Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook: The Eight Best Practices of Task and E-Mail Management (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Drowning in e-mail? Take this advice from author and workplace efficiency expert Michael Linenberger..." -- CourierPost Online, January 27, 2006

"If your Inbox has become a source of anxiety and stress... Michael Linenberger... has the solution" -- Investor's Business Daily, February 13, 2006

"It's not spam or cc'd mail that slows down your e-mail processing..." (this book shows how to fix it) -- Fast Company June 2006 Interview

"The system is easy to use... it works, it's not hard" -- Kurt Andrews, WIMO-AM Atlanta News Talk Radio, March 2006

Product Description

This book teaches you best practices of task and e-mail management, using Microsoft Outlook. If you feel your e-mail is out of control, or you have way too much work on your plate, this book is for you. With it you will learn: - How to regain up to 25% of your workweek by increasing the efficiency with which you accomplish tasks. - Eight proven best practices of task and e-mail management that will propel your career ahead. - Techniques that allow greater work-life balance. - Secrets of using Microsoft Outlook effectively for Time, Task, and E-mail Management. - Methods for getting all important work done each day, so you can leave work on time, guilt free. - How to get your e-mail under control so that you do not drop actions and so you can respond to e-mail in appropriate time frames. - How you can consistently empty your Inbox. - Outlook task management based techniques to eliminate the "everything is a fire" approach to work.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: New Academy Publishers (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974930415
• ISBN-13: 978-0974930411
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #220,253 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #31 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Applications > Outlook
  #48 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Scheduling & E-mail
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

216 of 219 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars drilling down, June 7, 2006

By	David A. Baer (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This book is best used after working through one or two more generic workflow systems like David Allen's Getting Things Done and Sally McGhee's Take Back Your Life! The reason is that Linenberger's approach tends to assume mastery of those core skills and then take its reader deeper into somewhat technical aspects of Outlook's impressive capabilities.

Total Workday Control teaches the reader how to exploit a powerful piece of software. You'll need to look elsewhere for the personal work and life management skills that will make Linenberger's work helpful. He mentions these repeatedly and briefly, but not in enough depth to facilitate the kinds of change that most of need to implement in our lives.

Because of the semi-technical nature of the book, the best way to provide the prospective reader with an idea of what he or she is considering buying is a chapter-by-chapter review. Linenberger leads off by making his claims for how Total Workday Control will make you better (`Gaining Workday Control', pp. 9-22). Like Allen and McGhee, he chooses a bottom-up rather than top-down approach to gaining control of the information that bombards us. This is a worthy tactical decision, though in my judgment it needlessly discards the huge value that lies in engaging in a top-down review of one's life, values, and goals at the same time. In my own experience, employing both methods with a good coach produces the deepest change, a service that I will offer to executives under the `Cantabridge' label beginning in 2007.

Chapter two introduces the best practices that lie at the core of Linenberger's approach and provide its coherence (`The Best Practices of Task and E-Mail Management', pp. 23-39). I might as well tell you now what they are: 1, Tracking all tasks in Outlook Tasks System; 2, Using a master tasks list kept separate from your daily tasks list; 3, Using a simple prioritization system that emphasizes must-do-today tasks; 4, Writing only next actions on your daily task list; 5, Doing daily and weekly planning to keep your task lists up to date, 6, Doing daily and weekly planning to keep your task lists up to date; 7, Converting e-mail to tasks; 7, Filing e-mails using Outlook Categories; 8, delegating tasks in an effective manner.

This introductory presentation of the eight best practices is exceptionally well presented. Linenberger has given attention to how people actually absorb, retain, and act on information. In consequence, he's successfully avoided the pitfall of writing a mere software manual. In stark contrast to that dire possibility, he's given us a genuine learning tool.

Chapter three (`Configuring Outlook for Task Management', pp. 41-78) explains the minimal differences between Outlook 2002 and 2003, reassuring the reader that both will get the job done. The first word of his chapter title sets his book apart from Allen's and McGhee's. It's clear almost from the outset that you have to really want to benefit from Linenberger's approach in order to mine the gold that's available. He'll have you spend considerable time understanding and configuring Outlook, always with the promise--a reasonable one in my estimation that your time will be well invested in view of its results.

Look at it this way. David Allen's Getting Things Done is a Copernican Revolution that will shake your world. Sally McGhee traces the orbits of the planets in this new world. Linenberger wants you to understand how molecules work.

By the time you're a pair of pages into his fourth chapter (`Applying Task Management Best Practices in Outlook', pp. 79-206), Linenberger also has you well into the meat of his system. He's helping you build an infrastructure that will keep you handling email and managing tasks in a systematic way in order to free up your mind for its more important work. Linenberger is less concerned than some with keeping things simple, which is simply to underscore that he's writing for people who really want what he's got on offer. You'll find yourself working hard at installing the wiring of the author's system into your life, cheered on by occasional glimpses of how good things are going to get if you persevere.

