Sure, I make lists. I even keep a little notepad in my back pocket to remind myself of all my to-do's and genius ideas! The problem is I forget to look at my list or better yet I lose it! I shudder to think of all my genius ideas that have ended up in the wash or in the trash. [shudder]
Enough is enough! I have far too many projects and important things I need to get done to let this trend continue. Time to turn toward technology.
Now I need to also confess that some of my lack of organization can be attributed to the technology I have been using. You see when I switched to a Mac I quickly became a pretty adamant Apple fan. I turned my back against the monopoly (Microsoft) and went all Apple or OpenSource. This included relying on Mail and iCal instead of Outlook. I gave up the features of Outlook to the "freeness" of its Apple rival apps. I was also disappointed with Mac Office 2008. The installation seemed very invasive, it was slow, and just didn't seem worth the sticker price they wanted.
Well, I still love my Mac but I'm done begrudging Microsoft now. The new Office 2011 for Mac is a huge step forward from the old Mac Office 2008. Word and Excel still don't match their Windows counterparts but Outlook seems to be a huge step forward from Entourage. So what I've been doing is getting re-aquainted with Outlook and all its hundreds of features. Having the messaging and calendaring all working together is nice and the conversation threading has been helping me weed through past emails. I think one feature though that is really going to help me with my organization is Tasks. I never found an equivalent in iCal and never sought any 3rd party replacement. My hope is that by using the Tasks and follow-up features in Outlook that I'll be able to better manage my to-do's. Here's a screenshot of what I've gotten setup so far:
Hey, look at that! I'll be able to mark off my first task once I publish this post! Now I will still keep a notebook in my back pocket mind you. You never know when another genius idea will strike me that could just solve the debt crises or world hunger!
Mac users, what do you think of Office 2011 for Mac? Or have you found suitable alternatives to Outlook features?
The one thing that I know I need to do is to be more organized. And also, I love the idea of using outlook and all of its features on apple. The thing that I am having trouble doing is devoting the time to get organized. Do you have any suggestions on how to speed making tasks/nots up? I hate taking time planning to plan. I just wish there was a program that would let you speak into your phone stating a task and date to be completed and it would write it out, schedule it, and alert me of it later on when it was time.
ReplyDeleteHey Chad! I don't know of any magic app like that. My phone is my next technology upgrade so maybe I'll find something.
ReplyDeleteI think I will find the "Follow Up" feature with emails very useful, especially for work related to-do's as most of those are initiated from emails. It just takes a second to click the Follow Up drop-down and set a date. It will then appear under Tasks. Creating tasks just takes seconds too. Like you inferred though, you have to be in front of your computer when you remember or else if you'll likely forget to create a reminder. :)