The system and tools have been pretty stable from a development point of view, but I recently noticed an opportunity to slightly improve the default ResultsManager daily action dashboard template that I thought I would share.

A key concept of GTD is translating your projects into next actions and organizing them by context. Often the value of context assignment is the journey rather than the end. If you think about the specific "how", "where", and "when" of the next action, you will force yourself to translate it into a more "physical" action than it otherwise might be.

One area I am trying to improve is better defining contexts that match my personal situation and style. In practice there have been only a few lists that I proactively seek out from a context point of view:

• "phone" (short for "weekday 9-5")
• "errands" (particularly important in this era of high gas prices)
• "contact X about" (very useful in combination with the the "relationship central" "I owe" and "waiting for"

The problem comes when a "contact about" next action also involves a context. For example…

• Take ActivityDaughter to store to shop for camp supplies (@errands, ActivityDaughter@)
• Call TravelAgent about summer vacation (@phone, TravelAgent@)
• Call mom for mothers day! (@phone, mom@)

The default ResultsManager Daily Action dashboard filters are set up to avoid you getting a long list of "No Context" next actions that are really "Contact X about" items, by filtering out next actions that involve "partners" from the "@" lists and channeling all these to the "contact…" branch. The result is an errand or call that has a partner doesn't show up on the errand or calls list.

This can be addressed by breaking the context-list branch into two such that one captures specific contexts (regardless of partner) and another captures "no partner/no context" items. I thought I would share the procedure for those interested in learning more about customizing dashboards.

Assuming you already have a daily action dashboard generated, you can quickly open the underlying template by clicking on "open template" on the ResultsManager menu:

If you expand the "Next Actions" branch you can see there are parallel "partner" filters, with the first excluding any "contact about" partners from the next action lists and the 2nd to enumerate them:

What we have done here is leverage a lightly documented filter parameter of "_undefined" and "NOT _undefined" to channel defined contexts to the first branch and then "No Context" items to the 2nd, which are further filtered by the original "Partner=N" filter.

Once you have adjusted your dashboard template, you can save it and start using it. If you would prefer to keep the original, you can change the dashboard name (under application/prepare/properties):

and then save it in the "My Dashboards" folder (or elsewhere if you choose):

If you have chosen to save the template as new, you need to "install template" from the ResultsManager menu while it is active to add it to your list of available dashboards:

If you have questions, just comment below. If you want to learn more about how to build a dashboard template from scratch, see the 7 steps on the wiki. If you don't want to go through the "do-it-yourself" exercise above, you can just download the template from the ResultsManager Dashboard Library.

After three years of exploring and tinkering (I bought ResultsManager in May 2005) and collaborating with many of you, I feel I've finally developed a balanced "trusted system" approach that works for me utilizing OutLinker, MindReader, Next Action Analysis, and Mark Task Complete. These macros have finally allowed me to fully leverage the MindManager, ResultsManager, and GyroQ applications.

The Next Action Analysis approach has been pivotal in proving a look at things in a more balanced and comprehensive way. The "game" of trying to empty Outlook inboxes and raise my NAA score has provided just enough incentive to get me to plug my GTD leaks and attack those lingering "high cringe factor" items clogging up my dashboard.

Previously I would spend all my dashboard and review time at the top of the Daily Action Plus Dashboard trying to empty in-trays and deal with items past their deadlines or targets, and neglecting other aspects. Now I feel like my focus shifts appropriately to the 5F that needs the most attention.

After using this set of tools for four months, this week I finally hit a perfect 10.0 on my personal maps and also got my work maps up over 9. If only I had got here during the contest :-).

A trend of my score over time is included at the bottom of the post based on the data collected in the NAALog.mmap. I tend to work with my personal maps on the weekend while doing chores and errands and paying bills :-(. Along the way I spent a lot of time fighting back the tide on each of the 5F's in turn. Once the macro gave me my "perfect score", the question became "what is the next action"?

