GTD: Belatedly Responding to Emails in Outlook

Originally posted 2006-05-25 10:33:28

After noticing an online buzz surrounding the book Getting Things Done, I decided to purchase and read the book. The practices it espouses are winning me over–I feel more organized and less stressed than before, and I seem more on top of things at work. Home . . . well, that’s a different story, but my wife has become a disciple of Fly Lady, and together we’re slowly winning the battle against our children.

Today, as I reviewed my Outlook inbox in my best GTD mode, I came across an email that required my response. A proper response wouldn’t fit in two minutes, and I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to say. What I wanted to do was to jot a few notes about initial ideas for a response, flag the message for follow up, and file it in the appropriate folder. Seems reasonable, right? Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to attach a note to an email in Outlook 2003. I thought about starting a reply and saving it in Drafts, which held no appeal–I have no current workflow to check my Drafts folder for any action items, and have no plans to add such a thing. In the end, I scrawled some notes on a piece of paper, flagged the email for follow up, and filed it. Later, I responded to the email, making sure I remembered to reference my notes. Disappointing.