The Barnes & Noble Review
You can learn how to use Outlook. Or you can learn how to use Outlook to take back your life: to get really organized, without becoming one bit more obsessive-compulsive than necessary. If the latter sounds better, this is your book.
Sally McGhee doesn't start with point-and-clicking: She starts by helping you root out "limiting beliefs" that stand in your way, define real productivity, and plan a simple way to manage your whole life. In so doing, she shares lessons she's taught (and learned) with thousands of executives.
You'll learn how to use Outlook to minimize interruptions, reset others' expectations of you, and hold them more accountable. Next, using Outlook, you'll build an "action system" with truly meaningful objectives. McGhee helps you understand what objectives are truly meaningful for you; how to define projects and "strategic next actions" targeted at moving those objectives forward; and what to put in your "someday maybe" category of things to accomplish.
McGhee demonstrates how to use Outlook to create a single, coherent "reference system" that helps you find what you're looking for without tearing your hair out. She offers a full chapter of guidance on processing email more efficiently: one that makes full use of everything from Subject to Cc and Bcc lines to Outlook flags (and finally organizes your Inbox).
You'll learn why it makes better sense to use your Calendar for prioritizing and planning, not your to-do list (and how to set up your Calendar to do so as effectively as possible). There's guidance on reflecting travel and post-vacation "catch-up" time in your schedule; handling meeting requests more efficiently (including when to say no); and a whole lot more. Isn't this the way you've always wanted Outlook to work for you? Bill Camarda, from the August 2007 Read Only
