Review – Outlook, world’s best personal info manager (& RSS Reader, Wiki, Document Store, and more)

Microsoft Outlook is an awesome application – the software is yet more awesome when running on a solid-state drive. Computing peed considerations aside, I thus far continue to find it difficult to consider any other personal information manager (PIM), cloud-based or otherwise. For now, Outlook is my…

• email client – just works - 1, 10, 100 accounts & more
• calendar – just works – & overlay feature in 2007, 2010, infinity, & beyond is awesome
• task manager – 43folders + GTD –  just works – do, delegate, defer, delete – drag, drop, done – have a new idea – switch to task folder – enter one line tickler, forget it about until task review time
• indexed search – yep, just works (once you turn off indexing rest of drive – Google Desktop better for that)
• contacts – yep, just works – multiple addresses, web, sync to pda – more importantly, pics, notes, etc
• journal – yep, works, although I most people don’t use it (or at least not the auto-journal features for every Outlook & Office item update for computing efficiency purposes)
• notes – yep, works, although I most people don’t use it (personally find tasks or contacts more efficient, or as we shall see below, Microsoft Outlook’s “hidden” wiki feature)
• junk mail – yep, just works, in the event my gmail account at Google lets any Nigerian oil scams slip by
• rules wizard – can get as extensive as you’d like, for instance, to archive every message ever sent or received
• categories – have tried using for email, tasks, etc – mostly only use on calendar to get quick visual of schedule

Outlook also has more esoteric uses, some of which were alluded to previously once or twice on Thought Puzzle…

• feed reader – why is this awesome – sure, I can unsubscribe to most email lists & use really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, that’s why lots of people use feed aggregators such as Google reader. Why is that so much more awesome in Outlook – cleans out my inbox – more important, feed items are just another outlook entry – so I can drag to calendar, tasks, forward as email, etc. – in other words, rss is simply part of my workflow. Google Reader doesn’t as permit deleting or hiding previously read entries, which goes against the grain for GTD purposes…
• personal wiki – excuse me, what did you say, Outlook has a wiki? Yep, sure does, in the form of an overloaded contact folder – 4,300 entries and counting over the past two years – web snippets, emails, tasks that made useful reference info, and of course, one too many rss feed entries. Why is this so cool – in addition to being at my fingertips on my desktop, also accessible via PDA sync (& primary driver for using contact entry type over tasks, notes, etc. At the user’s discretion, & since the wiki is simply a contacts folder re-purposed, the user can link across contacts wiki entries (after enabling contact linking on all forms) or via outlook: hyperlink protocol (yep, it really exists). So you really can create a cross-referenced wiki within Outlook.
• group wiki – in theory, multiple people can do the same using the outlook: hyperlink protocol on a hosted contacts folder in SharePoint, although I’ve only tested this shared wiki capability in small deployments (approximately five folks). Another wiki gotcha if creating a shared archive via SharePoint – documents can only be added at the end. By contrast, attachments can be scattered throughout the notes section in an Outlook contacts wiki entry. Organizations with advanced needs could create a custom form for their wiki folder; I’ve only experimented with that capability sparingly without much success, YMMV.
• document cloud – via MS SharePoint, & now Office365 – perhaps most easily useful for syncing multiple calendars – however, also simple to create shared contact folders, or to keep document archives while traveling off-line – granted have to be part of organization that uses SharePoint – if you are, this is one silver lining among the nightmare that can be SharePoint
• search folders – these are particularly useful if you don’t organize your email into folders, but need ready access to certain clumps of email on regular basis. Yes, there’s the search box, however, those searches run on demand, whereas search folders are indexed as you go. I don’t personally use this feature much except for easy access to track large messages from folks who don’t use FilePigeon, DropBox, Google Docs (gdocs), or similar services.
• social media plugins - LinkedIn, SalesForce, roll-your-own, & more via the Outlook Social Connector – personally use LinkedIn connector most – contacts at my fingertips without firing up web browser – search, send, sync to PDA – beautiful. For added fun, post to Twitter via Twittermail!

There’s likely other aspects I like about Outlook that didn’t make this post deadline. Bottom line – Outlook’s ability to make the personal Information management aspect of life so simple – copy, paste, drag & drop from email to tasks, calendar, wiki, contacts, etc. are unlikely to change in the near future.

Yes, I’ve experimented with Zotero, EverNote, Google Docs, & other personal information management (PIM) software applications – who hasn’t, who hasn’t? For now, however, I’ll gladly pony up the $109 to use Microsoft Outlook and perhaps $219.99 for access to the entire MS Office suite. Home users of the Office suite don’t get Outlook; that requires a separate license or a business-grade Office license.

I’m currently neutral on Microsoft Office 365, although I’d lean towards a combination of services such as Google Docs, Dropbox, FilePigeon, etc., for file sharing needs, while retaining access to the desktop apps for hard-core document processing and data analysis applications (Excel is another favorite tool on par with Microsoft Outlook; MS Word & PowerPoint have yet to come close to either in quality of execution or raw ability, IMHO).

Yes, Google Docs is convenient for sharing documents, and Thunderbird + Lightning works for some folks, and still other folks use tools as simple as index cards for their PIM. I like love the ability to drag & drop formatted text, pix, etc. straight into a wiki, add my notes, save it, and know the data is at my fingertips. The big risk factor – a corrupt PST file – fortunately, that situation, if encountered, is often salvageable. Last tip – Microsoft Outlook (& most applications) are much faster on an SSD drive.

So in addition to Outlook being one the world’s best personal info managers (& RSS Reader, Wiki, Document Store, and more)and with the right plug-in for the calendar and some extra hardware, I suspect you could use Outlook for some nifty home automation applications. For now, Outlook will continue to function as my modern sidekick, my trusty info lookout.

Related posts…
1. Outlook: Awesome Utility, Lousy Migration (2 of 2)
2. Outlook 2007 & Slow Folder / View Switch
3. Outlook: Awesome Utility, Lousy Migration (1 of 2)
4. Info Rivers – Subscribe, Search, Segment, Save, Share
5. Google Chrome + Google Reader – More Magic, Please
6. Review – Ninite Cloud-Centric App Installs
7. Haiku – Content, Startups, & Tech – Weekly Review – soon via YouTube