ClearContext Corporate Blog

Our last post detailed Action Management using ClearContext IMS Pro with Getting Things Done.  Our next excerpt from the setup guide Using ClearContext IMS Professional for Microsoft Outlook with Getting Things Done is on Project Designation.

Project Designation

Using ClearContext Topics to designate projects ensures that all messages in an email conversation – past, present and future – are automatically associated with these projects. Each email message may be assigned a Topic via the IMS toolbar. All future email in that email thread (or “conversation”) will be automatically assigned this Topic name. 

File Msg, Thread and Topic buttons quickly move email messages with assigned topics from the Inbox to automatically created Topic folders for later reference. In addition, IMS can automatically save sent messages in these topic folders to ensure that all project correspondence is properly tagged and stored together in one filing system. Topic assignments are automatically carried over to Tasks and Appointments generated from email conversation and Topics can be easily assigned to new items as they are created. 

Topic Selector can be used to quickly assign Topics. Press the Topic button to the left of the Topic drop down to pull up the Topic Selector window. Start typing the Topic name and IMS will narrow the Topic list to match your search. Arrow down to select a Topic and assign to the conversation. This dialog is particularly useful for those who have a long list of projects. The Topic Selector is also launched when a file button is pressed on a message that does not have a Topic assigned. 

To automatically assign projects, create AutoAssign rules to analyze incoming messages based on sender, domain, keywords, etc… To create multi-level projects, place a “/” between the Main Project heading and the Sub-Project (i.e. “Client/Implementation”). ClearContext will automatically create Topic folders that reflect the hierarchy (i.e. main folder “Client” with sub-folder “Implementation”). 

Users of mobile devices can instruct ClearContext to duplicate Topics in the category field to ensure that project designation is communicated to the external device in addition to context. See ClearContext > Options > Preferences > Topic Options for more detail. 

Someday/Maybe File 

If you would like to follow David Allen’s suggestion to maintain a Someday/Maybe file, create a special IMS Topic called “Someday.” Assign Topic “Someday” to ideas that you want to think about later. Click the file button and the message will automatically be placed in a subfolder of your ClearContext Topic folder. When you’re ready to review these items, open up the Topic folder for review. 

[Our next post in the GTD series will be on the Review process.  Download the entire guide here.]

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of David Allen & Company. ClearContext Corporation is not affiliated with David Allen & Company in any manner.

Our last post gave an overview on using ClearContext IMS Pro with Getting Things Done.  Our next excerpt from the setup guide Using ClearContext IMS Professional for Microsoft Outlook with Getting Things Done is on Action Management.

Action Management

Following Allen’s advice, the bulk of your email messages (those that you can’t answer in two minutes, delete, or file away for reference) will become tasks or appointments in your trusted system. IMS Pro’s Task, Delegate and Schedule buttons allow you to quickly create tasks and appointments from email messages. Assign Outlook categories to these items to denote context, ensuring that they are assigned to the appropriate action list. 

Category Assignment in Outlook 2007 

Category Assignment in Outlook 2003 and Earlier 

Setup 

The first step in setting this up, customize your Outlook Master Categories list to include the action list categories you use as you process your Outlook information. Putting the ‘@” symbol in front of each description will ensure that these display at the top of the categories list. We realize that this is a very personal list that each user will want to tweak for his/her on working style. Examples of common categories many of our customers have found useful include: 

@Car 

@Delegate 

@Desk 

@Home 

@Internet 

@Phone 

To customize the category list in Outlook 2003 and earlier: 

1. Open a new task or appointment
2. Click the categories button in the lower right hand corner
3. Click the Master Category list button
4. Edit the list as desired 

To customize the category list in Outlook 2007: 

1. Right click the category color field on an email, task, or appointment
2. Select the “All Categories…” menu item
3. Click New and add a category
4. Optionally add a color code
5. Repeat for each category 

Processing 

Once this setup is complete, process the inbox using the IMS workflow buttons, answering those emails that you can, deleting those that you don’t need, filing reference material using IMS File buttons, and creating tasks or appointments for future work. As tasks and appointments are created, assign a context using Outlook’s native category assignment feature and one the categories created above. This will automatically associate the item with the appropriate action list. 

The "Tickler" File 

Many GTD’ers follow Mr. Allen’s suggestion of creating a “tickler file.” ClearContext’s Defer button is an excellent way to maintain an electronic version of this file. The Defer button moves an email out of the inbox and schedules it as unread at a given time interval or on a given date. 

