This way I can start each day to see if there are any ^Tickle tasks due for today and decide what to do with them.

If I get an email that I want to tickle, then I can just drag the email to this list and create the task for the email that way.

If I hav a physical peice of paper that needs to be associated with the tickle reminder, then I can make a note in the body of the email that it is in a physical file called tickler support.

Jake

 

[ommoran]

I created personal folders in Outlook labeled 01-31 and Jan-Dec. Just like David recommends for the paper system. If I receive an email that I need to act on by a certain date, I drag it to that day's folder. Every morning I review that day's folder. I get 40-60 emails per day...drives me crazy, but quickly dragging and dropping helps me clean out my inbox and keeps it paperless.

A very good idea. Plus, you can post a note into a folder, and it will appear there as well. So you can deal with non-email stuff that is incubating.