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Total Workday Control
Sunday, June 1, 2008 In my continuing quest for methods and tools to make me more productive, I've been reading and applying Michael Linenberger's latest techniques from the 2nd edition of his book, Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook. As I've chronicled here in the past (see "My GTD Odyssey"), I have been a follower of Michael's methods for a long time.
One of the reasons I liked them is that they were more prescriptive than -- but still philosophically compatible with -- David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD) methodology. I found Linenberger's instructions to be more actionable and specific, and they helped me sustain my productivity better than GTD alone. As I mention in my GTD Odyssey posts, with GTD I missed the "go to the list; get next task" feel that I remember from my old Franklin/Covey days - and Linenberger's method feels more comfortable in this regard.
"Manage Your Now"
In this second edition, Linenberger has raised the bar again and introduces more techniques, workflows, and Outlook tweaks to help make things easier. He's even moved beyond "Total Workday Control" to establish a methodology he refers to as "Managing Your Now" or "MYN" for short (I suppose everybody's gotta have a 3-letter acronym, or TLA, these days).
The book walks you through a step-by-step sequence for setting up Outlook for better email, task, and calendar management through the use of customized views to help you filter the information you must deal with to get your work done (the book's example of the Task view is at right).
MYN involves managing to a "Now Horizon" and segmenting your tasks. Basically, you are able to create several tiers of priority:
- Critical-Now: the 1-3 tasks that must be done today
- Target-Now: high priority items that you would like to do today but are not urgently due
- Opportunity-Now: medium priority items that need to be done soon, and could be done today if the right opportunity presents itself
- Over-the-Horizon: items that are on your lists, but you've consciously pushed them out for future consideration
This filtering and sorting method has made it much easier for me to become more methodical about working through the tasks on my lists, and the views described in the book provide a sort of "at a glance" cockpit to help you pilot your day. Find out more in the sample chapter available on the book web site.
The right tool for the job
You can go through the book and manually set up the views, but I recommend using a tool described in the book instead: The MYN special edition of ClearContext IMS. This not only automatically configures all of the special MYN views, it offers a ton of very easy-to-use shortcuts to help you become more productive with Outlook. The features are numerous, efficient, and sooo useful. I've been a loyal ClearContext customer for at least a couple of years now and couldn't live wthout it.
By the way - even if you choose not to adopt Linenberger's methodology, I highly recommend ClearContext. You can get the regular, non-MYN version at the ClearContext web site, and they even offer a 30-day trial so you can find out if it's a fit for you.
Some examples: I love being able to file a whole topic thread automatically, schedule follow-up tasks automatically, and use ClearContext's "Unsubscribe" button to make irrelevant email threads disappear
Commit - don't dabble
As I mentioned above, this book is much more prescriptive than the first edition. One of the asepcts of that is that it really requires a commitment for a few weeks to really develop new habits so you can get the benefits of Linenberger's methods. I think it's absolutely worth the commitment - I don't have exact metrics, but I think the books claims that you can increase your efficiency by 25% to 45% are in line with actual results.
And I also recommend taking a 'baby steps' approach to adoption, and focusing on the front half of the book to become proficient in the basics of task, calendar and email management before moving on to the more advanced topics later in the book (like project management and Goal/Project/Task management).
Summary
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook can truly help you "Manage Your Now" whether you're an accomplished GTD user or someone just getting started on the path to gain control of your workday. Just make sure you stick with it for a few weeks (21 days is a good rule of thumb) to ensure you get the benefits.
Reader Comments (7)
http://blog.clearcontext.com
One thing I'm wishing for on the Pro version: a Delete Thread function (works just like File Thread, but puts the whole topic in the trash)
How beneficial would this 2nd edition be to someone still using Outlook 2003 and not planning to upgrade to 2007 anytime soon?
If it's the book you mean:There are some significant changes in the process Michael's teaching in the second edition (for example, with filing, projects, and a few other aspects). I found them to be more useful, but more complex / complicated than in v1. If you're happy with email management, task & calendar handling from the first book, you're probably fine holding the course. If you find that it isn't prescriptive enough or you want to iprove projects and overall workflow around managing your day, the 2nd edition is the way to go.
If it's ClearContext you mean:Any version of ClearContext will help you get more productive (with or without TWC). There are some nice features in the latest version, particularly for Office 2007 integration (and a bit for Office 2003) but, again, if you're happy with your current version you may not need to change. I find that ClearContext.com has some pretty thorough explanations of what's new in each version if you want to find out if there are any "must have" features in the new version. Also, it depends on what version you're using. I'm using v4 now, but I think the most significant improvement I noted in functionality was when I went from v2 to v3.
Long-winded response, but I hope it helps.
I have been using the 1st edition methodology for about a year now. In that edition Michael discourages the use of categories on the taskpad. It looks like maybe he changed his thinking on this in the new methodology. I'm thinking my overall efficiency gains have been in the 12-15% range since implementing his system. What are your thoughts on switching to the newer methods? I have a considerable amount of time invested in the first edition. If I could gain 5%-8% using the new system, it would probably warrant the additional 60 days of retraining and acclimation time. Thanks again for the insightful and informative review.
It's too soon for me to tell how much additional productivity I'll get with the new techniques since I'm new at it, as well. I think my initial gains were in a similar range to yours (maybe closer to the 15%). My gut tells me tha the new project tracking / organizing approaches in the 2nd edition will be worth it, but I don't have hard data yet.