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As time goes by, my memory is getting worse and worse, my schedule is getting  busier and busier and being mobile has become an important requirement to be cost effective as well as time efficient… so I had to find a good strategy to cope with my daily life and this post summarise my activities as well as the tools I normally use.

SW or HW required

• Microsoft Outlook
• Nokia mobile, PC Suite and (optional) Handy Calendar
• Gmail Account + Google Calendar Sync

Calendar

The calendar is to me what the memory is to any normal individual… well, that’s possibly an overstatement nonetheless it’s unbelievable how much I am dependant on my outlook calendar. I use it to save flight tickets, hotel reservations, planned holidays, bank-holiday, train timetables, milestones in my study plans, end of any interest free balance transfer periods and of course appointments as well as anniversary… basically anything that has a time, a booking reference and/or a location is on my calendar… Everything is then synchronised with my mobile and my Gmail account using PC suite and Google Calendar Sync respectively.

My tips (i.e. what works for me ):

• Colour labels. Very effective when I look at monthly view in my outlook calendar
• I tend to paste all relevant emails in the description field of the appointment “form” and use Handy Calendar on my mobile to best view any appointments’ details.
• I always put my reference numbers in plain view (the location field is often the best location for reference numbers)
• Use my local time (UK) in all appointments because they will change when I change the time-zone. E.g., on a flight entry, if the arrival time is on a different time-zone, I set the end time in the calendar appointment as UK local arrival time not the destination local time.
• Hotels bookings, locations I need to be and days spent on holiday are always all-day events, everything else has a start and an end time
• I use Google Calendar Sync as well as my Gmail accounts to share my schedule with my girlfriend.
• I tend to avoid the use of Tasks as much as possible to reduce the admin I have to do unless there is something I want to be constantly reminded once the deadline is passed.

Emails

When I started working few years ago, I never imagined I would end up being constantly overwhelmed by tens (sometimes hundreds) of emails, so I came up with the following personal toolbar to manage all my emails (btw, the following strategy is also similar to the GTD method)

For each email I receive, I apply the following flags if necessary:

• Red Flag: Important emails which I need “to action” by the end of the day. Usually no more than 4-5 emails should be marked with this flag
• Blue Flag: Emails which need a response usually within 1 or 2 weeks. No limit to the number of emails that can be flagged, but the more emails I flag the more difficult it becomes to review all of them at the end of the week.
• Green Flag: Important emails, no action needed but I flag them anyway to find them amongst hundreds of emails.

Furthermore, if an email requires a specific action or is due by a specific time I add a reminder as shown in the picture below.

Together with the toolbar, I also use a “Search Folder”, to manage and find my emails.

Steps required to create the Toolbar and Search Folders

Toolbar:

• Click on “Customize…” from the “Tools” menu.
• Click on “Toolbars” tab
• Click on “New…” button and give a name to the toolbar (default should be Custom 1)

• Go to “Commands” tab
• From the “Categories” list select “Actions”

• From the “Commands” list, drag and drop to the empty toolbar:
  1. Red Flag
  2. Blue Flag
  3. Green Flag
  4. Add Reminder…
  5. Clear Flag 
• Right click on any button to change the name, show both the image and text of the button and start a new group (which simply adds a vertical separator). Note how “&” is used to add the “Alt” letter (i.e. the letter used with the “Alt” button to select the button using the keyboard).

• The naming scheme I use is “&1 To Action - HP”, “&2 To Action - LP” to select the buttons with a simple Alt+1, Alt+2 and so on…

Search Folders:

• Right click on “Search Folders” and select “New Search Folder…”

• Select “Create a custom Search Folder ” at the bottom

• Assign the criteria for the search folder
  1. Type the folder’s name (e.g. if you are going to search for red flagged emails, you could name it “Important emails”)
  2. Click on Criteria
  3. Click on “More Choices” tab
  4. Click on “Only items which:” and select the wanted criteria from the drop-down list (remember the name given in step 1)

• Click Ok to all open windows, then right click on the new search folder and select properties. Click on “Show total number of items”

That’s it! I think that is in short what I use on a daily basis to help my work and private life… There are of course so many other strategies that could be used but I think this is a good compromise and it’s “green”, cost effective and time efficient… I hope it can be the same for you as well

PS: The search folder will show the emails only in the current data file. That is, if you archive your emails to another data file you will lose visibility of those emails.

PPS:

• Calendar and contacts are synchronised with Nokia PC Suite
• Work emails are synch’d with Mail for Exchange
• Everything else is done using the browser (i.e. private email accounts)

[photo source]