Tweet

Are You Holding a Fire Hose Instead of a Golf Club? 4 Starter Steps for Using Outlook Tasks to Give You More Control, More Freedom and Less Stress

Guest post by: Leslie Shreve

Article Overview: Why do I love Outlook so much? Because it's one of the easiest, most familiar and most powerful tools out there. Plus, it's commonly found in the majority of companies and corporations these days, as well as many of the offices of solo-preneurs. This makes it easy for us to work together because clients don't have to run out and get new software. They already have the tools they need. Sadly, they're just not using it to full capacity. Here are my 4 favorite starter steps for how to use Outlook Tasks:

Are You Holding a Fire Hose Instead of a Golf Club? 4 Starter Steps for Using Outlook Tasks to Give You More Control, More Freedom and Less Stress

If you're holding a fire hose all the time, it means you're being more reactive than proactive in your work day and you're putting out fires way too often instead of using your time to get ahead, reach new heights or get on the golf course - or do whatever favorite hobby you like. And it also means your daily systems and processes could be lacking in efficiency or they simply aren't working. So what's my favorite system? Microsoft Outlook. No surprise to you, my loyal readers, I'm sure.

And 90% of my clients don't know how to maximize Outlook when we start working together to power up their productivity. Even the few who had dabbled with the Outlook Calendar or Task List were unclear about how to make it really work for them. Many of my clients told me that they tried using the Task list, but then abandoned it because "it just didn't work" for them.

But it can work... and it does for so many people, including me and my clients. And the reason it works is because a clear connection has been made between the "stuff" of a typical work day (papers, post-its, e-mails, voice mails, files, to dos, etc...) and what they can DO with all of it in Outlook (along with a few other trusted systems in your office.) And then life and work are so much easier.

Why do I love Outlook so much? Because it's one of the easiest, most familiar and most powerful tools out there. Plus, it's commonly found in the majority of companies and corporations these days, as well as many of the offices of solo-preneurs. This makes it easy for us to work together because clients don't have to run out and get new software. They already have the tools they need. Sadly, they're just not using it to full capacity.

Here are my 4 favorite starter steps for how to use Outlook Tasks:

1. Entering tasks in Outlook is so simple.

The two most important questions you ever need to answer when creating your list are "what am I going to do?" and "when?" Get everything out of your head: reminders, tasks, to-dos, delegated tasks and potential ideas (although ideas that aren't actionable can be separated out.) Document exactly what step you're going to take next, start with a verb and type them all in. Yes, all of them.

2. You don't have to over-complicate the use of the Task List.

Skip using "% Complete" and "Status" fields. Your tasks should be small actionable steps, not big projects, and you don't need to micromanage these tiny tasks. For instance, you either you made a call or you didn't. Marking it as 40% complete or "In progress" is not a good use of your time.

3. Think in terms of when you'll do something, not when it's due.

If you continuously use the Due Date field as if you're tracking lots of projects, then you'll never get a sense of what you're doing each day. It's important to know when big projects are due, but what's more important is knowing when you'll take action and do a task related to that project and how much time you have to do it in.

4. When they're all in, you're all set.

Once you have all your to dos, reminders and tasks listed, you'll easily see where your priorities lie. Once you choose target dates to do them and group tasks by day, then you don't have to look at all the future tasks and get overwhelmed. You can just focus on tasks targeted for today, easily and stress-free. From then on, you can just keep adding, changing and deleting from the list and you'll always be on top of your day.

Related Articles
  How to Find the Best Financial Education Program
  What is the Soul of Your Business?- How to Make Your Noncustomers New Customers
  Today's "rant" - stress
  Stress And Personal Mastery
  Swim Against the Tide
  Business Drive is Par for the Course
  The Highest Leverage Investment in a Business is...
  2 Sure-Fire Tips for Self Motivation
  Seeing Blindspots
  Chill Out guide to positive thinking
  How to Manage Your Email & Inbox – Lessons 21-25
  Eliminate the Bottlenecks!
  Improving the Quality of Your Life By Andrew Rondeau
  Improving the Quality of Your Life
  Be a Self-Starter
  Ladies, Break Free From Stress!
  Eradicate Procrastination - Be Action Oriented
  LEADERS HAVE BLOOD GROUP OF FIRE POSITIVE.
  Keeping the Glass Full
  Making the Right Call

Article Tags: business, getting organized, leslie shreve, organization, productive day, productivity, task management, task management system, taskology
Referred by: http://affiliatepowercentral.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Why Did You Become An Entrepreneur? - You mean Freedom = Responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are two sides of same coin. But I like the word choice. Robert
Outlook Business Contact Manager - I've just installed the new Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager and am testing it out to see how good of a CRM system it is. I like the concept because it works right within your Outlook and I already have all my contacts and emails here. Does anybody have any experience with Business Contact Manager for Outlook?
Managing emails - From the promo page it looks like they can handle up to 16 emails. What are the benefits of using this over other email checking software? I have 6 accounts that I check regularly and use Outlook while at the office and either my web hosting webmail or gmail when I'm away. Does this program save you time over using Outlook?
Backing up data on Outlook - Hi Jen At the moment, I have 1 email account on Rogers Yahoo for personal use and 3 different emails for business (i.e. 2 on MS Outlook and 1 with Yahoo). However, I don't backup anything as I've never really had any problems yet. Can I ask what was the ineffective method used when trying to backup your Outlook data?
Update: Spam software - Well I still have not found a good plugin that will work with Outlook 2007. My web hosting client has an option to detect and delete spam on the server before it gets to my inbox but I am worried that it will delete some of my important emails. If anyone has had luck with Outlook 2007 and getting their spam issues solved, please post and let me know!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Death by Micromanagement

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

Email Marketing Made Easy #11 - Avoiding Spam

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.