Outlook + Blackberry + Project + GTD

[Knigel]

Hey there everyone, this is my first post after a long while of lurking so this is also my formal hello.

I'll start this off with a few selfish questions:

I've been using the GTD system for about one year now. After tweaking it all over the place, I've got it somewhat workable. My foundation consists of a Blackberry 7250, Outlook 2003, pieces of hipster (which I wish I could get to be more practical over my blackberry), and my brain. The one thing that I have had the most trouble with and is a persisting problem, is maintaining a current @Project list. I've tried many things, but the blackberry seems very confining when used with outlooks. With Outlook I can make folders and subfolders for projects and tasks, but it does not allow me to see the same thing in my Blackberry. I've been stuck with a simple list of projects, but there is no convenient way to tie all of the loose tasks in with it. I would like a way to see a project with tasks and subtasks without having to place a project in the actual heading of each task. Every time I've tried to use the task heading to maintain a project tracker, the title gets too long, and the task jumps around too much making re-editing the project tag annoying.

To sum it up, I am curious if there are any other people who use Outlook and Blackberry together, and if there are any suggestions people may be able to offer. I'm a student so buying new programs such as David's Outlook add-in (Which doesn't seem compatible with Blackberry) and new gadgets like Palm Pilots is unfortunately not a possibility at this time. I would like to go completely Hipster but my handwriting is horrendous (I also spend most of my gtd organisation on a bumpy bus ride) and although Outlook+Blackberry has a few quirks, I've found it more useful globally.

Thank you to anyone who has advice for me, I appreciate it.

 

[Brent]

I don't use folders or sub-folders for my @Projects list, so I'm having a tough time seeing what that might look like. Can you post some examples? Then maybe I can provide some suggestions.

 

[Borisoff]

I belive that you don't need to sync your Outlook folders with BlackBerry folders. You should keep you Projects in TaskPad and Outlook Folders should be used only for Reference files that you refer only during Weekly Review. You add a new project as a new task in the TaskPad area and put it to Projects category (or Projects-Delegated category). In this case you wouldn't need to synq your Outlook folders with the BlackBerry. Please refer to GTD on Outlook whitepapare (available from DavidCo store, 10 usd).

Regards,

Eugene.

 

[Knigel]

I don't use folders or sub-folders for my @Projects list, so I'm having a tough time seeing what that might look like. Can you post some examples? Then maybe I can provide some suggestions.

I've been experimenting with folders and am now trying Borisoff's suggestion. Prior to this I was using categories as only Outlook has folders, and from my understanding are incapable of syncing with Blackberry. For your question, one of my aims would be to use something like this:

Computer repair (Project)
@ToBuy (Which is action category)
-Harddrive
-RAM
@ToBuySDMB
-Monitor
-Mouse
@Computer
-Research hardware and prices
-Ask Metafiler for advice
@Errands
-Pick up cables

Right now, without the first project of computer repair, everything gets mixed together and becomes hard to manage the project in one place. If I could go to Computer Repair and have links to individual tasks that compose the project my problem would be solved.

I've set up my Outlook as taught in Borisoff's tutorial and it is pretty close to how I want everything. The one problem is that I do not know of a way that the Blackberry could recognise the new contact/project workaround folder. It would be ideal to be able to add a category of "Projects" for the Project metatask so that I could filter the "Projects" category on the Blackberry and have the tasks under their applicable category such as "@ToBuy". If this were able to be done I would have a list of projects on the Blackberry as well as Outlook. If this is impossible I perceive that I will be forced to used Outlook as the "Brains" and during each weekly review make sure that all projects are broken into their tasks preparing to not see the project list from my Blackberry

I apologise for this rant, I hope it is somewhat understandable.