Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In review

Although FranklinCovey's time-management system may be the most popular around, David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) has a growing following. Rather than attempting to plan everything around 'big rocks' - long-term goals and values - this system tries to reflect the reality of modern life, where a lot of the way we work is reactive. Instead of attempting to control every aspect of your life, GTD focuses on managing all the tasks and information that gets thrown at you on a day-to-day basis.

It's a system that's ideally suited for people who use computers as an integral part of their work, especially in an organisation where email is the main method of communication. The basic principles are simple: any information you receive should be dealt with immediately, either by delegating it, assigning it an action, deferring it to another time, or filing it. Given that email is the main way information flows on a daily basis, it's email that requires the most management.

This is where the snappily titled Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In comes in. The product is an Outlook plug-in that adds a row of buttons to your taskbar, with buttons for delegating, deferring, actioning, snoozing, filing, and 'someday' allowing you to perform these tasks on each email you receive.

What this means in practice is that dealing with any kind of actionable item via email is extremely simple: even if you don't intend to follow the principles of the GTD system to the letter, it makes handling and filing email a much cleaner and easier process. During this review, we went from having more than 400 emails in our inbox to none, filing and actioning everything that's been sitting around for months.

If you decide to use the GTD system to the fullest degree, this is an excellent tool for making it even more simple. As well as handling email, the product allows you to create folders for different projects, placing processed emails into the correct project folder as well as either creating a task or appointment for it.

One of the most compelling things about this product is its simplicity. Even if you're the kind of person who never reads manuals, you can be up and running with it in less than a minute, and because it integrates directly with Outlook it's surrounded by an application that's very familiar.

There are no complexities to learn - you just highlight emails, press a button, and that's virtually all there is to it. Of course, there's actually nothing here that you couldn't really do just by dragging mails around in Outlook itself, but the simple interface makes it much easier.

Overall, this is a nice little product. The price - just under $70 for a downloaded version - is exactly right, and the support available on the company's website is excellent. However, bear in mind, if you're still on an old system, that it needs Outlook 2000 (with SR-1 installed) or later. If you use Outlook and you're a regular user of the GTD system - or even if you fancy giving it a go - this is an essential purchase.

Author: Ian Betteridge