Linenberger's chapter titles are neither accidental nor haphazard. In chapter five (Planning and Working Your Tasks in Outlook', pp. 107-126), he lays out the essential interplay between planning and working your tasks. David Allen's emphasis upon a weighty session of weekly planning is here slightly modified by complementing of it with a daily planning time that in Linenberger's system must come before you actually roll up sleeves and begin working your task list and its contents.

Chapter six (`Converting E-Mail to Tasks and Using Workflows', pp. 127-146) tackles what the author considers his most important best practice, with adequate justification for leaving it until now. He is a little more intense about leak-proofing the flow of tasks than Peter Allen, whose work has become a necessary reference for any current writing on time and workflow management.

Chapter seven (`Filing Your E-Mail Using Outlook Categories', pp. 147-188) presents a breakthrough method that by itself justifies the purchase of this book. Although Linenberger considers email filing to be fairly low on his list of best practices, his system delves into an area of weakness in most information management systems. Linenberger is candid about the up-front work that needs to occur in order effectively to file emails in the way he suggests. Not everyone will want to invest that time. However, project managers and executives who find themselves to be constant decision makers based on fluid information, Linenberger offers what I consider to be a long-awaited solution to effective and accessible storage of information, some of which is likely to prove valuable upon retrieval but with little predictability about which bits are destined for the ash heap and which will leverage a guy out of a precarious pickle.

Chapter eight (`Outlook-Based Delegation', pp. 189-198) moves into group dynamics and would do well as shared reading for work groups, leadership teams, and the like. Linenberger plies a careful course between the imposition of an information-management approach upon all members of a team--here he is more reticent than I am--and the relatively more passive `waiting for' approach popularized by David Allen.

Don't let chapter nine (`Advanced Topics', pp. 199-232) scare you away with its title. It's not all that complex and provides valuable follow-up to the basic skills Linenberger teaches prior to this final chapter. Like much of this book but perhaps more than the previous eight chapters, you'll want to return to this one for its reference-and-reminder character. A trio of appendices provides more of the same.

Though I think there are better options for novice time-managers than Linenberger's fine book, it is a logical next step for individuals--and even work groups--who have mastered the basics and want to squeeze Outlook for all its potential as their workflow tool of choice.

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're too busy to read this book, you need to read this book!, December 29, 2005

By	John Bishop (Scotia, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In "Total Workday Control," Linenberger provides a very readable, very practical guide for getting and maintaining control over the daily deluge of emails and tasks many of us contend with. He does this by sharing eight best practices of task and e-mail management and then showing how to reconfigure Outlook so you can implement these best practices (you'll have to read the book to find out what they are!). Gratefully, he has avoided abstract philosophical jargon and discussion about personal productivity--he just jumps in there with solid, usable principles and advice. My kind of writer.

Linenberger draws on his own extensive management and technology experience as well as the wisdom of other productivity thinkers as the basis for his eight best practices. If you're familiar with David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD)approach or with the FranklinCovey productivity model, then you'll recognize their influence here (and appropriately credited). Linenberger's explanation of these eight best practices leaves the reader encouraged to believe that he/she can actually implement these practices in the real work world.

The bulk of the book focuses on implementation. His assumption is that the reader has a basic familiarity with Outlook but does not know how to best configure Outlook for real effectiveness. Linenberger's "nuts-and-bolts" instructions are very clear and helpful; his guidelines for handling e-mail and his discussion about delegating are alone worth the price of the book.

I think of equal value to me is the extremely practical discussions about how his approaches really play out in the daily routine of work. Linenberger doesn't just say, "here's how to set up Outlook for maximum efficiency;" he goes on to offer concrete ways to actually implement these best practices. This is as close as you can get to having a productivity coach without actually hiring one!

In summary, Linenberger has done a fine job of pulling together some productivity best practices and then illustrating how to implement them "where the rubber hits the road." This is no abstract, theoretical approach. Well worth the read for any busy person.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robust System for GTD, January 25, 2006

By	Ms. Julie (Inside the Beltway) - See all my reviews

I thoroughly enjoyed Total Workday Control, along with the hints and insights contained in it. The book describes in detail and implementation method for recent versions of Outlook which is highly compatible with David Allen's Getting Things Done.

Linenberger has a well thought through set up for Outlook which he explains in detail. I had no problems implementing the task frames set up. At a more philosophical level, he captures exactly what it is that makes days so harrowing. I particularly enjoyed his observations about what he calls "miniprojects" -- it became clear to me that so much of what tangles me up is one of my many miniprojects.

Moreover, the Linenberger's system that he sets up is quite robust -- that is it is easy to "get back on the wagon" after having fallen off. Ever the philosopher, Linenberger muses insightfully about how to look at the tasks that were entered to figure out where and how you had taken the wrong tact.