Get your Outlook Tasks directly on iPhone

When I jumped into the iPhone pool last year, one of the big surprises was just how hard it was to sync my Notes and Tasks from Outlook (our company uses Exchange, and I use the heck out of Outlook).

Version 3 of the iPhone firmware solved the Notes problem, as it will now sync Outlook Notes directly into the Notes app on the iPhone.  Not so for tasks (No task app on the iPhone?  After 3 versions?  Really?)

Taking the iPhone to Task

In searching for a way to automatically sync tasks to the iPhone, here were my requirements:

• Must offer the ability to sort / group tasks by Category (for GTD) and due date.
• Solutions should be as simple as possible (the fewer moving parts the better, no re-entering text, etc.)
• Must support offline viewing and updating of tasks, through a native iPhone app
• Reasonably priced

The most popular apps (I sampled systems like Remember the Milk, ToodleDo, Nozbe, Google, and several others) had (at least for me) show-stopper issues: 

• Some apps required syncing from Outlook to a service in the cloud, then from that service to my iPhone, and many of these required me to pay an additional fee for a subscription account.
• Some apps required me to run a separate desktop app alongside Outlook.  Yuck.
• Some apps provided only web-based viewers (not iPhone apps), which meant I couldn’t get to my lists on the plane or in areas with no data coverage.

Luckily, I have found one solutions that works quite well, and meets or exceeds my requirement.

My favorite task solution for Outlook and the iPhone [so far]

My favorite solution so far, is an app called iMExchange (available in the App Store for $7.99).  iMExchange syncs directly with Microsoft Exchange, and can bring in your Tasks and Notes (for those of you still running a pre-v3 iPhone OS). 

iMExchange also creates a local, cached copy of your Tasks and Notes so you can access them even when you aren’t connected to the internet.  Once you’ve synched (over the air), this means you can access your tasks, add new tasks, update the status of existing tasks and so on from the iPhone.

I’ve found that the flexible sorting options (see screen shot at right make it easy to work within the Getting Things Done methodology from my phone).

As an added bonus, since the app connects directly to your Exchange Server, you can edit your Out Of Office message and adjust your Out Of Office status directly from your iPhone.  Pretty cool bonus.

Bottom line:  If you use Microsoft Exchange / Outlook and the iPhone, I think you’ll like iMExchange for managing your tasks while on the go.

Go with the Flow to get into the zone

I was chatting with my friend Matt the other day about productivity and how hard it was to get started on some tasks.  He pointed me to a model called “Flow,” which was developed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.  According to Csíkszentmihályi, “Flow” happens when you are engaged in a highly challenging activity, which is also an activity at which you are highly skilled.

When I read about “Flow” it seems analogous to the feeling you get when you are “in the zone” and performing in what seems to be an effortless way.

Diagnose what’s happening

I’ve printed out a copy of the “Flow” diagram at right and have been using it to help diagnose why I’m avoiding certain tasks.  For example, I don’t really like doing my expense reports.  I find them to be time-consuming and tedious, so I procrastinate like crazy.

There is no “tedious” zone on the diagram, but my feelings most closely match the “boredom” part of the diagram.  That makes sense, since that indicates an unchallenging task that I have a reasonable ability to do.

In a case like filing expenses, there isn’t much I can do to make the task more exciting, so I just batch them together and get them done through sheer force of will (combined with threats from our Finance team that I’d better get them in by quarter end if I want to get reimbursed).

In other cases, when I’m avoiding tasks because I don’t have sufficient skills to be competent at a challenging task, I have two dominant paths I can take:

1. Increase my skill level (which could be through practice, study, or asking for help from someone more skilled), or
2. Alter the task in some way to make it seem less challenging.

Intersection with productivity best practices

In the past, I’ve often gone for option one, but that can be time consuming. 

In my recent “meditations” on the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, I’ve found that option 2 is more achievable than it seems at first glance.  By breaking the difficult challenges down into less daunting subprojects, then translating those into discreet next actions, I can take some of the difficulty out of the work.

I’ve tried this with a number of challenging projects lately, and I’ve managed to get them unstuck through this method.

If you’re interested in more thoughts on this topic, there are a couple of good resources that I know of:

• An excellent book, “Find Your Focus Zone,” that takes best practices from performance coaches (athletes, artists, etc.) and enables anyone to get better at getting “into the zone.”
• An interesting article by Kevin Chiu, discussing how the Flow model integrates with GTD to solve procrastination.

