GTD and the Quest for a Single Program to Manage (nearly) Everything
I’ve gone back to using Outlook to manage my contacts, email, newsgroups, RSS, calendar, notes and tasks. I was using EssentialPIM for calendar, tasks and notes, Thunderbird for email, contacts and newsgroups and GreatNews for RSS, so three programs that didn’t even talk to each other made for forgetting to load one or two programs consistently.
I just want one place for my stuff. This time around I’m using Office 2003 Professional and have adjusted rather quickly. Perhaps I could quit fiddling around with the system and actually use it.
Now I have to figure out how to get my e-mail archive into Outlook from Thunderbird, since I can’t download the archived emails from Gmail anymore as I’ve been deleting them from the server.
Used the steps and program recommended at Export Thunderbird to Outlook, which has worked very well so far, well with a few minor things like some emails lack a subject line and is pretty much a plaintext version of HTML formatted email. Much fun is ensuing and once I get everything loaded in OE, I can remove duplicates in the address book and then set up filters so they could be imported into Outlook. Bah on filters not exporting easily.
I like Thunderbird, but the calendar/Lightning tie-in isn’t what I want and well the RSS function needs some work. It will only import a certain kind of feeds apparently and wont import folders. Sage works well in Firefox, but it makes my bookmark file HUGE. GreatNews works well, and I love the duplicate remover function and the ability to sync with Bloglines, but it takes a while to load up when all I want to do is add a feed.
I’m using Attensa 2.0 for Outlook for RSS and I really like it. It automatically populates iTunes with podcasts-both audio and video plus making a playlist. Rather nice. I’m editing my feed list so I don’t get too many duplicates/posts saying essentially the same thing. As soon as DemocracyTV gets OPML import/export capability, I’ll move my podcasts over.
I’m also trying out MAPILab’s NNTP for Outlook so I won’t have to use OE for Usenet.
I’m looking for a way to get Attensa to publish posts to my WP.com blog if I want to blog on something in my feeds. Right now I have w.bloggar set up and I’m chasing down a plug-in I used last year. I may have the file on back-up CD’s. Located the file on the second disk I popped in. The site where I got it went down and it was the only place to get it. w.bloggar has issues with Unicode and made me lose my spacing and commas. So bah on w.bloggar. It was only useful for one thing-reporting what I was listening too, but the plugin will only report one song and won’t update it when the song changes. So a bit of a dead end.
I went and gathered up all my to-dos/goals/on my mind lists and dumped them into a single file, and I still had stuff handwritten on the back, so that counts as the brain dump.
I did feel a lot better having that stuff all in one place and how much of it was duplication/had already been done.
[Listening to: Sanctuary - Utada Hikaru - Kingdom Hearts 2 OST (4:16)]
3 comments
I think your quest has a fatal flaw: there’s information (reference) and there’s action. I use Outlook and TiddlyWiki to manage information (email, plans, passwords), my own program to manage tasks (next actions and tasks), FeedDemon/NewsGator to handle RSS.
What we do need are better programs for converting information into actionable tasks.
Good point. I may uninstall Attensa, since it wants to load whenever I start Outlook and thus freezes everything until I kill the process. And MAPILAb NNTP isn’t freeware so I may stick to Thunderbird for that.
I don’t have a lot of stuff to manage-mostly household daily tasks and reminders.
My e-mail consists of mailing lists and newsletters with a few personal e-mails with loads of filters into topical folders.
And I’ll agree on the need for better programs.
I most likely will go back and fiddle a bit.
I use thunderbird and I’d never go back to Outlook.