One of the most useful devices I have in my study is my trusty Fellowes cross-cut shredder.
Sadly it’s not quite so hardcore that it handles CD-ROMs or credit cards but here’s a video to show you how to cut up your credit cards so that they cannot be used to glean any personal data from it.
About 3-4 weeks ago my beloved O2 Xda Orbit phone started to act erratically, randomly switching itself off according to its own unfathomable set of rules. It was okay when plugged in, but it was getting increasingly impractical pulling an extension cable along Market Street when I went out for lunch.
I figured that resetting the Xda Orbit to factory settings was what it needed and spent an evening reinstalling everything. To no avail. It would still randomly switch itself o…
I put up with it over a weekend and telephoned O2 the following Monday morning and ordered a very similar device, the O2 Xda Zest; a rebranded Asus Crystal.
There was so much that I liked about the Xda Orbit: the built-in GPS, WiFi, GPRS Web browsing, FM radio and I could synchronize it with my PCs at both home and work. The Xda Zest seemed to offer much the same, only with a much improved screen (proper VGA 480 x 640 pixels) and a much, much faster CPU.
Except the FM radio.
And, as I discovered to my cost, synchronizing with two PCs!
You see, I naively followed the assumption that the next version of something would be a little better than the previous version of that something. That’s how advertising has reeled me in so often during these last 30+ years.
“Ooh! look! A new one. It must be better. I want it!”
Isn’t that how it usually works?
Seemingly no-one told the Windows Mobile team that. Because it seems that there was a fundamental flaw in Windows Mobile 6.1: it wouldn’t synchronize with two PCs! Even though that’s one of its key features.
Which seems a bit like buying a new car, getting it home and discovering that it drives on A-roads but not your local streets. You can use it at work, but not at home.
Which for many people wouldn’t be a problem, but for the last 3 years that’s been the backbone of my organization system. No matter where I’ve been, at work, at home, out-and-about, I’ve always had a full picture of my appointments, commitments, contacts, tasks and priorities.
When I worked from home, in the parish, things were in many ways easier: I had one PC with which I synchronized my Psion 5mx. It was an almost flawless system. But the introduction of a second base, my office, added a new level of complexity. Windows Mobile 6.0 (just about) handled it admirably using ActiveSync (though quite often more correctly spelled ‘ActiveSink’!). Windows Mobile 6.1, however, has let me down quite spectacularly. And not just me, as a quick Web search will prove.
For the last 3 weeks or so, however, I’ve been at sixes and sevens. Thankfully, because I’ve been backing up my Outlook PST files more often than usual, I’ve not actually lost any data but on more than one occasion I’ve ended up with a lot (a LOT) of duplicated data which is just as time-consuming to deal with.
And all the while not entirely sure of the whole picture of my life, which is rather unsettling for someone who is usually so on top of things.
So where do I go now? How do I recover my sense of being-on-top-of-things?
Sync my Psion with both
I tried that, but again the Psion wasn’t really designed to be synchronized with more than one PC. I get errors, so have to re-sync from scratch and end up either duplicating data or reintroducing data that I’ve already deleted on one of the platforms.
Google Calendar
I’ve tried to synchronize my Outlook calendar with Google Calendar using Google’s own Google Calendar Sync. But it didn’t synchronize all my events, and what about my tasks?
I’m going to try out XTNDConnect PC to synchronize Outlook with Google Calendar and see how that works; I’ve already tried it synchronizing Outlook with Windows Mobile 6.1 but it duplicated everything!
Outlook 2007 will allow me to subscribe to an iCalendar feed, such as that offered by Google Calendar, which is great for when I’m at my desktop — but what about when I’m out-and-about with my my phone (or Psion)?
Remember the Milk
I then tried Remember the Milk to synchronize my Windows Mobile Pocket Outlook tasks with this online task application. But I have over 100 tasks and it didn’t copy over the categories.
One “inbox” task list of 120 tasks really wasn’t useful.
Psion
At the moment I’m currently synchronizing both work and home calendars with different Agenda files on my Psion. It’s not ideal but at least I still have all my data in one place.
Hosted Microsoft Exchange
I have also been considering buying a hosted Microsoft Exchange account. That way — I guess — I could access all my data from work, home or on the move on my phone or via the Web. But I don’t have any experience of Exchange so would welcome people’s comments/thoughts.