When a message is deferred, a dated folder is created as a subfolder of the “ClearContext Deferred” folder. Consider these your tickler files. Click on any day’s folder to review upcoming items or simply wait for the message to re-appear in your Inbox as scheduled.  For example, say you receive an invite to a corporate networking event on the 25^th. It’s still three weeks off and you don’t need to RSVP until the day before. Click Defer and “schedule” the message for the 24^th. The message is moved into a subfolder with the month and day you have designated. You can click on this folder at anytime to see all messages pending for that day. Alternatively, the message automatically re-appears in your Inbox, unread, on the 24^th, reminding you that you need to make a decision about the event. 

[Our next post in the GTD series will be on Project Designation.  Download the entire guide here.]

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of David Allen & Company. ClearContext Corporation is not affiliated with David Allen & Company in any manner.

Many individuals overwhelmed with information take control of Microsoft Outlook by combining ClearContext IMS Pro’s flexible and customizable email management features such as inbox prioritization and automated categorization with their favorite parts of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology to create a powerful information management strategy. A number of our customers have written about their use of ClearContext to implement GTD (see links here).  We have collected best practices from these writings and put them in a setup guide, Using ClearContext IMS Pro for Microsoft Outlook with Getting Things Done. 

Over the next week I will post excerpts from the setup guide.  In it, we outline basic steps our customers have taken to set up ClearContext and Microsoft Outlook to support GTD email processing including creation of context-specific action lists, project categorization, creation and maintenance of a “tickler” file, and steps to quickly implement a weekly review. If you are new to ClearContext or GTD, use this guide to get started – we expect everyone will tweak the system to match their particular information processing requirements as they become familar with the system.

For the purposes of this guide we assume that you have a working knowledge of GTD prior to implementation of ClearContext software. If not, we recommend you visit the Getting Things Done website and find some reference materials to get you started. For an introduction to Getting Things Done, see “What is GTD?”.

Quick Reference

For quick reference, here are the basics for setting up GTD with ClearContext IMS Professional:

Topics = Projects: ClearContext allows the assignment of Topics to email conversations. Use Topics to designate Projects and the IMS filing buttons to file email to Topic folders. Use a “/” when creating a Topic to designate sub-projects (i.e. “Project 1/Sub-Project2”).

Categories = Context: Use ClearContext workflow buttons (Task, Schedule, Delegate, Defer, etc.) to quickly process messages in the Inbox. When creating a Task or Appointment, use Outlook native categories to denote context (@Work, @Phone, etc.) for easy viewing of context-specific action lists. ClearContext will automatically file messages to their Topic folder as Tasks and Appointments are created.

Review: Use the ActionView to review your To-Do’s by context, project and/or date. The ActionView displays all To-Dos’ – tasks, appointments, flagged items and deferred messages – and filters them by Topic or Category.

Overview

In his methodology, David Allen suggests categorizing your email by project and context. Most technology solutions address one or the other well, but do not give a comprehensive way of tracking both. Using ClearContext IMS Pro, Topics can be used to maintain projects and native Outlook categories can be used to denote actions. Actions can then be viewed by project or context using the ActionView.

Workflow

ClearContext gives several workflow buttons to process the Inbox quickly and get it to empty. Each button will automatically file the original message to an associated topic folder and link the item to the current message conversation:

Task opens an Outlook task. Assign an Outlook category to this item to maintain action lists.

Delegate automatically creates either an assigned task or a forwarded message with an associated task for quick delegation to another person.

Schedule creates an appointment with the current message contents.

Defer places the current message in a deferred folder for a given period of time or until a given date. This is an excellent way to create and maintain a “tickler” file.

Filing buttons (File Msg, Thread or Topic) automatically moves messages, conversations, or entire topics/projects of email into associated ClearContext Topic Folders. Use these buttons to archive reference material that does not require one of the actions above.

Followup Message allows the creation of a special task tied to a message conversation. When sending an email, create a follow-up to remind you if you do not receive a response within a specified amount of time. If you do receive a response, the follow-up task is automatically cancelled.

Unsubscribe automatically files current and future messages of a given conversation to either their Topic folder or an unsubscribed folder. This helps remove those long email threads that you have no interest in that are cluttering your Inbox.

Review

In addition, ClearContext provides two features that provide a view across all messages, tasks, and appointments; regardless of location:

RelatedView displays all activity for a given message, task, or appointment. This includes all messages in the current email conversation (the original message and all replies to it) and all appointments and tasks created from the conversation using one of the workflow buttons above.

