Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft? Outlook? to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other) by Sally McGhee
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Book Reviews of Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft? Outlook? to Get Organized and Stay Organized (Bpg-Other)
Book Review: Warning: This book will give you more free time your boss may want.
Summary: 5 Stars
You MUST read and implement the ideas in this book! Based on the principles of David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done - as I perceive it), this book is a toolkit for using Outlook as a productivity tool.
I have implemented the ideas and concepts of this book more than any other book on productivity or time management.
I have integrated the concepts of this book in my leadership and management workshops and seminars and have always gotten great feedback from my participants on the ideas and techniques to increase productivity and reduce their stressful lives.
I recommend this book to all my students and I recommend it to you. If you don't get 10X'x the value for the price of the book, call me and I'll give you an hour of FREE coaching to clear where you are stuck using Sally's system. (I don't work for McGhee and never have, I just love the book that much - $300 Value to you).
Get the Dang Book!
Dominic Carubba, CPT
Director
Center for Performance Solutions
Atlanta, GA
Book Review: Excellent, very helpful, highly recommend
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was very helpful. The book tells you much more than just how to use Microsoft Outlook. It also tells you how to completely organize your life at work and at home. Very practical advice. I highly recommend this book.Book Review: Purely a life changer, but it takes commitment and patience to make it really work
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes it is sales pitch for outlook, and yes Microsoft could improve the Category function in their Mobile software (I have a HP IPaq and reviewing single category SNA's or looking up contacts is all you really use it for.) But, in my opinion now that I have my life fully around this personal management system, it is a tool that will change your life. The high priorty top of the mind things still do not make it into my IMS system, but all the to-do's and call backs that used to fade into nothing can get prioritized and completed. But it will take you a awhile before you are disiplined enough to immediately enter tasks once a topic comes up. Keep trying, once you get it, this system is a life changer.Book Review: The book I've always needed
Summary: 5 Stars
For a long time, I believed Microsoft Outlook? to be a powerful yet highly underutilized time management tool, but was frustrated because the courses I took covered only the basics, and none of the books I read went sufficiently in depth to satisfy my desire to use this program to its full capacity. Then I discovered Sally McGhee's book, Take Back Your Life! which outlines steps for creating a system to help you to maximize productivity and take control of your personal and professional life.
Some of McGhee's recommendations are similar to those found in other time management books; for example:
* Implement personal boundaries to allow scheduled, uninterrupted work time.
* You can't create more time; you can only make the most of the time you have by setting priorities.
* Process and organize your e-mail (and paper mail) by following the four D's for decision making (Delete/Do/Delegate/Defer)
For me, the most valuable part of the book explains that to effectively use the Outlook Task list, it is helpful to create planning categories to keep track of objectives and supporting projects, and action categories to keep track of the individual tasks to be completed. Instead of using Outlook's default categories such as "Client" and "Personal," McGhee suggests placing all telephone calls in one category so you can quickly and easily make those calls when you have time between appointments. Similarly, having all errands in one category will make it easier to keep track of them and reduce the number of trips you have to make.
Ms. McGhee understands that technology facilitates increased productivity only when users know how to use its features to full advantage, and are willing to let go of ineffective habits. Willingness to make behaviour changes is a key component of her system, as some of the strategies she describes will be quite foreign to many, particularly those who struggle with structure and details.
One drawback is that to rely fully on Outlook for time management requires the use of a Pocket PC or similar device, and I have met many people who are not prepared to give up their paper planners. Nonetheless, although Take Back Your Life! is primarily about using Outlook, it offers many helpful time management tips that may be adopted even by non-Outlook users.
Book Review: Take Back Your Life
Summary: 4 Stars
Take Back Your Life is a great book providing real tools to help you become organized in Microsoft Outlook. Now, my inbox is always clear because I do something with incoming emails right away. If I cannot answer or delete an email in two minutes I move it into Task folder. All my tasks are in one folder so I do not have to search through my inbox for an email requesting an action from me. The book gives directions to manage your email on many levels. Great!