Accidentally Deleted Projects and Next Actions Lists

[Mike Ferguson]

Just moments ago I accidentally deleted all tasks from my iPAQ. Thinking that my computer would put them back onto my iPAQ, I placed the iPAQ into its craddle and waited ror the "No Tasks" to change to 142 Tasks. But it didn't. I sycronized. Nothing. Clicked on the task icon in Outlook and my heart fell out of my chest and is still flopping around on the floor. Empty. Empty Empty Empty. Does anyone know if/how I can get them back?

 

[CosmoGTD]

I don't know.

But if you can't, look at is as a gift.
Now you can start fresh.
Do a Mind Dump, and all the critical NA's will come back.

Then, make "set up a backup system" your first Next Action!

Coz

 

[nl4385]

Deleted tasks

Hi Mike,

Have you checked your "Deleted Items" folder in Outlook? Maybe that could save the day. If not, you'll have to start from scratch. Could be a blessing after all.

Regards,
Cor

 

[TesTeq]

Palm rulez.

It could only happen with PocketPC. It's difficult to lose everything with Palm.
TesTeq

 

[tej]

First, don't panic...

I've found I've made most of my mistakes in data recovery by panicking and trying different things before I really understood what had happened to my data. The school of hard knocks can be a harsh teacher

I'd recommend you not do anything until you do a little reading and see what your options are.

This is a good place to start.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Outlook+Recover+Deleted+Items++site:support.microsoft.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=recover+deleted+item+Outlook

Second, before you try anything, COPY the entire Outlook program directory from under Crogram Files AND the entire Outlook data directory from Cocuments and Settings<user>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlookoutlook.pst (where <user> should be your logon name) to another hard drive or partition, or even better, burn them to a CD. The more backups the better. Sorry, I don't use Outlook so I can't give you mre detailed information.

Then, you can safely try recovering your data.

Good luck!

 

[CosmoGTD]

I don't use the iPAQ.
But if you delete everything from a Palm, and then synchonize, then they are deleted.
Of course, those deletions should be in the Outlook deleted folder.
If not, they are gone.

What you have to do is to change the settings in the Synchronizer to "Desktop overrides handheld" when you delete from the Palm/PDA.
Don't get too upset.
When i first started with my Palm, i ended up with double Calendar entries, deletions, and various nightmares.
Stuff happens.

Coz

 

[Mike Ferguson]

Thank goodness for the GTD Outlook add-in and thanks for your responses. I did, indeed, arrive this morning thinking that this was an opportunity to start from scratch. After all, I have all my project support files. I could rebuild. So, I have the GTD Outlook Add-In. Ready to rebuild, I open up a new task. If you have the add-in, you know that there is a project bar in the icon menu. Somewhat randomly, I click on that bar and the drop down menu STILL LISTS ALL OF MY PROJECTS! Holy Toledo I let out a “yes” that is still echoing down the hallway. I still have to go thru and rewrite next actions for all of my projects, but just this Tuesday I had relabeled a whole slew of next actions as projects because I realized I was getting a little sloppy and assigning actions to lists instead of creating what should be projects. So, I still have my projects list and the opportunity to start from scratch on writing my outcome statements and next actions.

 

[CosmoGTD]

By the way, i hope every single person who reads this decides right now to set up a DAILY system for backing up Outlook, or whatever software you use.
After all, this software is going to hold almost your entire life.
Contacts, Plans, NA's, Calendar, etc.

You have to back it up every day, or several times a day.
Either to rotating CD's sets, or an external hard-drive, etc.
Have multiple copies of the backups on different media, and have one OFF-SITE if you can.
Fire and theft could be a problem as well.

We are putting hundreds and thousands of hours into these things, they have to be backed up properly.
If you don't have a backup routine, set one up TODAY.

Coz

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Accidentally Deleted Projects and Next Actions Lists

Yes, back up, and then back up your backups.

I have lost all my lists (my outline in Life Balance with 500-600 items), and this was on a Palm. It was a horrible tragedy for me, and yes, it was the panicked HotSync with the default setting "Handheld overwrites desktop" that killed me. I didn't even realize there was such a setting at the time.

Anyone who has a crash or data problem on a handheld -- do not HotSync without carefully checking the settings and changing to "Desktop overwrites handheld"!

And now, I also back up the desktop backup files to a UNIX file server which is automatically backed up. And I've needed to use it, too.

-andersons

 

[tej]

By the way, i hope every single person who reads this decides right now to set up a DAILY system for backing up Outlook, or whatever software you use.
After all, this software is going to hold almost your entire life.
Contacts, Plans, NA's, Calendar, etc.
.....
Coz

Couldn't agree more.

Here's a little bit of FREE help from Microsoft.

Outlook 2003 Add-in Personal Folders Backup

How to use it

Don't forget to use it