Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook

The above three options, used together, are sufficient for the rare times that you need to set deadlines. But if you tend to have a lot of next-action tasks with deadlines, the above actions will start to feel like a lot of steps, particularly having to create duplicate tasks. In that case, Windows Outlook users should add the optional Deadline fie

and enter the deadline day or date at the beginning of the text in the subject line, with the word DUE in all caps. So, for example, if a final year-end report is due Friday of this week, enter “DUE FRI Final Year-End Report.” If due a few weeks out, enter: “DUE Dec 26 Final Year-End Report” as shown below. Set the start date to today so you can st

task with the Start Date field set to the deadline, and the Priority field set to High. Here’s how this looks. First, as above, set a Normal priority task set to start today (Dec 19) with the Due date inserted in the text; see below: Then, set a High priority task to appear on the deadline (Dec 26) as shown here: This second task causes a task to p

One way to ensure that you are writing down the very next action on a stuck task is to ask yourself several times, “Is there anything else I need to do first?” If you find something, it becomes your very next action. This is also a useful exercise with new tasks, if you have time.

I think 20 tasks is the ideal upper limit for an Opportunity Now list.

five alternate ways to indicate hard deadlines; pick one that works best for you and each task. 1. If the deadline is today, just set the Priority field to High; after all, the definition of a High priority task in this system is that the task must be done today. If the deadline is in the future and you do not need to start work on it till that day

One reason many new users load up the High priority section with too many tasks is they confuse the must-do-today concept with the thought “This is important to me.” Unless it is time-critical for today, keep it out of the High section.

the distinction between goals and tasks should be clear, but if not let’s just say this: a task is actionable, and a goal is plan-able.

For example, if the action is required: Action Required: Update Sales Report If it is an optional action, or I want to soften the message, I use the word Requested or something even more innocuous: Action Requested: Feedback on Conference Your Response Appreciated: Survey Enclosed And if there is a deadline, I put it right in the title: Action Requ