Product Description

Unrelenting e-mail. Conflicting commitments. Endless interruptions. In Take Back Your Life!, productivity expert Sally McGhee shows you how to take control and reclaim something you thought you’d lost forever—your work-life balance. Now you can benefit from Sally’s popular and highly regarded corporate education programs, learning simple but powerful techniques for rebalancing your personal and professional commitments using the productivity features in Microsoft Outlook. Learn the proven methods that will empower you to: •Clear away distractions and loose ends and focus on what’s really important to you and your business. •Take charge of your productivity using techniques and processes designed by McGhee Productivity Solutions and implemented in numerous Fortune 500 companies. •Customize and exploit the productivity features in Microsoft Outlook to help you create balance at home and on the job. When you change your approach, you can change your results. So learn what thousands of Sally’s clients worldwide have discovered about taking control of their everyday productivity—and start transforming your own life today! Covers Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Outlook Version 2002, and Outlook 2000 

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #273852 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From the Back Cover
About the Author: Sally McGhee is a leading innovator in the field of personal productivity. She has provided productivity training and consultation for a wide range of businesses and organizations throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States. Product Description: Unrelenting e-mail. Conflicting commitments. Endless interruptions. In Take Back Your Life!, productivity expert Sally McGhee shows you how to take control and reclaim something you thought you'd lost forever-your work-life balance. Now you can benefit from Sally 's popular and highly regarded corporate education programs, learning simple but powerful techniques for rebalancing your personal and professional commitments using the productivity features in Microsoft® Outlook®. Learn the proven methods that will empower you to:Clear away distractions and loose ends and focus on what's really important to you and your business.Take charge of your productivity using techniques and processes designed by McGhee Productivity Solutions and implemented in numerous Fortune 500 companies.Customize and exploit the productivity features in Microsoft Outlook to help you create balance at home and on the job. When you change your approach, you can change your results. So learn what thousands of Sally's clients worldwide have discovered about taking control of their everyday productivity-and start transforming your own life today! Note: Take Back Your Life covers Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Outlook Version 2002, and Outlook 2000.

Customer Reviews

I've taken back my life
I am a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, and having moved to two new parishes 18 months ago -- working within a team, but now with extra responsibilities -- I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by my workload: chaplaincy work, parish work, diocesan, and provincial work, not to mention my own personal projects. I was feeling paralyzed with fear much of the time about how much I needed to do.

I did use a PDA (a Psion 5mx) and MS Outlook 2003, and I synchronized them regularly. My filing is clear and consistent -- both on my PC and in my filing cabinet and folders. But somehow my system was still breaking down.

This book helped me in four areas:

1) Rationalize my COLLECTION POINTS -- I had 28!! I now have 6.

2) Rearrange my TASK CATEGORIES -- I used to have one category per project. Now I have adopted Sally's Strategic Next Action categories and it works brilliantly. I was sceptical and a little afraid before I did it, but kept reminding myself to persevere. I'm glad I did. I now track my Meaningful Objectives and Supporting Projects for both Church and Personal within my Outlook/Psion.

3) DOWNLOAD MY HEAD -- I was carrying 81 to-dos when I did this exercise in the book. I felt so much more relaxed once I got everything into Outlook. And because I sync my Psion I have my to do list with me at all times, and can immediately add tasks to it, to process later when I get home.

4) Move tasks to the CALENDAR -- I didn't know you could do that, and of course, it makes perfect sense to do that. Now I get stuff done!

I'm sure I have a long way to go yet, but this book has helped me no end. I've now recommended this book to my Mum, who has as many collection points are there are surfaces in her kitchen!

It does work and well
Having worked my way through a number of "productivity" books, I can heartily say that this is the best and most practical one that I have read and the only one that I have found easy to implement. The methods described are almost exactly the same as In David Allen's "Getting Things Done", however, the style is refreshing and most importantly for me, MS Outlook is integrated into your time management strategy.
If you use Outlook for your e mail, appointments and tasks, this is the book for you. It takes you step by step in setting up a time management system in Outlook that really works (Without the need to purchase an expensive addin - unlike "Getting Things Done").

At last - a book which helps you use a computer wisely
If like me you're forever writing "to do" lists and hatching plans for the future, which rarely come to anything, this might help.

I've read a number of these books, and they all make the same promise: a new, organized you, wealthier, more productive etc. My question is: if it's such a fantastic system, why bother to write a book on it? Why not keep the secrets for yourself and go for complete global domination if you're that organized and focussed?

Well, thank goodness Sally McGhee isn't selfish! This is a useful book, which I'm gradually getting through, and the principles of which I'm trying to incorporate in to my lifestyle.

It's all based on Microsoft Outlook, which turns out to be a really powerful tool! Realistically, you need to own a PDA or laptop computer which you can synchronise with Outlook to make the most of this book, as she advocates doing away with paper based systems.

It is a bit American, and it's also too aimed (like most of these books) at senior executives (or wannabes). It also relies on having more or less constant access to a computer, and there's too much emphasis on email, rather than handling bits of paper. However, her filing ideas for paper are really well thought through.

Any reader will need to adapt this book to their circumstances, but, having now read several books of this genre, I've found this one of the most helpful. It won't solve everything, but I do recommend it!