Using Outlook to manage tasks

H

Howard Gannaway

I am a researcher/lobbyist working in the field of adult learning policy
advisory work in the UK. My work requires me to manage currently around 30
tasks/projects at one time. Some are actual projects in progress while some
are ideas for development that require nurturing into projects! I am a
pretty expert user of Outlook but I am unable to find a satisfactory way of
linking or displaying all the e-mails, appointments, contacts, notes etc
relating to a project in such a way that I can easily remind myself what is
going on, who is involved and what we have been saying to each other. I
should stress that these are not projects in the Microsoft Project sense.
While there are deadlines, reminders etc these often involve other people
outside my organisation who operate quite different planning cultures! Does
anyone have experience of getting Outlook to do this or whether there are any
add-ins that can do this using Outlook data?
 
J

J.R. de Pijper

I am a researcher/lobbyist working in the field of adult learning policy
advisory work in the UK. My work requires me to manage currently around 30
tasks/projects at one time. Some are actual projects in progress while some
are ideas for development that require nurturing into projects! I am a
pretty expert user of Outlook but I am unable to find a satisfactory way of
linking or displaying all the e-mails, appointments, contacts, notes etc
relating to a project in such a way that I can easily remind myself what is
going on, who is involved and what we have been saying to each other. I
should stress that these are not projects in the Microsoft Project sense.
While there are deadlines, reminders etc these often involve other people
outside my organisation who operate quite different planning cultures! Does
anyone have experience of getting Outlook to do this or whether there are any
add-ins that can do this using Outlook data?
Click to expand...

Assigning categories in a consistent way can help a lot.
Interestingly, on the PocketPC platform, the latest version of
AgendaFusion has introduced the concept of "projects" that does
exactly what you want. But that is on the PocketPC ...

Jan Roelof
 
H

Howard Gannaway

Thanks for the suggestion about AgendaFusion - I had not seen that before and
it does seem to do what I want for my PocketPC. If only someone did the same
thing for Outlook. I agree that Categories help but you are still face with
the business of switching between folders to check on everything. It's as
though Microsoft knew what was wanted and put in all the bits necessary
(Categories and linking Contacts to some other types of entries) but then
didn't actually make those aspects work properly! Anyway, I just sit back
and enjoy improving my productivity on my PocketPC for a while. Many thanks

Howard Gannaway
 
S

Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]

Another strategy is to create a new contacts folder and use that to store an
individual record for each project. Yes, a contacts folder, not a tasks
folder. This makes it possible for you to use the Contacts box on the
various kinds of Outlook items to link each item to the parent
project/contact record. When you look at the Activities page of one of those
project records, you'll see all the information associated with the project.

Of course, this will make more sense if you modify the contact form so that
it looks like a project form.
 
Top