To celebrate I took a break this evening to create the diagram above, which captures the NAA framework concisely and graphically. This may be helpful to you whatever GTD system or tools you actually use. What makes the next action analysis macro useful is that it generates quantitative metrics for these components and links out to the items that impact each of them (e.g. overdue or aging tasks) rather than requiring separate dashboards for these purposes.

The figure adds a 6th component to the five covered by the NAA tool, which is asking whether you are capturing the "Full Picture" of your work. You can't automate that, although GyroQ can be used to run a full "MindSweep". The other aspect captured in this component is the need for a regular review of "someday/maybe" lists to see what deferred projects merit activating. You might implement this by using a weekly repeating task reminder and then ensure that it stays fresh!

Of course for me what really remains now is finally giving more attention to "non squeaky wheel" projects and actions not currently in the penalty box. I won't be at 10.0 for long if I don't attack the 60 next actions on my home list and 80 on my work list. Unfortunately blogging isn't on either of them :-).

All the best,

AO

Note that the scoring has been adjusted to encourage more context assignment. For background on the tool see previous posts or its wiki page.

The macro now defaults to routing transfers to MindManager through GyroQ, which is much faster. I didn't want to publicize this until I'd tested it out on a few thousand messages. It is working well now that issues with escaping quote characters have been resolved. If you choose, you can avoid use of GyroQ by setting the "usegyroq" setting to 0 and just have items transfer in real-time. You can also avoid use of MindReader by setting "usemindreader" to 0. All you really need is Outlook and MindManager.

The script now uses session variables and a cache to hold information in memory between uses, which has improved speed quite a bit — thanks for the tips Mike! The menu of commands has been expanded as shown below:

I use the macro by selecting anywhere from 1 to 250 messages at a time and then dispatching them quickly by either deleting (d), archiving (a), or by typing in an action item to send to MindManager. Non-action reference items can be sent over by adding a "isinfo" keyword.

It can be mentally challenging to transfer "urgent" items over to MindManager, but if you resolve to get all the way to "zero" and add short term target dates to urgent items, you can move over to MindManager and use your ResultsManager "Daily Action" dashboard and the
"Next Action Analysis" macro to guide your day.

All settings and counters for the scripts are kept in a "OutLinker Settings" Notes folder:

If you are currently using the script, I'd recommend pasting the latest version of OutLinker.bas into your macro file. If you have tried it in the past but ran into bugs or glitches, give this version a go. If you haven't tried it yet, have a look at the installation instructions on the wiki and post below if you have any questions.

… I understand that GTD is not a set of absolute rules, but tools to use to your benefit, but am not comfortable with something key in the Next Step, concept. We're told that if something will take more than say, two minutes, stick it in the system. I assume this leads to documenting every step that will take more than two minutes? But it can't, or we would document going to the grocery store as 200 steps, obviously making the process more laborious than is beneficial. So how do you know how to break projects down?

Is it entirely arbitrary? The system is very keen on next steps, but what about all of the 'other' steps? So, I'm going to build a house myself, and the Next Step is to draw blueprints. But I know that to draw blueprints I need to buy big paper, and when I have them I'll need to go to the copy store and make copies, and I'll need to look in the yellow pages for contractors, and I'll need to make a list of contractors to call, and I'll need to call each one, and, and, and… By breaking this into discrete components (especially if I'm going to take the time to enter them into an electronic system), I would seem to exponentially increase the time it will take to get the project actually done. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture, and I admit, I'm on the very outside edge crawling towards the center of all of this…

David Allen has a knack for ironic phrases like "the center is the edge", "being complete with your incompletions", etc. Perhaps the analogous phrase he might use to answer your question would be "Getting things done is about getting things done".