It’s been a frustrating time, but I am willing to move on and use something else … I’ve just not found the right solution yet.
Back in October I got an email from Dan Baluta from Gtdagenda.com asking if I’d take a look his web application.
Of course, I was delighted to … but then a few things got in the way (I came down with a bug, and then Reuben and Joshua arrived, and then I got shingles, and then I didn’t sleep for a few months!).
Finally, this week, I’ve managed to have a good poke around the application and get to grips with much of what it does. Here are my initial impressions.
As the name might suggest Gtdagenda.com is based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) method of productivity.
In the words of David Allen himself:
… the subtle effectiveness of GTD lies in its radically common sense notion that with a complete and current inventory of all your commitments, organized and reviewed in a systematic way, you can focus clearly, view your world from optimal angles and make trusted choices about what to do (and not do) at any moment.
GTD embodies an easy, step-by-step and highly efficient method for achieving this relaxed, productive state.
It includes:
- Capturing anything and everything that has your attention
- Defining actionable things discretely into outcomes and concrete next steps
- Organizing reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on how and when you need to access them
- Keeping current and “on your game” with appropriately frequent reviews of the six horizons of your commitments (purpose, vision, goals, areas of focus, projects, and actions)
As such, Gtdagenda.com has four main tabs which are at the heart of the application:
Goals
Record your primary areas of responsibility, assign them to categories (e.g. work or personal)
Projects
Define your projects, assign them to related goals and give them a priority (1-5).
Tasks
List the tasks required to carry our your projects, tell the application which project they belong to, and what its Context is (these are defined elsewhere).
Next Actions
Lists the tasks that you’ve assigned as Next Actions — ideally you’ll have one task per project classed as a next action, as projects move forward one task at a time. Next Actions can be emailed to you on a daily basis, which is quite neat.
Besides the core four tabs that are at the heart of GTD Agenda there are three further sections:
Checklists
I love this utility: define things that you need to do often (e.g. exercise or update your blog) and then check them off when you do them. (See screenshot below.)
Schedules
Schedule daily or weekly activities; these can be linked to projects.
Calendar
It’s a calendar!
Screenshot from the checklist screen
I was about to write that there were four further sections, because above the Checklists, Schedules and Calendar options there’s a button for “Contacts”. I expected that this would have allowed me to record key contacts related to projects or tasks but it appears instead to allow you to send invitations to friends. But it doesn’t explain exactly what the invitation is for.
For more details, including more screenshots, check out the Some of the things Gtdagenda can help you with page.
As an aside, it’s a shame that this page isn’t linked to once you’re logged into GTD Agenda. It might be more useful than the existing Help page, which would be better labelled “Support”.
There are three price plans for GTD Agenda: Free, Basic and Premium. As you’d expect the more you pay the more features you receive.
| Features | Free | Basic | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goals | 3 | 30 | Unlimited |
| Projects | 5 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Contexts | 5 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Tasks | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Price | Free | $39.45 / year | $69.95 / year |
On the whole I found GTD Agenda pretty easy to use, but that’s because I’m already pretty familiar with the GTD methodology. I wonder how easy someone less familiar would find it, particularly as the Help option is more than sparce. I had to log out and check out the guided tour pages to find out more about some of the features.
As a test I took a few of my actual Goals, Projects and Tasks and entered them into GTD Agenda. It only took me a few minutes and the results were pretty decent. Clicking on “Move domain hosting” project gave me a good overview of the project (start date, related goal, number of tasks, progress and notes).
While I found it easy to add new goals I couldn’t work out why GTD Agenda had immediately categorised two of my goals as “Completed”. Sure enough they had no projects assigned to them, but neither did two other goals and they were classed as Active. I wasn’t sure if I was simply misunderstanding the model that it was using, other if this was a bug.
What does annoy me though is the compacted list of “My Goals” that appears at the top of every page. I don’t think it helps and it takes up too much valuable screen space.
I find the two tabs for Tasks and Next Actions to be a little cumbersome, I would have preferred one but with more options.
The Tasks tab shows a list of all defined tasks; the Next Actions tab is essentially a filter to display only those tasks that have been defined as the next action to take a particular project forward. I can see why this has been done, but I think that it would have been more efficient to have done this on the Tasks tab.
