| Category: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Subcategory: | Accessories |
| Price: | $69.95 |
| Average Rating: | |
| Description: | Here's the pitch from their website at http://gtdsupport.netcentrics.com/home Learn More About Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In® It's time to manage your Outlook Inbox more effectively-so you can get things done and preserve your sanity. NetCentrics is proud to be partnering with The David Allen Company to bring you the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In. Now you can put David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology, used by over a half million people to keep themselves organized, to work for you in Microsoft Outlook to manage your Inbox and get things done. Review Getting Things Done 101: Seven Clicks to a Clean Inbox for a summary of the product. David Allen was named "One of the world's most influential thinkers on productivity" by Fast Company Magazine. His book, Getting Things Done—The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is available in seven languages; companies, hospitals, institutions, and governments worldwide have successfully adopted his methodology. NetCentrics Corporation is a leader in helping organizations manage their email systems. From Army Headquarters at the Pentagon to national associations to small companies, NetCentrics designs, implements, and supports large and small scale email systems and provides custom Outlook solutions to help people get the right things done. NetCentrics and The David Allen Company have combined forces to produce the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In to help you put David Allen's powerful principles to work and harness the full power of Microsoft Outlook more successfully with better results. Here you can learn about how to purchase the software, take a tour of the features and take note of any product updates that may be available to you. Features Clear your Outlook Inbox...knowing you will be able to act on the messages at the appropriate time. Define what has to be done next...for each message or group of messages-delegate to another person, defer to a later date, create a next action task, file for reference, etc. Store the email in a known location...and link it with reminders and tasks so you will always be able to work on the things that matter when they matter. Create associated reminders and tasks...with the click of a button. Automatically remind yourself when it is time to act on a processed email. Apply Getting Things Done functionality...to appointments and tasks you enter into Outlook, seamlessly integrating them with appointments and tasks you create from emails. View tasks and emails...by the next action you need to take, by project or both. Access associated emails...from your appointments and tasks. Keep your folders clean...by removing completed items after a specified amount of time. Focus on what is important...knowing that you are master of your inbox. |
I love this Outlook add-in product. I had never before heard of the book "Getting Things Done", nor had I heard of its author, David Allen. However, what I DID know is that I was drowning from the overwhelming onslaught of unprocessed e-mail, and was searching the Internet for some kind of solution. Since you can download this product for a 30-day trial and give it a spin, I decided to give it a try.
This product was incredibly easy to install. It's an "add-in" to Outlook, so what you get once it's installed is an additional toolbar. Once you are in an e-mail, you have several choices of what you can do with the e-mail. The one I like best is to "action" the e-mail. Once you "action" it, it adds it to your 'to do' box, after allowing you to assign it a project category.
THINGS I LIKE BEST:
1. It forces you to organize your to-do's by project, instead of just all piled together in rank order. This really helps me think strategically about each of the projects I have going on, and helps me make sure I'm always thinking about the "next step" in a project.
2. When my inbox has e-mail sitting there, I am very anxious. The only solution up until now was to file it, delete it, or physically put it on a "to do" list to get to later. With this product add-in, you simply press "action", and it stores the e-mail in a "to do" item in Outlook's "Task" area.
THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT IT:
1. In my opinion, one of the weaknesses of the "Task" function in Outlook to begin with is that assigning a task priority is limited to 3 levels: low, medium, and high. Unfortunately, the "Getting Things Done" add-in doesn't do anything to help this situation. I wish it worked in this way like the Franklin Covey system, where you have the ability to assign an A, B, or C "bucket", and then rank in order of items in each of those buckets. Gives you a lot more flexibility.
2. For some reason, every time I launch Outlook, it tells me "last time Outlook ran, it had a serious problem working with this add-in - would you like us to disable it?" I always say "no", and then it always works just fine. However, getting that error message repeatedly still makes me nervous - I can't help it!
Overall, I have also utilized the Franklin Covey and the Palm planning software. Neither of them were as effective to me as using Outlook combined with this "Getting Things Done" add-in.