Barriers to getting things done

What barriers get in the way of getting things done? Not capturing the "things" in the first barrier. "Things" can sit in your inbox, on your desk, workbench, garage floor, or mind. GTD stresses capturing all your "stuff" in a trusted system of some type. This is where tools like GyroQ and OutLinker come in. The "2 minute" rule relates to the trade-off of the time needed to process something into your projects and next action lists versus just doing it. I think with advent of fluid tools like those covered on this site, that guideline might need some revising, but that's for another post.

Once something is "captured", the next "not getting done" barrier can be lack of clarity on what is the first baby step to get it moving. This is where "next physical actions" come in. Although it has evolved to do quite a bit more, MindReader was initially conceived as a way to try to automatically assign "contexts" based on action verbs in phrases going into GyroQ or in MindManager topics. Sometimes the thought process of identifying the "next physical action" involves a backward sequencing process (replace tires - schedule visit - call store - lookup phone number) that generates a string of next actions. Once you have gone through that thought process, you might as well capture it in a map so that checking off the 1st step automatically queues up the next, but its not essential. Often just getting that 1st physical next action identified early catalyzes the rest of the process to move ahead quickly and naturally.

The third barrier to getting things done can be lack of having all those unrelated baby steps organized by "context" so that you can advance them efficiently. Among its other capabilities, ResultsManager excels at harvesting all your next actions from a network of project maps and laying them out for you in a single dashboard of next actions by contexts. Having a convenient "context" list can make you more productive in the little snippets of time that might otherwise be used inefficiently or go to waste. With gas prices being what they are, an "errands" list is all the more important.

The Chess Analogy
So how you do you break projects down? When I envision GTD, I think of what it could be like to be one of those grandmaster chess players who can run around a room and play 30 games (projects) at once. Now perhaps they do that by instantly recognizing the pattern on the board each time and the best next move. If I was going to do it, I'd have a project map for each game with some working notes and reference links on it, and a task reminder that the other player had the next move and to make sure I came back to it. I might also have a "next move" lined up based on the previous "review" of the situation for that game (project).

Thinking about this in another way, "Getting things done is not about what you are getting done". You don't need to document each completed action, or plan each next action for a project you are actively working on. You just want make sure you set projects up (or set them aside with) at least one next step to keep things moving.

Next question: Just want to make sure I understand something about the technology. I understand that MindReader requires MindManager/MindJet and Gyroq, but does it REQUIRE ResultsManager? (I have all of these tools, just trying to wrap my head around what does what). If I understand correctly, RM is really just a reporting tool (maybe an important one, but still a reporting tool). Is this correct?

No, technically MindReader doesn't require ResultsManager or even GyroQ (it has some limited functionality running directly on topics as a standalone macro), but there is a lot of synergy amongst the tools. MindReader enables GyroQ to capture and set the context, due date, priority, etc of a large quantity of tasks and spread them across many maps in one step. This is most useful if you have the ability to pull all that information back together into a dashboard with ResultsManager.

Other readers can provide additional insights below.

The Next Action Analysis macro calculates and sorts these metrics for ResultsManager users by harvesting information from the Daily Action Dashboard. It also creates lists of actions and projects associated with the various components (e.g. aging tasks) as well as provides targeted advice on how to attack and improve your situation.

To have some fun with this, and provide readers with a framework for "climbing back on the GTD horse" in the new year, we initiated the "Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge". The goal was to get an initial assessment in the 1st half of January and then work to improve it by the end of the month.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It isn't easy to share the state of your "system". I think it was helpful to everyone to see that others are in the same boat. The entries and results are summarized below (Courtesy of Map2Table):

	Initial Score	Final Score	Improvement	Current Score
Juan	2.00	6.07	4.07
AO	6.40	7.50	1.10	9.59
Arkadiy	6.77
Bill S.	7.60
DW	7.95
Jose-Miguel	8.20	9.82	1.62	9.41
Mal	7.00
Renaldostheold	7.40	9.22	1.82	9.96

And the winners of the 2008 GTD challenge….

