ActivityOwner.Com – Getting Things Done with MindManager

OutLinker now has a user-friendly installation program (outlinker.exe) similar to the one developed for MindReader. This should enable you to get rolling with the software without fiddling with macro code or references as well as to update existing installations with latest code. Visit the OutLinker for download instructions.

An installation program was one of the main requests coming out of the OutLinker Survey. The survey suggested that while OutLinker has a very small user base (perhaps just a couple of dozen users) , those users are seeing large benefits with the typical user processing about 5000 email messages over the past several months with it.

Hopefully this new installation program will enable a broader range of users to give the program a try. Note that although the defaults assume you are using the program with GyroQ and MindReader, you can configure it for use without these and just transfer items directly to MindManager. The simple hyperlinks generated by this program are cleaner and more compact that those created by MindManager’s built in tools.

The latest version of the program has a trimmed down interface (above) that is placed in the top right of the screen so that the message you are processing can be more easily read. If you need to interact with the message (e.g. to scroll), just use the “i” command. At the bottom of the interface are statistics about how many messages you have processed today, how many are left in the current selection, and how long it is taking you to move through them. The program now also keeps track of how many times you skip each message.

Ideally you practice good GTD and only handle things once, but if you do find yourself falling off the GTD wagon and skipping over messages, this field can be handy. You can add this field to your inbox column headings by clicking right on the heading, choosing “Field Chooser” and the selecting “user defined fields in inbox”. If your inbox is swamped, you can identify the messages you haven’t given a 1st pass review to as well as the ones that you are dancing around by sorting on this field. Note that you can bypass the GyroQ queue and move message directly to active maps using the “s2am” keyword. This can be handy when are working with groups of messages on a particular topic that you are trying to sort out.