Cell phone to sync with Outlook

R

rimb

0
Hi all,

I've recently bought and read the GTD book and am very inspired and eager to start organizing all my obligations and thoughts into David Allens system. All computers around me, at work and at home, are pcs and I'm well accustomed to Outlook and it's calendar functions, but I'm ready to let it go if I have to. What I want now is a cell phone to be able to always have my calendar and my lists at hand. Thus it needs to sync well with Outlook. I figured they all did ok, but that windows mobile systems should probably do it better than the others for natural reasons. But after hours of googling I find that they don't even sync the categories for the tasks and events! And that surely is a must. I've seen tons of apps and stuff but I haven't found one that clearly points out that it can synchronize the categories (or folders or whatever could work in the same way) in Outlook and then group and filter my to do-lists by those categories. It shouldn't be so hard a task, and I certainly shouldn't be the only one with the request, or am I? Did you all solve it in another way?

Please let me know of your experiences!

/Sebastian
 
rimb;64331 It shouldn't be so hard a task said:
Well, I solved my problem by replacing my pc's with macs, and then buying an iphone. But I digress. Oddly, the old Palm platform probably has the most robust Outlook sync. I used the one from Chapura for a few years, and it was very good. However, the Palm is on its way out on some time scale that is perhaps 1-2 years. I can't say anything good about Windows Mobile because I don't know anything good about it. You might look at Blackberrys instead.
Click to expand...
 
I am fairly new to GTD, but have become addicted. I was a big Outlook user, and I have found that GTD works very well within Outlook, via the use of Catergories in Tasks. I am also a big Blackberry fan and love the fact that it syncs with Outlook. I am able to have all my tasks with me at all times. I am able to look at individual Catergories on the Blackberry (although they are called Filters on the Blackberry). I also like the Blackberry hardware and would recommend the Blackberry Curve.
 
Palm may be "on the way out", but I still find it's "Palm OS" just brilliant for self organisation. I love my Treo 680!

Regards,
Ian
 
Ditto on Palm

Effortless sync, especially with the KeyTasks add-on (so you can have more than 15 categories). But the old Palm OS will be yesterday's news in the next few months, when Pam Pre comes out to replace the Treo 755p. It's supposed to be the first true rival to iPhone (yeah, they said the same about BB Storm). It looks really slick. But here's the question: Will the new Palm WebOS play well with its partners, and be as seamless on syncing as its predecessor? Or does every app now need to re-engineer its syncing to satisfy the new OS? As they say in the MSM, only time will tell. I plan to grab a Palm Pre, but I'm not ditching my Treo until the sync is seamless. Anyone have any insights or predictions on this?
 
Thanks for your answers!

Neither the Blackberries nor the Palms I've seen works with the 3G net, and I'd love to be able to use the phone as a modem for my laptop when I'm out on the country side, and here (in Sweden) 3G is the only option. Furthermore I'm not in need of receiving my email on the phone (I actually really don't think I even want it there...) and I believe that's the main strengths of the both the Blackberry and the Palm.

I have been looking at apps like Agenda One for the windows mobile or Aqua Calendar for symbian phones. The app for windows mobile looks nice, but the os is getting so much devastating critic so I'm afraid to try it. The symbian option would be the cheapest but the app doesn't look too exciting and I don't even know yet if it can handle multiple categories on tasks. I have even considered the iPhone and the simple but nice looking app Remember the milk, but the Apple way of thinking with apps only available through iTunes and not officially supporting tethering etc. scares me away. I understand it's important that it's easy and not to cumbersome to use the task lists on the phone in order to be able to keep up with the GTD, so for me it's more important to have a practical solution that lives up to my few demands rather than a very powerful tool where everything is possible.

But maybe that doesn't change your recommendations? Maybe the alternatives aren't powerful enough for GTD?

/Sebastian
 
"If" you did go with an iphone, check out "Todo" by Appigo.

It's an excellent task manager based on the GTD concept. ie it has Contexts, Tags, etc. It syncs with Toodledo.com. I have this on my ipod Touch.

Ian
 
My blackberry syncs well between Outlook 2003 and 2007. The categories directly translate to the categories in outlook and it is pretty easy to navigate between the two systems.

One big thing I found was to not try to file e-mail on the blackberry. I read e-mail on the blackberry, maybe copy and paste to create a task but I never file it there, I only file it in outlook in a separate PST from where my e-mail downloads.
 
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