• Highest Final Score: Jose-Miguel
• Biggest Improvement: Juan
• Random Drawing: Renaldostheold

I think a few of these folks may have already claimed their prizes :-).

Here are some random thoughts and advice on use of the tool…

Context is King
In general it felt like the revised scoring was well balanced, and put me on the areas needing focus, but the one area that probably merits more weighting is the penalty for actions lacking context. The "no context" list is always with ripe with "blobs" that need more thought and review. Eliminating items from this list tends to help several others scores. For example sending them to someday/maybe, defining a new/younger physical next action, marking already complete items done, can be impactful on several dimensions. I am looking at raising the weighting here but need to decide where to steal the points from. Thoughts? My guess is "project proritization" or "Target Dates".

My Favorite?
If I personally had to give up using all but one tool from this site, this would be the one that I would keep. I have found it has kept me focused on all aspects of my system and forced me to address the stale tasks that were bogging it down. The delay in getting this contest entry posted is a testament to that as the "game" of improving your score can keep you focused on your important projects (rather than your blog :-).

How Many Next Actions are Too Many?
In order to get 10.0 on the "feasibility" scale, you need to knock your next actions down to 80. You'll only get a 5.0 on that dimension if you have 150 actions. That's a pretty stiff penalty, but the purpose is to reinforce the concept of actually doing the items on your list rather than carrying them around for weeks or months at a time. The scoring make your next action list expensive real estate that you want to populate with things you are committed to doing in the near term.

Do you Trust your Trusted System?
I've found the key to using tools like GyroQ, MindReader, and OutLinker to capture commitments into MindManager, is knowing that you maps are not black holes. If you don't trust it, you'll tend to keep "important" items piled up on your desk or in your OutLook Inbox. Keeping your NAA score up, and reviewing the flags it raises regularly, can help you build that trust into your system such that it become closer to 100%.

Are your Projects Projects?
It is very easy to fall into the trap of throwing all your tasks under "area" buckets (e.g. "Home Repair") that last forever rather than defining specific projects. The project priority and target date metrics are there not so much to yield benefits to your dashboard, but to help you decide whether a project should go to the someday/maybe list or be broken out as a smaller/more specific project.

Are your Targets Targets?
As mentioned above, the purpose of the target date assignment metric is not so much for the value of setting targets, but for forcing as many items as possible into defined/do-able projects. One thing you want to avoid is perpetually setting unrealistic targets such that you spend your time discouraged by them or postponing them.

If you use "Mark Task Complete" to set up routine "good habit" reminders, try setting just the start date rather than both the start and due date. For example, if you have a daily reminder called "empty in-tray", set it as a "daily" with just a start date. That way it will show up on your next action lists, and you'll take satisfaction in checking it off, but it won't clutter your "overdue" lists.

How to Deal with In-trays?
Based on my experiences with this tool, I've begun setting up my in-tray's with a "project" icon, particularly on "map central" maps. The key advantage of this approach is that it ensures that its parent "project" flags as needing next actions if it becomes empty. It also helps you avoid letting random "bits and pieces" actions find there way in under a map central map. I'll blog more about this later. You can also remove a central topic from the project list by giving it a category of "mc*", but this option should be used with care.

Have you tried it?
The script has improved quite a bit over the last month, so if you haven't done so recently I would recommend downloading the latest copy. Recent versions provide the option of opening a wiki page dedicated to providing advice on improving the weakest aspect of your score. If you are a routine dashboard user, or have ResultsManager, but have "fallen of the GTD horse", give this a try. It doesn't require that you have any other "AO" tools. All you need is ResultsManager for generating Daily Action Dashboards.

Next Steps?
Any interest in further contests? Are there any other aspects of the DA dashboard that could be assessed? I'd write more, but I need to get going on some procrastinated "next actions" so I can improve my "Freshness" score :-).

Here are four options for getting items into your maps from a mobile device.

1. Use bitbucket.org to mail yourself task from the PDA and then pull
   the tasks in via an RSS map part (see A MindManager-Based RSS News Reader.

