Entourage 2004 GTD setup?

[cardozo]

Has anyone set up the new Entourage 2004 ("Outlook for the Mac") for the GTD paradigm.

The new Projects feature is a great tool that allows you to track all tasks, emails, notes, etc. about an individual project.

My main GTD question is whether one should use the Entourage-Project for a GTD-Project (anything that takes more than one task). That would be a really long list for me, and there doesn't seem to be any way to associate projects together.

Anyone have any experience with Entourage 2004, or any ideas of what the best thing to do is?

 

[apinaud]

I try the software in my mac. The new project Idea is really good, but has 3 big issues for me.

One: You cannot sync correctly with new Palms, therefore you loose categories in calendar and other things. That for me is a NO NO.

Two: If the database of Entourageget bad, you loose al the link to the files that make a project.

Three: As good as the project looks, the only place you can see your list of projects is in the Mac, I use my palm a lot, and If I cannot use the palm for that the software do not fit my necesitites.

I think this product has a lot of potential, but is too youth, sadly the Mac BU takes a lot of time to develop the softwares. I do not know if in the future some programmer will get out a program that let you use the Project part in your palm, but until that happen, I will continue using my actual system.

 

[cardozo]

I agree, there are a lot of limitations, but it is the only software that I have found that allows me to turn emails into tasks, and track emails associated with tasks and projects.

I've tried lots of other ways to do this, but it always ends up that email overwhelms the systems I put in place because there's so much double and triple work to keep everything in synch.

Any mac users have other suggestions?

 

[Mardo]

Entourage for GTD

I am very happy with the new project center for Entrourage. I love the fact that I can use it for the GTD list but it can also hold all the contacts, word files, and every other piece of information related to the project at a glance.

I have every GTD project in my project Center. When the project is closed I archive it. Its still easily accessible. The next actions are given GTD catagories and show up nicely on the palm.
The project names themselves dont sync with the palm but I always do my weekly review on the computer. When I am on the go I look for next actions according to catagories and don't need my full project list.
I need the project center for a lot more than the lists. The David Allen Co uses palm for the lists, lotus notes for project management. Entourage gives me a full featured project center with the ability to have my task lists and calendar and contacts on the palm. I dont need all the links on the palm just the lists. For me, its what I have been waiting for.

 

[Anonymous]

Entourage 2004 & GTD

i'm working with Entourage 2004 and apply the GTD principles. the Project Center does just work fine. untill now, i did everything on the Palm using ShadowPlan, but my experience is that managing your projects and doing a weekly review is much easier on a big screen (i'm using a PoweBook 12"). the integrated setup is what you need for GTD. and as is mentioned, the only thing you need on your Palm (also according D Allen) is a list of your next actions.
only significant weakness of Entourage 2004 is lack of syncing capabilities. if you work on more than 1 computer, you're stuck.
i solved this by setting up my desktop as principal and do a daily backup of the database.

 

[Anonymous]

GTD setup

Cardozo,

my setup is simple. for every project on your list you set up a new project in the Pcenter. that way you can always have an overview of your projects (you can setup a customized view if you want to have lists by client, personal/work, or other - i have a project list per client based on client name) My categories are the known GTD categories (like @ phone, @ waiting for, @ computer..). list gets indeed very long, but you can also sort on 'active' and 'pending' projects.

W

 

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have experience with the performance of Entourage with a few hundred projects?

 

[bongoman]

I notice on the Daylite list there is a thread relating to Daylite vs Entourage and a couple of comments talk about GTD.

One of the criticisms of Enourage was that it was hard to organise lists of your projects without tinkering with all sorts of custom views.

If anyone has anymore suggestions on how they use Entourage to implement GTD it would be appreciated.

Bongoman

 

[alsa]

Staying with Office 2004 -- has anyone tried out Word 2004 for OS X? I have it but I have zero time to play with it. I do know that there is a way to take notes in a very nice and intuitive way. Any comments?