At the moment within Tasks you can group your list by either priority or project. I would have liked two further options: as I said, show Next Actions, and Group by Context. That’s how I work: within a particular context, e.g. sitting at my desk, I like to see a list of all the tasks that I could do here.
I remember WordPress before version 1.0. It was nowhere near as slick as the current version (in fact, here’s a screenshot of WordPress 0.7.1, which is the first version that I ever used):
So I have hope for GTD Agenda, because I think that its design is the weakest aspect of the application.
Having been using ZenDesk and BaseCamp for a few months GTD Agenda by comparison feels somewhat clunky and a bit retro. The application, in my opinion, could do with the loving attention of a Web designer and information architect.
Even a brief liaison with a CSS Framework would make the world of difference.
I find the heading “Gtdagenda.com” difficult to read and am disappointed that you can’t click it to take you back to your GTD Agenda Home page. Not least because I instinctively do it time and again.
How some of the screens are presented too could do with some strategic tweaking, for example, how categories and priorities are displayed. As an example rather than the priorities being listed at the end of each line (see below):
I’d have preferred the use of headings to clearly group Priority 1, Priority 2, etc. I don’t find the “Priority 1 line” useful, not least because the text is 6 pixels high and I’ve got bad eyesight.
I already use a number of tools, desktop, mobile and online, to carry out my GTD-style organisation. I use Microsoft Outlook synchronized with my mobile phone, and also occasionally with a Psion and a Google Calendar (depending on my requirements).
But there was no way for me to import any of that information into GTD Agenda. Everything I wanted to enter into GTD Agenda had to be done manually. And once it was in there, I couldn’t get it out again — there is no obvious way for me to export my data other the calendar as an iCal feed into Outlook 2007.
As such, if you start using GTD Agenda it looks like you’re locked into using it exclusively. And if you don’t have Web access where you are you can’t easily add new tasks, although if you have mobile Web access there is a mobile version: www.gtdagenda.mobi/.
On the whole I like Gtdagenda.com. It has some useful functionality, it’s quick and easy to setup (assuming that you know your way around the GTD method) and has some nice features (email notifications of tasks, iCal feed, checklists), and I like the sidebar featuring a calendar, and lists of contexts and projects.
If I were to give it a score, I’d give it 3/5. It’s not quite polished enough but if some of the minor design flaws were tweaked, the application given a facelift I think and the import/export issue addressed I think GTD Agenda could be a really useful tool, even the free version.
Certainly, if you’re looking for a Web-based tool for managing your life in a GTD-style then certainly consider GTD Agenda, or at least keep an eye on its progress.
This week I’ve been enjoying a holiday at home with Jane: a chance to enjoy peace and quiet together for the last time before the children arrive, and to reinstall Windows XP on my main desktop PC. That’s been the main reason for my lack of recent blogging, and not laziness — oh no! Not that. No way!
It’s a common problem with Windows: it gradually slows down over time. I install and uninstall all sorts of software on it, I use it every day for everything from checking emails to coding, photo editing to video creation. I’m not surprised it slows down over time.
But this time it was getting really bad. At times it wouldn’t boot properly (hardware driver conflicts I think). There was a serious issue with my sound card: if I played a Flash movie (e.g. YouTube) while listening to an MP3, for example, it would send my audio player crazy when I closed the browser window, playing any non-Flash audio two or three times too fast. It made everything sound like the Chipmunks had formed a metal band!
I also wanted to upgrade a couple of major pieces of software:
as well as various hardware drivers:
It was clearly time for Operation PC Forgiveness 2008.
On Monday and Tuesday I backed up everything. I used Second Copy 7.1 to copy the contents of each partition one-by-one to my external harddrive (Freecom 500GB).
I’ve tried various other applications over the years that take either images of the partition, or backup to a proprietary format, or first compress the files before storing them in a zip file, but in the end I’ve returned to a simple 1:1 copy on an external drive. That way I can access these files at any time from any PC without having to first install any 3rd party applications.
Second Copy allows you to create backup profiles that can be run either individually or within groups. So I have groups for:
There are a few backups that I do manually, for example Firefox bookmarks and anything else that needs to be exported.