2. Take that approach one step farther, and call in your tasks verbally
   to Jott with the phone rather than typing them in. This is handy for
   use when driving (see GTD Phone Home. ActivityDaughter also uses it to remind Dad of things like the need to get started on her upcoming Volcano project.

3. If the phone's task list is Outlook synced, you can pull the Outlook tasks into MindManager using OutLinker.
4. If you capture the tasks in a note, you can paste the list into the
   MindReader GyroQ "q" tag, and it will process and parse each line separately into
   separate tasks. You don't need to paste them 1 by 1. See Feed your todo list into MindReader.

   I personally tend to just carry two thin Moleskine notebooks (one work/one personal) in my pocket and log things there for later manual transfer with GyroQ.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/15/four-ways-to-add-tasks-to-your-maps-from-your-phone/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/08/the-matrix/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/08/the-matrix/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:19:52 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/08/the-matrix/ MindManager provides a great environment for group brainstorming on issues and ideas and for organizing information. While you may start out in an unstructured way, you will often find your final product has a 3-level deep structure such as in the Pro/Con analysis shown below.

   

   In these cases it can be handy to convert this into a tabular format for sharing or review as shown below.

   

   The tabular format can be particularly appealing to map-averse "list people".

   The map2table macro can do this conversion quickly for you. The resulting html file can be shared on a web site or easily imported to Excel or Word. It creates the table by compiling a list of the main topics under the selected topic (usually the central topic) and then searching each branch to accumulate the 2nd dimension of the table. You have the choice to set the 1st layer topics as the row to column headings.

   The tabular format is also useful when you want a new way to look at a custom ResultsManager dashboard like "Committed Projects and Next Actions" and assess the balance across your areas of responsibility (see earlier blog entry).

   Note that the macro will capture a 4th level of detail by combining the text of the underlying topics into the title text of the table hyperlinks so they can be view if you hover on the entry. It also adds hyperlinks associated with the topics by default. More details are available on the macro's wiki page.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/08/the-matrix/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/07/project-reporting/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/07/project-reporting/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:14:06 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/07/project-reporting/ On the GTD-MIndManager Yahoo Group, Rob asked:

   One area I have always struggled is in creating an effective report, this is becoming a major issue as due to a change of manager I now have to submit these weekly. I'd like to be able to produce a report showing all active projects and some form of summary \ status. I need to submit this in word or excel as the person I'm reporting into is not a fan of mapping to put it mildly. I appreciate the above is vauge but I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas on how anyone is acheiving anything similair,

   Hi Rob — I thought it might make more sense to answer here on the blog as the group can use the comments to brainstorm towards a solution for you.

   One trick is to create a status "task" for each project and tag it with a "status" category. This will allow you to select for it in your reporting dashboard. You will also have to exclude these "next actions" from your routine dashboards with Category="NOT Status" filters. The next trick you can use it to make use of the map2table macro to convert a dashboard to an html table. This macro is actually one of the most useful on the site and I find use for it every week or so. The long name for this macro is "Map to List Person" :-). If you can conceptualize how you want the tabular report to look, I'm sure a dashboard can be built to route through map2table.

   Finally, if you want to try to include completed activities/projects in a dashboard, you need to toggle the "include already completed activities" to yes temporarily. That is a bit tedious and can't be automated, so I personally haven't gone down that road. It might also take some tweaking to filter for recent completions.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/02/07/project-reporting/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/31/alias/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/31/alias/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:08:13 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/31/alias/ Per Ron's suggestion, the latest version of MindReader incorporates the ability to substitute a string of text for an "Alias". For example, if you frequently add someday maybe projects to your home repair map, you can define a "sdhr" alias which substitutes [isproject home repair someday] into your task so that it is marked up and sent to your home repair map. The default example is "this weekend", which translates to [Sunday 3 days before].
   You also can use it to put brackets around destination map names (e.g. "repairmap" = [repairmap]) or to expand a nickname (e.g. "Mountaineer" = "Sydney Bristow").

