posted at 09:30:53
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

We've not long migrated from Thunderbird to Entourage at work, which I was a bit hesitant about as I'm a big fan of Thunderbird and have used it quite successfully within my "Getting Things Done" system, plus it made managing emails really easy with the rules and labels that it offers.

So, what have I learnt about moving email clients?

All email clients are not created equal

Firstly, even Microsoft's two versions of their email client for Exchange Servers (Outlook on PC and Entourage on Mac) aren't equal. Entourage has a far more powerful task management system (or "Project Centre" as they call it) built in that allows you to link tasks, documents,, appointments etc. I've not looked into it fully yet but it seems a lot better that Outlook 2003 (the last version of Outlook I used to use).

But, therein lies the problem! Thunderbird was sleek and simple (in fact I've just let my Dad loose with it an he's had no problem!), Entourage has so many setting's it's ridiculous.

I can view my inbox by date received, group messages by categories, projects, size, account - you name it! This in itself isn't much of a ma....

May

2nd
2007

Make labels stand out in Thunderbird

posted at 10:49:57
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

Following on from my post about keeping your inbox clean, blogger TwisterMC has an interesting post about making labels stand out more in Thunderbird.

It involves using the "styleish" extension or hacking the userchrome.css but if you use a lot of labels it could be well worth it.

Hat-tip to Lifehack.org

Mar

12th
2007

Organising Sent emails in Thunderbird

posted at 07:24:20
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I've written previously about my love for Thunderbird and Getting Things Done and now it's just got even better!

I save a copy of every email that goes out to one of my clients:

a) As a reminder so I can flag it as "Waiting for"
b) To cover my back
c) For reference so I know what I've been talking to them about
d) To prove to my boss I actually do some work sometimes

Until now, I've been going into my main "Sent Items" folder and then dragging the email into the appropriate "Sent" folder under the client's main folder, but I won't have to do that any more!

Purely by accident I discovered the "Send a copy to" function under the options menu (click the image below for a larger version):

Send a copy of this email to another folder in thunderbird

Now I don't have to bother going into my "Sent Items" folder, I can automatically copy the message into the appropriate client folder - yeay....

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Jun

7th
2006

Thunderbird search folders bug

posted at 16:06:48
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I'm not sure if it's just me but I recently noticed that some of the emails I had labeled were not being displayed in the search folders which was a bit strange and a bit annoying as I rely on them quite heavily.

When I looked at the search folder's properties, the filter was set up correctly, however the "Select Folders To Search" area hadn't picked up new folders I had added, even with the "Local Folders" box checked.

This is quite a frustrating development as it means everytime I add a new folder/subfolder for clients it won't be added to the Search Folders. What I'd like to see is that all folders are selected as default and you un-select them if they're not relevant.

How irritating.

May

29th
2006

Getting Things Done with Thunderbird

posted at 16:48:25
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

Updated: Please see the bottom of the article

Well, I have been at my new job for 3 weeks now and my GTD implementation seems to be holding up quite well – at least in terms of my email anyway!

As I have mentioned before the company I work for uses Thunderbird as its main email system (although Outlook Express and Entourage are available for those that prefer them). To begin with it was a bit odd having to tell half the office how to spell my surname – a centrally stored address book is certainly a big advantage that Microsoft Outlook has over other systems. However I'm finding the functionality of Thunderbird brilliant in my GTD habits.

Calendar

Whilst Thunderbird doesn't have the robust calendaring of Outlook, I find that the Lightning extension is more than adequate for my needs. I did mess around with

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Feb

1st
2006

Email On The Go

posted at 11:25:59
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I've been looking into getting a hosted Microsoft Exchange account so I can access my email anytime, any place anywhere. I already have webmail with my account but the interface is truly awful and half my contacts are in it. The company I was looking at has so far taken 3 days to (fail to) respond to my enquiry as to whether I can get the Exchange hosting as part of a web hosting account and tie in the www.flippingheck.com domain name so they can shove their service where the sun doens't shine.

I'm a big Thunderbird fan and use it on my PC at home. I was hesitant to install it on my work PC for the obvious reasons so I've now downloaded the "Portable Thunderbird" program which runs from my funky USB Thumb Drive (which also doubles as a handy torch when I'm staggering home at stupid-o'clock in the morning). My thoughts so far? It's brilliant!

I've copied over my profile from my home PC so I now have all my emails, addresses, extensions and themes on the thumb drive and it's only taking up 10mb so far. I can use it anywhere I go and it offers great flexibility.

Now I have an excuse to look into GTD for Thunderbird as previously I didn't see the point of implementing it when I could only access it from one source. The only thing I wish it could do is Sync automati....

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