Is Franklin Covey the answer? Outlook is NOT!

[Anonymous]

As I look back into my past. I feel I was most organized when I was using a Day Timer.

I was thinking of taking a Franklin Covey “Achieving Your Highest Priorities Time-Management Workshop”

Does anyone have any experience with them?

I now use Outlook and it is a train wreck, I have a little over 600 contacts and average 40 – 60 emails per day. It SUCKS!

REPORT ABUSE

[billd]

what version of outlook are you on?

I can relate to the number of emails – I get over 100 on about 6 different accounts, but wow, don’t have near that many contacts!

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

What kind of business are you in? I’ve used a Franklin Covey product in the past (for real estate), http://www.franklincoveysoftware.com/index.php?option=com_zoo&view=item&Itemid=97 and didn’t like it at all.

For most people, I think google calendar/contacts works best.

REPORT ABUSE

[ellamama]

I did the FranklinCovey training years ago. Holy smokes! I think it was nearly 20 yrs. ago! I loved it. It was super, BUT wouldn’t work for me today. Now I need to let a lot of other folks have access to my schedule to see if I’m free for meetings and stuff, so I’m stuck with Outlook, but it doesn’t do squat for planning what I (should be) doing. As I see it, FranklinCovey was great for planning and task management; Outlooks for scheduling meetings, etc. I particularly liked the FranklinCovey “journal” feature to jot down notes.

If I were alone on a desert island, I’d use FranklinCovey. As part of a big organization (not including my family!) I’m in Outlook.

Meanwhile, I’m really curious what others have come up with.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

I use Google Calendar and love it! It’s free, you just have to create a Google account. You can create multiple calendars and choose to keep them private, share them with select people and even allow other people to modify them. I was introduced to it by a personal trainer I used to see; he made a calendar to share with his clients showing his availability and we could schedule our workouts.

I’ve made several Google calendars–one for household chores/errands/med reminders, one for appointments & social functions, one for keeping track of bills (due dates, reminders to mail 5 business days ahead, reminders to set up online payments etc.), one for my son’s preschool & activities (including a reminder to pick him up from school!), one for birthdays, one for classes at my gym etc. Right now I’m not working or else I’d probably have another 5-10 calendars to keep me on track with my work! You can view 2 or more calendars at a time to check for overlaps so you don’t double-book yourself.

You can also set email and/or pop-up reminders which is great for ADD folks like us. For birthdays I can set one reminder 2 weeks in advance so I remember to buy the card, another a week in advance to prompt me to mail it, and one on the birthday to remind me to call the birthday boy or girl. If I need to be somewhere 30 minutes away I can set a reminder for 45 minutes before, then when I inevitably get sucked into something I hear that little tone and see the pop-up window. Then I can wrap up what I’m doing, get my son and myself ready and head out. Love love love it!

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah – in addition to my Google calendars I use the calendar, alarm clock and to-do lists in my cell phone. That way if I’m not online I still get a reminder to take my meds, get to my appts, empty the dishwasher, pick my son up from preschool etc.

REPORT ABUSE

[billd]

Explain this google thing – I have a couple of accounts with google – one for my phone (android based) and the other for the analytics for my web site…….. does that mean I can have the same info at home, at work, or on my phone???

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

I try very hard to keep things as simple as possible when it comes to time management. To-do lists are about as organized as I can get: one a day, with the completed tasks stricken through as visibly as possible. I’ve used planners in the past but find them very much an “out of sight, out of mind” solution which does little to keep me on top of things the way a to-do list can. I use stick-on notes at work and, if limited to one or two at a time, they allow me to remember deferred tasks (but not deferred too long – three days, tops.) Minimalism seems to work very well for me in general, though it runs against my instinct for clutter.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

BillD – Exactly. Centralized calendar you can access anywhere any time with a smart phone, share with family, friends, co-workers. Setup a to do list, notes, spreadsheets, doc files, power point presentations…….reminders, alarms via email, SMS, or locally. Great stuff. Export or import .ICF files to or from Outlook or other Internet Calendar format. Hell I have the Ottawa Senators Schedule and the 5 day forecast pop-up in mine.

With Windows 7 you can add desktop gadgets that keep these things available so you don’t forget to check it, if you have XP, Google Desktop allows you to have these on your desktop in the same sort of way using their Sidebar. I have Email, Calendar and Chat open all the time so I can see updates and the current status of those I collaborate with.

But as mentioned above, you need to get in a habit of using it. If it’s not ‘you’ it won’t work. I still have yellow sticky’s for important things that don’t fit the PDA well. Picking something up on the way home is a good example of that. with out a sticky on the dashboard I likely need 3-5 days for it to reach my attention threshold for getting things done.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Franklin Covey has a product called Plan Plus that works w/ Outlook. It provides a quad screen so you see email, calendar, tasks and your choice of 4th quad… It intergrates the Covey method of time management – Compass not Clock… though its not necessary to implement this technique to benefit from the product. It is user friendly. I have combined methods I picked up in GTD – getting things done – David Allen, particulary his teachings on setting up folders in Outloon under tasks and stuffing these folders rather than trying to hold the info in our already crowded heads…its worked well…hope the best for you.

REPORT ABUSE

[billd]

The outlook with Office 2010 is sure different- I like the list of upcoming appointments/meetings on the right, email in the middle, etc. – of course, it can be arranged differently – but I think the point is, MS is making improvements…it’s sure different – even from 2007.

NiSidhe’s message rang close to home with me…….

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts