I was glad to read this book, it certainly gave me some ideas about using Outlook better. It soon becomes obvious that Outlook is not an "information organiser" - you have to provide the organisation with some form of process or discipline.

This is the wisdom Sally McGhee tries to impart and she provides a daily method for using Outlook better. I like the way she encourages you to look at your bigger aims and to tie your personal and business activities to these. Her focus is refreshing because she puts your outcomes first, and the tool second. What do you want to achieve this year? How does each daily task relate to my bigger objectives?

There are many basic but true ideas in this book, such as her discussion about Collection points, supporting reference materials and so on.

There are a few small problems with the book, which would be nice to see addressed in the next version.

Firstly, the book is too verbose. Inside this book there's a smaller book trying to get out. While the fundamental ideas are important, there's too much preamble and repetition of concepts. This is meant to be a practical book and I found myself struggling to get to the actions. I really think it could be half the size and more beneficial. Getting organised isn't served well by a large book.

Second, I suspect the author hasn't really used her method with the PocketPC, as she suggests. Being a Microsoft book, a lot is made of the synchronisation between Outlook and Pocket PC. However, a few things don't work as she describes. Her category names are too long, so they don't work on screen on the handheld device. So you use the category "Projects" instead of "Supporting Projects" and "Objectives" instead of "Meaningful Objectives", etc. Also, I found that things appear in the wrong order on the Pocket PC screen, so the judicious use of "." is helpful (for example, try ".SNA Call" instead of "Strategic Next Actions: Call"). These probably seem like minor niggles, but if you're really going to use Sally's method on PPC, you want it to work! There are also some technical areas which are simply not covered, for example ActiveSync only synchronises Tasks when wired to the desktop PC, but not over the air like Pocket Calendar and Pocket Inbox. No discussion on this :o(

Third, I don't know of any support in Outlook to link task items hierarchically. This means that you do more maintenance which is a pain. Sally recommends a structure of Objectives -> Projects -> Tasks, and she asks you to maintain your Objectives and Projects as 'top level' task items which you refer to like reference entries in your task list. This works, but the linkage between these is YOU and you keep it working by cutting and pasting and updating things between the levels. It would be nice to have some simple SOFTWARE to manage this three-level tree so you could see it all at a glance and only update things once. Sadly Outlook only has a list view for Tasks, it doesn't understand Task relationships or trees. Perhaps she could offer this tool from her website as a freebie? Not that hard to do.

Fourth, I feel she doesn't give enough guidance to get started progressively: she takes an "all or nothing approach", a big bang. This is a problem because it needs several hours to set the whole system up. I understand Sally is a trainer and consultant, so she gets a full day with her clients - but when working from the book, you might find it hard to commit a whole day to setting up the system. She just needs to include some progressive steps to getting started, so you can move things across from how you work today.

Fifth, I don't find Sally's recommendations on filing that helpful, and again there's no plan for moving from your current arrangements to her suggested system. When you have gigabytes of material from many aspects of your business it's hard to envisage reorganising it all.

These are fairly minor problems. I do recommend this book if Outlook presents you with information overload rather than clarity and focus. I found it very useful and I use her ideas.

I was glad to read this book, it certainly gave me some ideas about using Outlook better. It soon becomes obvious that Outlook is not an "information organiser" - you have to provide the organisation with some form of process or discipline.

This is the wisdom Sally McGhee tries to impart and she provides a daily method for using Outlook better. I like the way she encourages you to look at your bigger aims and to tie your personal and business activities to these. Her focus is refreshing because she puts your outcomes first, and the tool second. What do you want to achieve this year? How does each daily task relate to my bigger objectives?

There are many basic but true ideas in this book, such as her discussion about Collection points, supporting reference materials and so on.

There are a few small problems with the book, which would be nice to see addressed in the next version.

Firstly, the book is too verbose. Inside this book there's a smaller book trying to get out. While the fundamental ideas are important, there's too much preamble and repetition of concepts. This is meant to be a practical book and I found myself struggling to get to the actions. I really think it could be half the size and more beneficial. Getting organised isn't served well by a large book.

