Outlook and Projects

[Vilmosz]

I'm not a techie -- been using a paper planner, but in my new job I've got access to the whole Microsoft suite which I think I will begin using as a Treo is in the offing as well.

Basic question-- and I don't mind (nay, would be grateful) being steered to the proper thread in case I overlooked it -- but Outlook has a tasks pane but no project pane. Do you just creat a category for the project and use TASKS for the NA's or -- is there a better way?

Thanks!

 

[Broto]

Correct. Outlook doesn't have a "Project" field that can be used with its task/mail/appointment items. You can add custom fields to Outlook, but if you need to sync with a PDA, you'll need to make sure your sync software, as well as the PDA application, can use those custom fields.

Categories are the simplest way to add project information to your Outlook items. You can also use Contacts as projects, a hack that's been discussed on this forum and others, where you create a "dummy" contact for each project, and link tasks/appointments/mail to that project.

Hope this helps.

 

[BrianK]

I highly suggest the GTD Outlook White Paper. It's a fantastic resource on how to best use Outlook's features to work with GTD. And it has a lot of great comments on how not to use it as well. Here's a link to a description:

http://www.davidco.com/store/product.php?productid=16173&cat=3&page=1

It's $10 now; I paid $30 for it and it was worth every penny when I did.

 

[Vilmosz]

Thanks, folks. Great replies.

 

[Tom Shannon]

I'm not a techie -- been using a paper planner, but in my new job I've got access to the whole Microsoft suite which I think I will begin using as a Treo is in the offing as well.

Basic question-- and I don't mind (nay, would be grateful) being steered to the proper thread in case I overlooked it -- but Outlook has a tasks pane but no project pane. Do you just creat a category for the project and use TASKS for the NA's or -- is there a better way?

Many people use contacts for projects. There's an "Activities" tab in the contact form which collects all items that have that contact in the field. I also have been known to occasionally embed documents into an MSWord outline. OneNote can be a valuable tool in this respect, as well, if it came with your suite for the PPC.

Tom S.

 

[andersons]

The projects-as-contacts method is described here.

 

[jpm]

The GTD Add-In for outlook adds some decent project features. If you use it right you can get most of the info you want on you're PDA though certainly not all. In outlook you can track Next Actions by project and sub-project and on the Palm you can either get a project list (with next actions in the body of the task item...w/ strict GTD add-in methodology you should be doing your planning and thus have a list of all your next actions in the body of the project task item.) or Next Actions by context (Palm Category).