Outlook add-in: Snooze button

  • Thread starter Thread starter sunchild
  • Start date Start date
S

sunchild

Guest
I recently read David Allen's book and like his system and how he communicates it. I am always confused about all the things I want to get done. Later a day I often come down completed just a fraction of all the tasks that I've had in my mid that day. Well, I wipe the state clean this weekend and try to implement DA's system. I have also installed the trial of the Outlook add-in

Question: There's a snooze button on the toolbar to blur things out at the inbox to pop up again a day later or two. DA wrote down three processing guidelines. The third is: Never put an item back to in. Well, that is exactly what the snooze button is doing, isn't it?

Christian
 
I think of the snooze button as the equivalent of the "Tickler File" that David talks about in GTD. I don't use it to avoid dealing with something-rather I use it to have the message pop up on a more appropriate day. For example, if I get an email telling me of a workshop I need to register for by friday, I might snooze if for 3 days to have it arrive in my inbox on Thursday.
CK
 
Exactly. I don't have the plugin (work does not allow Such Things) but I do tickle things to the future using Adrian Trenholm's instructions. So for example: earlier this week I got an e-mail reminding me of an upcoming work event next month. Since my wife doesn't get her schedule at her job until the end of the previous week, I tickled the e-mail to the appropriate day to remind me to worry about it then.

You could do the same thing with a dated task item, admittedly, but I do like just ditching an e-mail when I know I won't even care about it until later.
 
Oops.

I noticed that too. Snooze is another word for "Procrastinate" when you get right down to it. I tried the Outlook add-in, but it seems like it's faster to just modify your views in Outlook so that you enter all your info in the way you want it. That seems to keep it a lot leaner and faster, rather than having the addin in there to tangle things up.

Having said that, I think there are a lot of people that buy the add-in, so it must be doing something right :)

g
 
Very helpful discussion here. It now fits all together for me this way:

There are three possible consequences for an actionable item to defer:
1. Create NA as an reminder to do this as soon as possible
2. Set reminder in calendar as the hook to do this action at a specific time in the future
3. Snooze or as I prefer to "tickle" or to mail to self at a specific date, not the way to procrastinate processing this item but to express that you processed it and decided to process this item again when the situation of your environment has changed (e.g. you need a more precise weather forecast in x days). Strictly speaking, it is also applicable to but that at @WaitingFor, at waiting for god to change things that are not under your control.

I was just confused because I connect "Snooze" with my alarm clock when I want to sleep ten more minutes in the morning, when I want to procratinate getting up.

Christian
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top