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49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outlook on Steroids, April 1, 2006
This review is from: Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft® Outlook® to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other) (Paperback)
I discovered this book while searching for something to help me manage the relentless flood of email coming at me every day (I had 900 unread emails at the time). I thought if I could become an outlook power user, I might be able to manage that number down. This book helped me learn the ins and outs of outlook, but more importantly, taught me a compelling approach to managing my crazy, demanding, overcommited, multi-tasking life. Mind you, I was a Franklin Planner flunky and a Day-Timer drop out, which made me a motivated learner. I literally devoured this book - read it cover to cover in just a few days (with a highlighter). Along the way I configured Outlook the work way the author recommends. I discussed it with friends. I actually implemented my own "IMS", which I think is what sets this book apart from David Allen's "Getting Things Done". You could read GTD, but the content may just "wash over you" and not make a practical difference in the way you work. This is specific, hands on, step by step instruction that if you're serious, will change the way you work in Outlook for the better. Highly recommended . . .
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stong Emphasis on Up Front Planning, July 3, 2006
This review is from: Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft® Outlook® to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other) (Paperback)
I am a veteran Franklin Covey planner user and consider myself very well organized and a strong time manager. Our company recently made the move to outlook, and I purchased this book hoping to get some tips on how to make the most of planning with outlook from someone who had a time management orientation. What I didn't expect was to learn anything more about time management. Boy was I wrong! Sally provides some real eye openers about spending more time up front planning tasks to get to "Strategic Next Actions" - tasks you can actually do without any dependencies. She also packs in excellent tips on setting up a reference system, handling email, and using the outlook task categories to their full potential.
I was able to achieve my basic objective with this book. My planning system was one where I used my Franklin Covey Plan Plus for Outlook software to create a daily task list each day with only items I could do that day, and used a collection of spreadsheets and word documents to track more complex "projects." Sally show how to integrate all of this into outlook with both planning and action tasks.
If you are looking for an indepth book on outlook however this isn't it. Instead its what it is advertised to be - a book on organizing first that tells who how to use outlook to implement the organizing system Sally has developed. The outlook information you need to implement the system is provided in a concise fashion and was very helpful to me.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Getting Outlook to do Things You Never Dreamed, September 20, 2005
This review is from: Take Back Your Life! Special Edition: Using Microsoft® Outlook® to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other) (Paperback)
Like a lot of software, Microsoft Outlook is a product that has grown over the years to a feature rich package capable of doing a lot of things. In this book, Ms. McGhee gives a complete description of all that you can do with Outlook. She starts with a several pages long Quick Reference. This is kind of boring, but it does give you a good introduction of the things you will be learning if you read the whole book. Alternatively you can use it to decide which features you want to learn about.
The one problem that I have with book is that Outlook is one of the most common packages attacked by virus programs. I would have expected a chapter on setting up a security system.
All in all, Outlook is a program that you probably already have on your system. It's use may even be required by your company. You just as well learn as much as you can about it. And even if you don't use Outlook, the procedures developed here would still be useful.
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