This way I can make sure that all my personalized settings have been backed-up before I run the “Ultimate” backup group profiles and copy it all to my external drive.
A couple of things that I always do when doing a reinstallation are:
With the backup complete it was time to bite the bullet and reformat my C drive. I have 12 partitions on my hard drives so wiping C simply takes out Windows and programs, all my data, images, videos, music, etc. are safely stored on the other partitions (and now also backed-up).
One thing that I forgot to do before I set the Windows XP installation CD loose on C: was to deauthorize iTunes. D’oh!
Essentials for a Windows XP reinstall:
Reinstalling XP and hardware drivers took a couple of hours. Reinstalling the rest of my software took the best part of a day and a half. I have almost all my applications stored on another partition (I:\) and categorized which makes it very efficient to reinstall:
Once I’ve installed the bulk of my applications, run Windows (or Microsoft) Update a couple of times to make sure that Windows and Office are up-to-date, and done a cursory defrag I always reorganize the Start menu.
This is how the All Programs part of my Start menu looked after I’d installed most of the applications that I use regularly:
That’s three columns with around 85 entries. Even though I’ve done a “sort by name” on the list it’s still a mess! What it needs is some categorization to group similar applications together.
I generally start with the “All Users” folder (right-click START and select “Explore All Users”). I then create a number of new top-level folders to act as my main categories. These are generally the folders that I begin with:
As it happens, these are also the main category labels that I use on my Install partition (I:\). Keeping a one-to-one relationship between the start menu and the install partition makes it really easy to find installers should I need to perform an upgrade or reinstall.
Having a limited taxonomy makes it really easy to find any application that I have installed: all my graphics applications can be found under Graphics, office applications under Office, etc. It sounds obvious but I’ve seen too many users wasting precious time hunting through an unordered list of 60+ applications.
Having created these new folders, I then move the remaining installation folders and icons into them before performing the rest of the clean-up on the Start menu itself, creating any sub-folders as necessary. For example, within Internet I always create:
I prefer to use generic terms such as “Instant Messenger” and “Firewall” than “Windows Live Messenger” and “ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm Pro” as I find it easier to find them this way, it also doesn’t lock me into a particular application as I can use the same folder structure regardless of the applications that I have installed.
I also use this arrangement on my PC at work and on my laptop so it allows me to have different applications installed but use the same organizational structure.
While it usually takes me about 30-45 minutes to sort out my Start menu at the start it must save me hours each month when looking for applications.
My new, slimmed down start menu then looks a bit like this:
Now I have a clean installation of XP, with (almost) all my software installed and I can find things on my Start menu. Now I can get on and do something productive!
The current edition of .net magazine (October 2008, issue 181) has an interesting feature article entitled “Smarter and faster web design”.
Magazine writer Craig Grannell promises “you don’t need to work harder, or for longer hours, to get better results. You just need to work smarter!” A sucker for productivity tips here’s my take on what he has to say:
This is one my favourites, and one that I use all the time. Well, not all the time, otherwise you’d never find me at my desk!
Lateral’s Simon Crab offers this thought:
“… today’s web designers have a subconscious belief that the computer will provide an answer as long as they sit in front of it for long enough”
Instead of sitting staring at your design software of choice (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro Photo, Publisher, Illustrator, Visio, etc.) he suggests going out and get a different perspective on the world. Go to exhibitions, browse magazines at the newsagent, walk around and look around you.
I can’t remember where I first learned this, but it’s been really helpful advice. Get inspiration from other non-Web environments. I’m forever ripping out pages from magazines, scanning them or simply gluing them into a scrapbook. I’ve found inspiration in books, magazines, TV, architecture, fashion, nature … step away from the computer!
I don’t know how many times Jane has patiently sat and listened to me wittering on about some design idea, and then pondered carefully as I finish with the killer question “Does that make sense?”
Crab notes:
“A foolproof test is verbally explaining an idea to a non-designer. If you can’t succinctly explain a concept and get across how it will look and feel, it’s probably not a great idea.”
This was a tip that struck a chord with me: use simpler tools. Don’t rely on massive, expensive software applications. Get back to basics.
I have a home-made pad of A5 paper next to me on my desks, both at work and at home. Any scrap A4 paper that would otherwise go into the recycling box gets ripped in two and bound together with a foldback clip.