   You need to download the latest versions of MindReaderNLP.mmbas and MindReaderOpen.mmbas from the MindManager Macro Library for this to work. MindReaderNLP will add the alias branch to the configuration map the first time it is run.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/31/alias/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/new-gyroq-k-tag-set-destination-map-keywords/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/new-gyroq-k-tag-set-destination-map-keywords/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:32:59 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/new-gyroq-k-tag-set-destination-map-keywords/ One of MindReader's handy features is that it allows you to send tasks to specific maps based on a keyword. This allows you to avoid having to deal with a huge "Daily Capture Map" backlog when you want to sort out things related to specific project or area of responsibility.

   Previously you needed to add the destination map keywords directly in the MindReader.mmap configuration file. Now all you need to do is install the packed text for the new MindReader "k" tag from the GyroQ tag library into your GyroQ dialog box. Once installed, navigate to a frequently used map, toggle to the k tag, and then enter a keyword to associate with that map.

   I have keywords associated with the map centrals associated with each area of responsibility and for frequently used maps. You can associate as many keywords with a map as you like (e.g. "2007 Taxes", "2007Taxes", etc). Be sure to choose keywords that are unique enough that they won't cause false positive matches on unrelated topics.

   Note that you can now also organize the links branch of your mindreader.mmap into layers rather than as just one big list. MindReader will search from the bottom up so you can have a keyword like "MindReader bugs" that will fire off before the parent "MindReader" keyword. In order to get this functionality, you need an updated copy of MindReaderOpen.mmbas from the Macro Library.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/new-gyroq-k-tag-set-destination-map-keywords/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/mindreader-update-capture-notes-and-links-without-using-keywords/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/mindreader-update-capture-notes-and-links-without-using-keywords/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:48:39 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/mindreader-update-capture-notes-and-links-without-using-keywords/ MindReader has always had the option of capturing a link or note along with a task. It did this by always taking a copy of the clipboard at the time of use and then adding it to the task as a note or link if the "note" or "link" keyword was in the string.

   This has been handy, but a several nagging problems have emerged over time:

   • You could get false positives if you used "link" or "note" in your text when you were not actually capturing a link or note.
   • Having large amounts of clipboard text go into queue file could cause GyroQ problems
   • You needed to do extra thinking to add right keyword.

   Now that has all gone away. Instead of doing a select/copy of desired note or link, then control-Q, then typing text with keyword, you just do the following:

   1. Select the text or hyperlink of interest
   2. Hit Control-Shift-G ("grab") to invoke GyroQ
   3. Toggle to q or fq tag and type your text.

   MindReader will automatically identify the text as either a note or hyperlink and add it. It cases where you don't invoke GyroQ with Control-Shift-G, it will not bother putting the clipboard into the queue file, and thus improve MindReader speed and robustness. This would have been implemented early on but the "text grab" feature was in beta at the time and we needed to allow time for folks to upgrade to 1.9.4.7.

   In order to cut over to this new approach, you need to download updated versions of MindReaderOpen.mmbas and MindReaderNLP.mmbas from the Macro Library and paste in the packed text for the q and fq GyroQ tags from the Tag Library.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/27/mindreader-update-capture-notes-and-links-without-using-keywords/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/mindreader-turns-1-gets-its-braces-taken-off/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/mindreader-turns-1-gets-its-braces-taken-off/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:47:45 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/mindreader-turns-1-gets-its-braces-taken-off/ Although the first prototype emerged earlier, the first production version of MindReader made its debut 1 year ago last Sunday. I'd like to thanks to all who have helped take it from its early 14-word vocabulary to the large collection of keywords it recognizes today.

