Thought I would take a minute to show one of the many thanks that Entourage does to help you get organized and “Get Things Done”, as it were.
By pressing CTRL+T on an item in Entourage, you will execute a script. The picture on the right shows the menu that pops up when you right click on a message. This is a quick and easy way to create a task in Entourage from email messages you receive. Another awesome functionality is that it works on multiple messages. In Entourage, if you highlight multiple messages and press CTRL+T it will create an individual task from each message. The only difference here is that when you select multiple messages you don’t the task information window so have you go find the task and edit the due dates or what have you manually. But hey, if you are just putting them all in your tasks and then using an “inbox” to process them, this shouldn’t matter that much.
As you can see, you can also create a calendar event from a message by clicking the menu item or by pressing CTRL+E on your keyboard, and you can create a note by pressing CTRL+N. Both of these come in handy just as often as creating a task. Though I’m pretty much a task center person at this point. My life revolves around performing one task or another. Right now in my task section in Entourage, I have 159 tasks. Some have due dates, some don’t. I know what I need to do, finally.
On another note, Projects are major benefits in Entourage as well. By using a Project, you can compile all your “Project” related items without having to manually move them. You start by creating a project in the Project Center. Here you define a due date, if necessary, and other specifics, including a Finder folder for project information. One of the really great things is that you can assign contacts to a project and Entourage will automatically collect their email into the project. The only downside to that is that if you have someone who is on multiple projects with you, the email is assigned automatically to both and you might have to change that manually. But at least it’s already in one place.
Project Center also gives you your own notes and schedule. Project notes and events show up in the main sections under Entourage, but it allows you to “filter” out other stuff so you can really focus on your project. The Files section is very nice as it creates a watch folder on your hard drive that you can drop files in and it will give you access right from Entourage. I like this because I know where something is and I can go get it. I have Entourage up more often than I have a finder window open and it takes about 3 mouse clicks to get to the files section in Project Center.
The only thing I haven’t really figured out yet is the Clippings section. But maybe it will come in handy at some point. Just haven’t really figured out EXACTLY what it does yet. It looks like a place to store maybe files or text or pictures or something, but I’m not really sure. I’ll have play with it some and figure out where it leads.
Tonight I spent a significant amount of time organizing and reconfiguring my desk. Tomorrow, I hope to finish the rest of the work space. The picture you see here is the result. After about 3 hours of pulling everything apart, unplugging and untangling cables. I no have a desk that I’m not ashamed to show people. There aren’t cables all over the place and I can stretch out my feet without touching anything but carpet and wall.