The next bit of advice is from usability guru Jakob Nielsen:
The most important tools for a smart designer are a pen and plenty of paper. This is all you need to do user testing — no fancy lab required. Just sit next to a customer as they attempt to use your website.
Mock things up on paper first. Show it around. Get the big things right first, before you waste time writing code that might never be used.
And for those who say “I can’t draw” advice from GapingVoid:
They’re only crayons. You didn’t fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?
37signals founder Jason Fried:
[Our software products] do a few things really well and get out of people’s way. And when products do a few things really well, they’re more pleasant to work with, and easier to learn and understand.
Find software that does this for you. A few of my favourites:
I use these applications again and again for specific tasks because they’re quick, simple to use and reliable. I’ve got other, bigger applications that will do these tasks but these do it for me quickly.
Interesting advice from Khoi Vinh from NYTimes.com about GTD:
Unless you really feel GTD is perfect for you, don’t bother. It’s over-rated and just about the (admittedly satisfying) pleasure of organising a system for getting things done, rather than actually getting things done.
I can see that, but I would also say: don’t reject it simply because it doesn’t work for other people. Give it a go, and adopt the things that do work for you, such as a zero-inbox policy.
I was impressed with Andy Budd’s approach to email. He answers emails that take under five minutes, deletes the junk and then files the rest in folders with titles such as:
I’ve been inspired to try something similar.
Re-use tried and tested modules of code, for example:
I loved Edward Barrow’s reason for using prebuilt libraries:
He likens using a prebuilt library to “getting an expert programmer to work on your project for free”.
Whenever I do something new I now ask myself whether this is something that I’m likely to need again. If it is I’ll store it as a snippet in WeBuilder 2008, my main code editor.
I categorize everything and have folders and subfolders in my code library arranged like this (I’ve expanded the HTML folder):
I’ve got all sorts of goodies in here, that I don’t have to go searching for because I know they are there at my fingertips.
Before I discovered Subversion I used to create my own version control system. But I ended up with umpteen files and folders along the lines of:
[backup-070620]
[backup-070621]
index2.html
index3-test.html
It got ugly, and if I made a mistake or needed to roll back to a previous version I couldn’t very easily do it. I then discovered FileHamster but I couldn’t quite get the hang of it. I found it a little too intrusive.
I was then introduced to Subversion, and discovering that you don’t need to incorporate it into Apache server I installed the Subversion server onto my PC at home and it’s been great! I use the TortoiseSVN client.
Quoting once again from the article in .net:
“In fact, the simplest and smartest investment you can make for any project is to use some sort of version control system,” says Aral Balkan, web developer and conference organiser.
What are the tools, tips that you find most useful, that make you most productive?
On the whole, over the years I’ve managed to keep myself pretty well organized. As a child growing up I was always reorganizing my room: rearranging the order of books, folders, stationery, … everything! If it wasn’t nailed down I moved it. It’s probably inevitable that I should get a job working as an information architect!
A few friends have been urging me for months to blog about how my organizational method works for me, so here it is. But before I get onto that, here’s a little of the journey that led me to where I am.
I always knew there was room for improvement. I’d adapt and improve my methods for filing documents, managing tasks, keeping a diary. At Selkirk High School I had my trusty school diary — when it wasn’t being stolen and scribbled on by Phil Graham — which recorded what I should be doing and when.
In 1989 I moved to St Andrews and I bought myself a cheapish Filofax clone, which I loved and cherished and packed full of useless stuff that probably made me less productive. But it did have tabs, and a lot of coloured paper — that’s got to count for something, surely.
In 1996 I bought my first Psion, a Siena 512KB. It was a life-saver: now I could keep everything in it, neatly organized. No more scribbling out entries, no more running out of contact sheets because everyone listed under “S” had moved and moved again.
My Psion became central to how I organized my life. And then I discovered that I could synchronize it with Schedule+, and then Microsoft Outlook 2000. The joys!
Fast forward to 2003 and you’ll find that Jane and I have just moved from Inverness to Edinburgh. I’m now working with two parishes and I’m beginning to panic. The organizational methods and techniques that I’ve evolved are now being stretched to the limit and I’m beginning to panic.
Really beginning to panic. I just couldn’t keep on top of everything that I needed to do. I remember one morning where I was sitting at my desk in the study and my head was spinning. I had so much to do, but really didn’t know where to start.
