ClearContext Corporate Blog

Over the last several years we have been working with experts in the field of productivity along with a very passionate and vocal customer base to develop a world class productivity tool to help ease the burden of information overload.  Along the way, we have collected a series of best practices for managing information and squeezing more productivity out of the day.

In conjunction with the IMS v4 release, we have distilled these concepts into a process to help our customers get the most out of the product.  The result is the ClearContext IMS Daily Workflow, a three step process for managing information that will help save an hour or more per day:

First thing in the morning, identify the day’s priorities:

1. Review your calendar 
2. Review your daily task list 
3. Review your alerts

Twice daily, manage your Inbox:

Quickly review each message and determine when you need to act on it:

1. Act immediately?  Reply, Delegate, or Review and File 
2. Act later?  Defer, Create a Task or Appointments 
3. No action required?  Unsubscribe or Delete

Throughout the day, succeed by focusing on what’s important:

1. Work on your tasks by project 
2. Review high priority messages only 
3. View all related information on To Do’s

We believe in the benefits of productivity methodologies such as Total Workday Control and Getting Things Done.  The IMS Daily Workflow doesn’t replace these methodologies, but rather provides a framework to hit the ground running with IMS.  We still recommend that you take best practices from all of these methodologies to find something that works best for you.

The IMS Daily Workflow is the culmination of years of development with our customers via product and process feedback, forum participation and weblog conversations.  We will be expanding each of these steps in great detail via the weblog in the coming months.  In the meantime, check out our Solutions Pages for more detail.

Up Next: Identify the day’s priorities…

After Thanksgiving, GTD coach Kelly Forrister had 1,155 new emails in her Inbox.  She brought those down to zero in three hours following the 4D’s – Delete, Do, Delegate and Defer.  Read the rest of the article for the detail.

I like Kelly’s style – she recommends really taking the time off when you go on vacation and scheduling extra time when you get back to tackle the inevitable information build-up. 

"First, I knew the morning I got back to work I’d have about 6x more input than normal, so I blocked that extra time on my calendar to give myself the time I would need to get it processed. I think this is essential. There is no way a week of email can be processed in the same time I normally allow. I need a cushion of extra time that first morning back."

I advised something similar in my Vacation Email Triage post:

"I have two more "peace of mind" tips for you.  I have read several recent articles that quote people who feel the need to check email while on vacation to try and avoid the inevitable email crunch.  This is a mistake and should be avoided at all costs.  Email begets email – the more you send the more you get in return.  If you answer the important messages while "relaxing," the result is likely to be the same amount of email when you return.  My advice is twofold:

1. Block the last day out before you leave to tie up all your loose ends, clear your Inbox, and hit the road with a sense of accomplishment and relief knowing that you got things done before your break. 
2. Keep your schedule on your first day back clear.  You’ll have a full free day when you return to devote to catching up before everyone realizes that you’re back in business."

Keep that in mind when you take vacation over the holidays this year.

On a related note, if you haven’t seen it already, we have recently updated our GTD setup guide for v4.  Check it out here.

There have been some new articles and reviews written about IMS v4 over the last couple of weeks:

Email’s Friendly Fire – November 27, 2007
Rebecca Buckman – Wall Street Journal
"ClearContext… uses algorithms to quickly analyze a user’s email to determine which contacts and messages are the most important." 

Email Overload – November 27, 2007
Gui Cremerius
"Who doesn’t suffer from email overload these days? Even my 75 year old mother sometimes claims she’s getting too much email!" 

ClearContext : pour mieux organiser ses e-mails dans Outlook. – November 26, 2007
Stéphanie Renault – 01net.
"IMSv4, édité par ClearContext, permet de s’y retrouver facilement face aux avalanches quotidiennes de messages, grâce à des règles simples de tri, de priorité, de suivi des alertes…" 

ClearContext IMS Review: How to Manage Email – November 25, 2007
Bill Masella – Projects Possible
"With each release of this product I find that I am becoming more and more of a fan and my Outlook life is now so entrenched in it’s use that I couldn’t even imagine what Outlook would be like without it." 

Annoyed By Your Boss’s Email? No Problem. – November 17, 2007
Neil Smithline – My Geekdom
"All-in-all, CCIMS is a wonderful tool." 

ClearContext Information Management System Pro 4.0 – November 11, 2007
Heinz Tschabitscher – email.about.com
"Version 4 adds a helpful Dashboard that collects emails, tasks and appointments on a project basis. Also new are ClearContext alerts for messages from certain people or in a particular thread — as well as a handy Do Not Disturb button that turns off Outlook’s email notifications for a while."

Email continues to be a hot topic in the news! A great Wall Street Journal article on email technologies being developed to help people deal with email overload mentions ClearContext along with a couple of other companies also developing Outlook-based products, Seriosity and Xobni.  The article focuses on the message management capabilities of IMS and includes a couple of good examples from ClearContext customers.  Deva was interviewed for the article and has written some follow-up thoughts at his blog, Email Dashboard.

A quick note on IMS licensing:

• Full Licenses – We are offering IMS v4 at an introductory price of $79.95 USD for a single license through the end of the month.  The regular price of $89.95 applies starting December 1.
• Upgrades – Purchase an upgrade before the end of the year to take advantage of the introductory upgrade price of $29.95 USD.  The regular upgrade price of $44.95 applies starting January 1.

By now all registered users should have received an email from us regarding v4 upgrade options.  If you have not received one, drop us a line at support at clearcontext dot com and we’ll send additional detail.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

We’ve updated our GTD setup guide for IMS v4.  A PDF is available here.  This is an evolving work; so please post any comments/feedback on the guide in our forums.

We’ve updated our User Guide to include new features for v4, including the IMS Dashboard, Alerts, Do Not Disturb and Toolbar Management.  The downloadable PDF of the User Guide includes additional information about the IMS Daily Workflow.

Yesterday we pushed out IMS v4.0.2 to address the following:

• The IMS Dashboard and ActionView were experiencing stability issues when encountering malformed appointments.
• There was a compatibility issue with Business Contact Manager.

If you are experiencing either of these issues, shut down Outlook and download and install the update.

I’ve recently made an update to our v4 demo.  Take a look:

A larger version can be found here.  If you’re interested in embedding this on your website or blog, grab this code:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.clearcontext.com/ims_demo/ims_demo_425px.swf"></param><embed src="http://www.clearcontext.com/ims_demo/ims_demo_425px.swf" width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>

Thanks!

There’s quite a bit that’s been written about our release over the last few days.  Take a look for some hints on our future product plans… 

ClearContext Aims To Untangle Your Outlook Inbox
David Needle – Enterprise News
"If you use Outlook, but have trouble keeping track of the glut of e-mail the Microsoft program collects, a solution may be at hand." 

E-mail overload? ClearContext promises solution for Outlook users
Eric Lai – ComputerWorld
"Version 4 of Information Management System (IMS) gives users an integrated dashboard view of all the e-mails, appointments and contacts related to a given project — something that ‘fundamentally hasn’t been possible in Outlook before,’ said ClearContext CEO Deva Hazarika." 

ClearContext – Helping you with email overload
Chris Morrison – VentureBeat
"So ClearContext helps give some structure to the user’s day. It allows new email notifications to be selectively turned on or off, giving the user breathing room to work on the actual projects related to their email communications. At other times, users are encouraged to go through and deal with their prioritized emails."

ClearContext IMS
Steve Parker – Internet Fork
"If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, ClearContext is a godsend."