   Recently we've been debating how to best read your mind in the comments. I like to use natural keywords in an action to signify something (e.g. call Jose) but often a disposable keyword works best (e.g. isproject). While commenting on the desirability of avoiding the need to add [braces] around these types of keywords to make them not show up in your final task, I realized that with a few lines of code most "disposable" keywords can be recognized and removed from the task.

   If you download the latest version of MindReaderNLP.mmbas from the macro library, you can now type "Download MindReader someday @web p1" and it will be converted to "download MindReader" with priority-1 and someday icons and a context of @web. Previously you would have had to type "Download MindReader [someday p1 @web]". You can continue to use braces for items like destination map keywords.

   Note that MindReader also now recognizes full dates directly without the need for ## delimiters, so you can type "Pay taxes by 4/15/08!" and it will set the deadline at 4/15.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/mindreader-turns-1-gets-its-braces-taken-off/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/dont-leave-outlinker-code-on-your-clipboard-after-installation/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/dont-leave-outlinker-code-on-your-clipboard-after-installation/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:36:01 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/dont-leave-outlinker-code-on-your-clipboard-after-installation/ One handy feature of MindReader is its ability to set the current contents of the clipboard as a task's hyperlink or note if you include a keyword (isnote, see note, islink, see link). As currently configured it always grabs the contents of the clipboard and puts it in the queue file because it can't know ahead of time if one of these keywords is present.

   The first step in OutLinker Installation is to copy/paste the macro code into the Microsoft Outlook macro editor. As it turns out, something about the size or specific content of the current macro text confuses GyroQ if it is captured from the clipboard while using the "q" or "fq" command. This leads GyroQ to choke on the clipboard contents. This has impacted several OutLinker users in last few days (including me). The fix is to clear your queue and then make sure you clear your clipboard by clicking on the clipboard icon on the GyroQ dialog box or replace the context with something smaller.

   I'd like to avoid the problem above in general. There are two options I can think of to address it. One is to create a separate tag (cq, lq, nq?) to use on occasions when you plan to capture the clipboard contents as a note or link. This option could either use the clipboard as is or prompt you to paste in content to a dialog box directly

   The 2nd is to change q/fq to require you to invoke GyroQ with the "textgrab" option (Control-ShiftG). This feature wasn't available when MindReader first launched.

   Comment below with your preferences.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/24/dont-leave-outlinker-code-on-your-clipboard-after-installation/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/22/important-mindreader-update-for-outlinker-users/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/22/important-mindreader-update-for-outlinker-users/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:50:27 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/22/important-mindreader-update-for-outlinker-users/ I've used OutLinker to process a couple thousand email messages, and generally it is working well, but I recently noticed a couple capture maps that it had sent tasks to would crash MindManager if I brought certain topics into view. I discovered today that the problem is that these tasks happen to have the string "link" in them.

   As I mentioned in "MindReader: How to Best Read your Mind", the original "link" and "note" keywords used to tell MindReader to use the clipboard contents as a note or link were prone to false positives (e.g. "notebook") and have been replaced by islink, see link, isnote and see note.
   use of control shift g.
   As it turns out in this case, the "link" keyword was overriding the OutLinker keyword and causing the MindManager link to include both the Outlook link and the message body. When MindManager scanned the link to get the icon to display for the link, it would choke on the malformed link. I apologize if any of you have experienced this issue.

   The latest version of MindReaderNLP.mmbas in the Macro Library avoids this problem and also scans your destination maps as it opens them to repair any existing links. If you are using Outlinker, please download this version immediately.

   If you have a map that has developed this issue, you can also just run the following snippet of code on it to fix the problem:

   
   Sub Main
   For Each t In doc.Range(mmRangeAllTopics)
   If t.HasHyperlink Then
   If InStr(t.Hyperlink.Address,"|")>0 Then
   t.Hyperlink.Address = Left(t.Hyperlink.Address,InStr(t.Hyperlink.Address,"|")-1)
   End If
   End If
   Next
   End Sub

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/22/important-mindreader-update-for-outlinker-users/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/outbox-zero/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/outbox-zero/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:24:40 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/outbox-zero/ If you are using OutLinker you may have achieved Inbox Zero for the first time in awhile. Don't stop there.