I needed assistance, and I need it immediately.
I found it in a book called Take Back Your Life by Sally McGhee, as documented on my blog entry of 25 January 2005.
It’s a really fantastic book, that draws on David Allen’s Getting Things Done techniques but instead of notebooks and diaries and baskets McGhee advocates the use of Microsoft Outlook and a PDA. Works for me!
So this is what I do:
From my blog post of 2005:
One of the first steps, McGhee says, is to work out how many collection points we use. That is, how many locations do you collect information and tasks from? I was amazed to discover that I had 28 different locations. I’ve now reduced this to eight, which is far more manageable.
Three years later and I now have four (give or take):
Pretty much everything goes into my in-tray at home:
Really, whatever I need to deal with or sort or tidy away. It all gets dumped into my in-tray. It’s reassuring to know that anything that I’ve not processed yet goes into my in-tray, into the one location that is my main collection point.
At one point in Edinburgh I had no fewer than eight in-trays in my study. It was totally unmanageable.
You’ll notice that there are two in-tray stacks — the one on the left is mine, the one of the right is Jane’s. My in-tray has three levels:
Anything that doesn’t go into my in-tray goes directly into my PDA (O2 Xda Orbit running Windows Mobile 6) or into Outlook Tasks or Calendar — and since my PDA synchronizes with Outlook at both home and work everything ends up in Outlook.
So when I sit down to work out what I need to do I really have to look in only two locations:
The next thing I do is begin to process my in-tray. I know from experience that even if the tray is stacked 12 inches high I will still get through it in under an hour. It doesn’t intimidate me how much stuff is in the tray. In fact, quite the opposite, I’m reassured that everything I need to deal with will be processed in one sitting.
I move the contents of my in-tray onto my desk, and starting at the top work through it piece by piece making a decision on every item. There are four options:
A lot of stuff I can do in less than 5 minutes. Some things just need reading, or throwing into the recycling, or filing away in my filing cabinet:
Anything that needs to be deferred for later I add to my Outlook Tasks. Sometimes I’ll add it to Outlook and file the documentation in the filing cabinet (because at least I’ll know where it is when I need to find it later).
Usually within 30 minutes I have a clear desk, a few items in my Post Out tray and it’s time to move onto my Outlook Tasks. This is to deal with tasks that I’ve promised to do when I’m out and about, or at work, or have entered into Outlook while processing my in-tray.
Outlook allows you to categorize your tasks, there is also one, default uncategorized group into which any new item is automatically added. Following the guidelines in Sally McGhee’s book I have categories such as:
Before I go any further I often start by ‘downloading my head’: getting out of my head those things that I said I’d do but haven’t recorded anywhere else. This is a great opportunity to stop relying on my memory — that’s why I used to get so stressed.
The first time I tried this exercise I ‘downloaded’ over 85 items … and then was amazed at how relaxed and calm I felt. But it stood to reason that since I was no longer relying on my memory to hold everything it freed my brain to do what it does best: think and plan.
Using similar criteria for dealing with my in-tray I’ll start at the top and work my way through the list, making a decision on each item:
Some items I do immediately, then delete from the list. Other items get deleted immediately, usually because I’ve decided that it’s no longer a priority. Further items may get delegated to someone else so I’ll either write to them or email them.
If I defer an item in my task list I’ll usually do one of two things:
This last step was one of the most significant when I moved to this method. Now I have everything in one place: in Outlook (and synchronized on my phone/PDA), I know what I’ve said I’d do (my tasks) and in many case when I’ll do them (my calendar).
I’ve been using this method now for about 3.5 years and I keep refining it, tweaking it to make it a little better and more effective, particularly as my responsibilities change and as I respond to the different tasks and projects that I take on, both at work and at home.
I know when I need to go back to my task list and calendar and start planning again because it’s at those moments that I begin to feel stressed and overwhelmed. It’s during those moments that I realise: I’m not managing my tasks, they’re managing me. Then half-an-hour later once I’ve processed my in-tray and Outlook tasks and scheduled things I feel relaxed and in control once again.
That’s about it in a nutshell. The only really significant thing that I’ve missed out is how I manage my projects within Outlook, but perhaps that could be a post for another day.