Google Voice – the new Newton?

Back in the day, I had an Apple Newton PDA which was an early, stylus-based (and quite large, by today’s standards) handheld computer.  It was pretty cool but one of the love/hate attributes was its handwriting recognition.  You’d write clearly (or so you thought) but the Newton would mangle the words, creating a nonsense sentence.  This became a joke that was featured in the Doonesbury comic strip and other pop culture outlets.  A classic Newton joke:

Q: How many Newtons does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Farm.

Google Voice

I’ve been using Google Voice for a while now, which is a great, free service that lets you use one, central phone number that can be dynamically routed to whatever other number you like.  One of the most interesting features is that it will allow you to “screen” incoming calls and choose whether to accept them, send them to voice mail, or send them to voice mail while you listen in to what they are saying (you can press a key to take the call if what they say is interesting).

Additionally, you can make long distance calls through Google Voice for “free” (you make a call via Google’s site and it “patches you in” so you don’t incur long distance charges).

Promises unfulfilled

One other feature that holds great promise is one in which Google Voice will transcribe your voice mails to text and email them to you.  This makes it easier to About this feature, I say “holds great promise” because it doesn’t quite have the transcription accuracy that makes this a killer app.  For example, consider this Newton-esque transcription of one of my voice mails:

Pretty hard to tell what this means.  To be fair, the bold text is the part of the transcription they had high confidence in, while the gray text is lower-confidence transcription (and they got the phone number right).

I’m hoping this feature improves – this is one promise I’d love to see them fulfill!  I’d love to be able to route all of my voice mail into my inbox for processing along with my emails.

A new option for Project Management in Outlook

Yesterday, I wrote about a gadget to help you with implementing Getting Things Done (GTD) in Outlook, and pointed out that it also had Project Management capabilities. Today, I am writing about a dedicated gadget for adding robust Project Management capabilities into Outlook.

This product is called “Missing Link Project Center,” and its special purpose in life is to turn Outlook into a full-fledged Project Management tool.  The integration is very polished, and takes advantage of lots of information to make your life easier.

The product’s author, Kevin Moore, claims this is “The Easiest Project Management Tool for Microsoft Outlook” which is  indicative of his philosophy in building the product.

Extending Outlook to align with the needs of Project Managers

Missing Link Project Center (MLPC) does a lot to make Outlook your single pane of glass for projects. It can seamlessly integrate a view that incorporates a project calendar, associated files, associated emails, tasks, and other elements of the project (click the example screen to the right for a larger view).  Project status can also be indicated using a red / yellow / green status indicator so everyone can tell at-a-glance whether the project is on track or at risk.

The integration also occurs into other aspects of Outlook, such as Contacts.  For example, one of the things you typically do in project management is assign tasks to resources, or assign resources to tasks.  If your resource is a contact within Outlook, MLPC extends the contact record so you can add “meta data” about the contact to make reporting and tracking easier.

Furthermore, you can send an email and associate it with a task in one step, since the add-in embeds Project Management-specific fields on the email form (as show in the screenshot at left).

The same kind of form extension is also present on Task forms so you can auto-associate them with projects as you create new tasks.

The integration also tracks versions of associated project documents, so you can report on the full history of the project at any point.  This makes it easy to analyze based on a historical accounting of project scope changes, requirements that have been adjusted, the disposition of tasks assigned, and much more.

Net-net

If you use “traditional” project management tools and either find them to be overkill, or realize you are spending most of your time trying to find project related items in Outlook, it will definitely be worth your while to try the free, 30-day trial of Missing Link Project Center.  And, if you like the product, Kevin’s offering a very attractive introductory price of $49 available right now – a great price for an impressive project management tool.

So how do you decide between the GTD Add-in I wrote about yesterday?  I think it’s fairly easy: 

• If you are a GTD adopter who needs a bit of project management for your personal projects, the GTD Add-in is your likely choice. 
• If you’re a project manager over projects that involve others, then MLPC is your likely choice.

And, of course, both of these require Outlook, which means you’ll need to be in an “Outlook shop” for either of these.

As always, let me know if you have your own mojo to share on these topics (either by comment, trackback, or link).