Second, I suspect the author hasn't really used her method with the PocketPC, as she suggests. Being a Microsoft book, a lot is made of the synchronisation between Outlook and Pocket PC. However, a few things don't work as she describes. Her category names are too long, so they don't work on screen on the handheld device. So you use the category "Projects" instead of "Supporting Projects" and "Objectives" instead of "Meaningful Objectives", etc. Also, I found that things appear in the wrong order on the Pocket PC screen, so the judicious use of "." is helpful (for example, try ".SNA Call" instead of "Strategic Next Actions: Call"). These probably seem like minor niggles, but if you're really going to use Sally's method on PPC, you want it to work! There are also some technical areas which are simply not covered, for example ActiveSync only synchronises Tasks when wired to the desktop PC, but not over the air like Pocket Calendar and Pocket Inbox. No discussion on this :o(

Third, I don't know of any support in Outlook to link task items hierarchically. This means that you do more maintenance which is a pain. Sally recommends a structure of Objectives -> Projects -> Tasks, and she asks you to maintain your Objectives and Projects as 'top level' task items which you refer to like reference entries in your task list. This works, but the linkage between these is YOU and you keep it working by cutting and pasting and updating things between the levels. It would be nice to have some simple SOFTWARE to manage this three-level tree so you could see it all at a glance and only update things once. Sadly Outlook only has a list view for Tasks, it doesn't understand Task relationships or trees. Perhaps she could offer this tool from her website as a freebie? Not that hard to do.

Fourth, I feel she doesn't give enough guidance to get started progressively: she takes an "all or nothing approach", a big bang. This is a problem because it needs several hours to set the whole system up. I understand Sally is a trainer and consultant, so she gets a full day with her clients - but when working from the book, you might find it hard to commit a whole day to setting up the system. She just needs to include some progressive steps to getting started, so you can move things across from how you work today.

Fifth, I don't find Sally's recommendations on filing that helpful, and again there's no plan for moving from your current arrangements to her suggested system. When you have gigabytes of material from many aspects of your business it's hard to envisage reorganising it all.

These are fairly minor problems. I do recommend this book if Outlook presents you with information overload rather than clarity and focus. I found it very useful and I use her ideas.

Take back your Life:-Using Microsoft outlook to get organized and stay organizer's author is very innovative. It gives in-depth knowledge of youngster's needs and behavior. And it shows how to balance work life. Her techniques are very simple but very expressive.

Take back your Life:-Using Microsoft outlook to get organized and stay organizer's author is very innovative. It gives in-depth knowledge of youngster's needs and behavior. And it shows how to balance work life. Her techniques are very simple but very expressive.

Take back your Life:-Using Microsoft outlook to get organized and stay organizer's author is very innovative. It gives in-depth knowledge of youngsters needs and behavior. And it shows how to balance work life. Her techniques are very simple but very expressive.

Take back your Life:-Using Microsoft outlook to get organized and stay organizer's author is very innovative. It gives in-depth knowledge of youngsters needs and behavior. And it shows how to balance work life. Her techniques are very simple but very expressive.

Author Sally McGhee is a leader in the field of productivity management, teaching businesses how to streamline their operations for efficiency: Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Outlook To Get Organized And Stay Organized uses the techniques designed by her business and implemented in many Fortune 500 companies, translating these techniques to fit the features of Microsoft Outlook to help users balance both home and work lives. Chapters cover everything from tracking agreements and task lists to organizing objectives and email alike. The tips on creating a workable folder hierarchy are particularly well done.

Author Sally McGhee is a leader in the field of productivity management, teaching businesses how to streamline their operations for efficiency: Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Outlook To Get Organized And Stay Organized uses the techniques designed by her business and implemented in many Fortune 500 companies, translating these techniques to fit the features of Microsoft Outlook to help users balance both home and work lives. Chapters cover everything from tracking agreements and task lists to organizing objectives and email alike. The tips on creating a workable folder hierarchy are particularly well done.

As soon as I got the book from our HR department, I thought to myself "when am I going to have time to read this book?", and then I put it away. I was going through a very stressful period at the time, and I had to make a hard stop and get away for a couple days to relax and not think about work.

So I took the book with he, thinking "maybe there is something I can learn"... as soon as I started to read I could not stop, I did not care if I had to work all day and read at night, I took every single free minute I had to read the book. As results, this book has changed my life. I can say "no", I think I am in control of both my personal and business life, and I am very happy with the methodology and how it is working for me.



Thanks to all the team that work on making this book

As soon as I got the book from our HR department, I thought to myself "when am I going to have time to read this book?", and then I put it away. I was going through a very stressful period at the time, and I had to make a hard stop and get away for a couple days to relax and not think about work.

So I took the book with he, thinking "maybe there is something I can learn"... as soon as I started to read I could not stop, I did not care if I had to work all day and read at night, I took every single free minute I had to read the book. As results, this book has changed my life. I can say "no", I think I am in control of both my personal and business life, and I am very happy with the methodology and how it is working for me.



Thanks to all the team that work on making this book