This is the first in an occasional series.  I’m going to cover only those things about eProductivity that I’m pretty sure aren’t covered in their initial tutorial, but that I reckon are useful to know.  Also Jens Bruntt has started some good tutorials on his blog covering the basics.

eProductivity is an add-on to Lotus Notes.  It’s designed by Eric Mack and it provides an almost perfect platform to implement “Getting Things Done” (GTD) by David Allen.  I say almost perfect because it is certainly the most integrated solution that I have seen.

Today’s tutorial is about the use categorizing and/or sub-categorizing projects and actions.

I’ve found that if you don’t categorize things, you very quickly get a very long list in what feels like no particular order.  Actually it in alphabetical order, but based on the first word used to describe the project outcome.  I’ve set up a special “Projects – Tutorials” to show what I mean.

Imagine if that was a long list!

The Solution

We will categorize these projects so they are viewed under particular categories.  There are two options:

Option 1.  Categorized

In this option we will categorize all our projects under a broader heading.  We do this by use of a naming convention.  So for my four projects they will be named under either “Blog” or “Mind Manager”.  The protocol is [category - project] (note the spaces either side of the hyphen are important.)  Thus:

OK – so now we’ve renamed them and obviously that means they’ll be alphabetised by our category – but it doesn’t seem a very elegant solution does it?

So let’s change our view of things.

Go to eProductivity > Preferences

Go to “Views” tab and you will see this:

If you “uncheck” the box for the type of project or context you’re working with (in this case “Projects – Tutorials” you’ll be able to check it under the categorized area instead.  Then press Save and close.  You’ll have to close your mail database and re-open to see the changes!

Now when we look at “Projects – Tutorials” this much more elegant view of things greets us.

And if you think that is good, then lets take it to the next step.

Option 2: Advanced

I’m not going to give as many screenshots on this one.

The naming convention goes one extra stage to [category\sub category - project]  (Note there is no space before or after the backslash).

So my projects become:

Blog\Stats – Implement best practice blog stats options

Blog\Posts – Successful Tutorial Post for eProductivity

Blog\Posts – Successful follow-up tutorial post on eProductivity

Mind Manager\Prodctivity – Fully utilise eProductivities integration with Mind Manager

Once againg I need to go to eProductivity > Preferences > View Tab and this time move “Projects – Tutorial” to the “Advanced” area.  Hit “Save and Close” – then close and reopen database.  MY view now becomes…

Very elegant and useful I think you’ll agree.

Have a play around with views to work out what suits you best.  I’ve found the I have my Projects on Advanced, my actions on Categorized and my Today page on Basic.

I hope you found this first tutorial useful.  If you can see how I could present these more clearly, leave me a comment.  Also, if there’s any particular topic you’d like covered, leave a comment also.

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