Extending GTD Outlook Addin Projects to Journal Items
In general, I use journal items to:
o keep time records
o record individual actions and events
- payments and financial transactions
- communications with service providers, such as banks, credit card companies, utilities, physicans, insurers
- with respect to specific projects, in the GTD sense of same
- with respect to specific people
o reconstruct action and event sequences with respect to:
- a specific project, in the GTD sense of same
- a particular 'domain' -- people [family & friends], finances, medical & health, utilities, home, art & culture, spirit & religion, mind [books & publications]
- a particular contact -- person, company, institution, service, etc.
o create status reports
I find the following capabilities of Outlook journal items useful:
o attachments of documents and Outlook objects
o annotation, with limited formatting
o linking to contacts
o time/date stamping
o type of activity ('Entry type')
Some potential objections to using Outlook journal items are:
o not integrated with GTD Outlook Addin - such integration would save me a lot of time, hence my initial post on this topic
o duplicative of list management capabilities of Outlook tasks
o entering journal items entails additional, sometimes duplicative, work, arguably violates the GTD precept of minimizing work required to operate the system
Examples of journaling with Outlook in several personal domains:
mind [books, periodicals, blogs, discussion forums]
o starting/renewing/cancelling subscriptions to periodicals
o receiving/accepting/returning a book club selection
people
o birthday gifts sent
o events -- births, illness, occasions, deaths
o updates to contact information
o gift ideas
home
o rent/mortgage payments
o apartment issues
o repairs
o email, telephone, and other communications between me and my landlady, other tenants
laptop system administration
o system and software configuration changes
o software installed/uninstalled/updated/upgrade/downgraded
o hardware changes/upgrades
o maintenance (e.g., disk defragmentation)
o system crashes, including error messages
o disk and other system failures
o telephone, email, and other communications regarding software and hardware technical support
finances
o deposits to accounts
o transfers between accounts
o telephone, email, mail, and other communications with financial institutions, e.g.
- open account
- close account
- link accounts
o applications for credit
o requests for credit bureau reports
medical & health
o notes of meetings, telephone calls, email, and other communications with healthcare providers and insurers
o prescription medications
- for example, starting, changing, or concluding a course of medication
o courses of treatment
- for example, daily exercises prescribed by a physical therapist
o medical events
- injuries
- illnesses
- vaccinations
- procedures
- examinations and tests
utilities (gas, electric, internet, water, cable television, satellite radio)
o payments
o telephone, email, mail, and other communications with utility companies
o service changes, repairs, outages, and billing
Regards,
Michael
) Do you use GTD context and so on. Thanks.