Submitted by arc1 on
in
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Hoping someone in a similar situation can help - the main issue here is [b]how can I best organise "Keep in touch with" tasks (KITWs) when I'm using Lotus Notes and Gmail?[/b], but there may be an underlying problem of straddling two IT solutions, as below.
[b]Background[/b]
I've been re-organising my contacts, to-do's and diary in line with some of the MT recommendations. Some of this is challenging because I do not have Outlook, and because I'm using both Lotus Notes and Gmail for my contacts. Let me describe the set-up:
[b]Calendar[/b]
At work, I have Lotus Notes. Because they've provided a Blackberry, I now use Notes' calendar for everything (both personal and work). This works very well, except for managing my contacts.
[b]Contacts[/b]
Due to some Blackberry syncing peculiarities, as soon as I collect someone's mobile phone number, I tend to update Notes' local address book with that person's full details including email. However I don't really consider this my contacts list - it's an incomplete list which is forced on me by technology.
In contrast, I maintain a full address book in Gmail. This contains any people from work that I consider "contacts", plus other people in my network, plus all friends, family etc. For example, if I develop a work contact sufficiently, they get placed in my Gmail contacts, along with any rich detail, eg. birthdays etc.
[b]Problem[/b]
The above is working OK for me, but I feel like I'm straddling two different IT solutions, plus I can't see a logical way to now incorporate KITWs.
I've been trying to set up KITWs per Mark's advice (ie. CTRL-SHIFT-K in Outlook), but Notes seems absolutely dreadful for this - tasks are referred to as "To Do"s, Notes has very little functionality around them, and also has several bizarre technical flaws. Worst of all - if you insert a recurring "To Do", you end up with an unisghtly block of text that makes your overall "To Do" List a complete mess. Every future date is displayed, and completed "instances" just get appended to it with a green tick.
Whereas my goal was to have something like what Mark describes in Outlook, where the "To Do" would only appear on the given day I've scheduled it for, and then disappear when it is done.
[b]General Thinking[/b]
I've not been able to find an easy way to export Gmail into Notes (Notes gave a technical error rejecting the .csv that Gmail outputted), I dislike Notes' functionality anyway, I don't particularly want my personal address book to be on my work computer, and I like having the contacts in Gmail in case I ever move jobs.
On the other hand, having the person's details in Gmail means the details aren't linked to any kind of reminder system, so I've not got good visibility of how frequently I am KITW those people.
I think if I could just get a good recurring task set-up in Notes, it wouldn't bother me - the task would pop up, and when I wanted to action it, I could do so from Gmail. So I guess solving the recurring To Do in Notes would be the primary goal here.
Sorry for the ramble... any takers?
Chris
Help resolving Notes and Gmail
Have you tried with Google Calendar??
You can have a dedicate calendar. And you can setup reminders by email or by SMS.
PierG
Help resolving Notes and Gmail
Ahhh... well there's at least a good workaround. Thanks very much.
I do have a google calendar but had never used it - have just tried this:
Set KITW as a recurring calendar event, adjust settings to always email me a reminder, the KITW then crops up in my gmail on the relevant day.
Given I don't use the google calendar for anything else, and that I plan to send the majority of KITW comms from gmail not Notes, this is actually going to prove a very decent solution for now.
I should have thought to explore google calendar functionality, but this simply never occurred to me. You've helped me unlock the problem - thanks again.
Chris