   While your inbox contains a mixture of spam, bulk mail, info-only cc's, and perhaps 10% actionable information, your "Sent Items" will tend to have a much more concentrated set of …

   • commitments you have made to others
   • things you are now waiting for
   • things you need to contact others about
   • things you need to inform others about
   • things you want to retain for ready reference

   These are open loops you want to capture in whatever GTD system you are using at the end of each day. If you are using MindManager with ResultsManager and have Outlinker installed, open your sent-items, select the messages you sent, and run OutLinker. At the prompt you can type …

   • d - to delete the message
   • a - to archive the message
   • ra - to reply all to supplement the message (rad will reply and delete)
   • f - to forward the message

   ..or you can type in your "next action" to send it to MindManager. If you precede the text with "info:" or "info only:" it will not be marked with a action icon.

   If you lead the string with "olwf", "olio", or "olca", MindReader will markup the task as being something you are waiting for, owe to, or need to contact about the person you sent it to. [Note: its not working right for multiple recipients at the moment]. Gmail is more persistent in its desire to keep things in the Sent Folder, so you need to implement a filter that labels all your outgoing mail and then act on that label folder as if it was your sent items.

   Matches: from:(yourname@gmail.com)
   Do This: Apply label "_Sent"

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/outbox-zero/feed/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/mindreader-how-to-best-read-your-mind/ http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/mindreader-how-to-best-read-your-mind/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:01:36 +0000 ActivityOwner http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/mindreader-how-to-best-read-your-mind/ MindReader turns one year old Sunday. The initial version ("Let GyroQ read your mind") only recognized 13 keywords. Its vocabulary has grown quite a bit over time. As MindReader grows up, there are a few keywords that need to be revised or added.

   Projects and Sub-Projects
   Earlier versions were configured to recognize "project" and "subproject" and assign ResultsManager custom icons for these, but I later realized that it would see both strings as "project". We've also subsequently seen that you often use the word "project" in a "next action" that you don't want turned into a project. The current version now uses "rmproject" and "rmresult" to avoid that issue and some have customized this instead to "isproject" and "isresult". Another possibility might be "make project" and "make result". Any recommendations or suggestions for the default configuration?

   Notes and Links
   The program currently uses the clipboard text as a note or hyperlink if the entered text has "note" or "link" in it. I've noticed that this sometimes leads to problems if I use either string (e.g. "buy notebook") when I'm not actually intending to add a note or link. Should the default triggers be "see note" / "see link"? Those phrases could act as reminders from dashboard that the tasks show has supporting information.

   Info Only
   I'm finding that while using OutLinker to transfer message links into MindManager, that any given "next action" usually has 5-10 additional messages that provide supporting reference for it . While you can send it information in as "next actions" and then consolidate later, I'm thinking that it would be better to have the option of telling MindReader not add the action-icon. What syntax would you prefer to use for that? "Info:"? "noaction"? "reference"?

   Complete
   Some folks may want the option sending information into maps to document actions they have completed. How would you want to convey that? "Done:"?

   Due Date
   This isn't really a question but an announcement. Previously you needed to add due dates within # # delimiters in order for them to be recognized (e.g. #12/25/08#) but now MindReader will look for the "/ /" and recognize 12/25/08 by itself (or 25/12/08 if that is your system's format). You can still use #12/25# or #Dec 25# but I find it easier to just type it out. Don't overuse this feature or your next action list will turn red and your NAA score will suffer :-).

   MindReader is fully customizable via the mindreader.mmap (see Mapping the MindReader Configuration Map), so ultimately these are yours to choose, but I'd like to pick defaults that make sense.

   Comment below with your thoughts.

   ]]> http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/18/mindreader-how-to-best-read-your-mind/feed/