ActionView displays a list of global To-Do’s (tasks, deferred messages, and appointments) that can be filtered by date, topic, category, and/or priority. This dialog is the control panel for implementation of GTD in IMS Pro, providing quick access to context-filtered action lists and a method for performing the weekly review.

[Our next post in the GTD series will be on Action Management.  Download the entire guide here.]

GTD and Getting Things Done are registered trademarks of David Allen & Comp
any. ClearContext Corporation is not affiliated with David Allen & Company in any manner.

Yesterday Microsoft released a patch for Outlook 2007 (UPDATED link) to address some performance issues in the app.  It appears that the update fixes some issues when working with large, active mail files.  According to a ComputerWorld article:

‘"I can’t say that this will 100 percent solve the latency issues, but users should see a big improvement," [Outlook Program Manager Jessica] Arnold said.’

The ComputerWorld article also mentions that it’s a good idea to archive off inactive content to increase Outlook’s performance.  See our Outlook Performance post for step by step instructions to do just that.

[Hat tip to downloadsquad]

We’ve fixed a spotty connection issue in the latest release of our Vista Sidebar Gadget (Inbox Alert for Outlook v1.1.1).  Download here.

I’d like to ask a favor.  If you have a Microsoft Passport/Hotmail account and you like the gadget, please take a quick moment to give us a postive rating on our Windows Live Gallery page.  We appreciate the help in promoting our new product!

While we still think AutoAssign is the best way to create simple rules for assignment of ClearContext Topics and Priorities, in IMS v3.1.0 we also provide preliminary support for the creation of Outlook rules to provide this functionality.  This enables power users to craft more complex scenarios to assign topics and priorities using custom actions within Outlook rules.  A beta version of the ClearContext Outlook Rules extension is available for download here; along with complete instructions for use.  Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

 We’ve added three new action buttons to the Inbox Alert Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget.  Now you can Mark Read, Delete or Reply to the message you are previewing (Outlook 2007 only).  We haven’t posted to the Windows Live Gallery site yet, but you can grab it here.  See our gadget page for more detail.

We are pleased to announce the v1.0 release of our new Windows Vista sidebar gadget, ClearContext Inbox Alert for Microsoft Outlook.  The gadget displays unread Inbox messages and, if you are running ClearContext IMS, allows you to color-code, sort and filter by priority.  Check it out on the Windows Live Gallery.

We’ve got several resources online if you want to learn more about the gadget.  Our gadget page explains the advantages of running it with ClearContext IMS installed.  We’ve got a comprehensive User Guide describing gadget functionality, and our FAQ covers various system requirements.  Finally, if you have feedback or questions about Inbox Alert, post them on our forums.

Productivity Tip

Did you see this this excellent article in the New York Times?

“Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes,” said David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”

The gadget is a great way to give yourself focus on the work at hand without missing really important messages.  Turn all of your new mail notifications off and configure the gadget filter to show Very High priority messages only.  Inbox Alert will only display your important messages and you can get to the less important ones when you have some free time.  To turn off notifications in Outlook, go to Tools > Options > Preferences > E-Mail Options > Advanced E-mail Options and uncheck every item under “When new items arrive in my Inbox.”  Honestly, you should do this even if you aren’t running the gadget.  You can thank me later for the productivity gains!

As part of our v3.1 release, we have worked with Michael Linenberger to implement several new views in the Total Workday Control enabled version of ClearContext.  In particular, we have implemented a new To Do Bar view to port the TWC TaskPad to Outlook 2007.

If you haven’t yet checked out TWC and you’re looking to get a handle on your daily tasks, I highly recommend you check out Michael’s system.  He has posted a ton of information on his website, including a great guide to getting started with ClearContext and the Total Workday Control system and step by step instructions for transitioning the TWC system to Outlook 2007.

For more detail and a link to the TWC/CC download, see our partner page.

We are pleased to announce that v3.1.0 is available for general release.  As mentioned in more detail previously, v3.1.0 adds several new features, including:

• ClearContext Vista Sidebar Gadget Support
• Enhanced Automated Filing
• Improved AutoAssign Management
• Global Follow-Up
• Open RelatedView
• New Total Workday Control views

We have updated the website to support the new release and changes in the User Guide reflect the new features.  We’ve also added a new Add-Ons page to the website which shows one more item to come in conjunction with this release.  More detail on that later…

If you previously installed v3.1 when it was released a couple of weeks ago, there is no change between the functionality of that release and this one; you do not need to update your install.  We did change the installer, so our Vista Admin customers running with UAC turned off will no longer need to make a separate download.

If you’ve been waiting for the final final v3.1 release, download and install it now – I think you will find the new features very useful!