Think of the Calendar as a forward looking set of things to do, the
Journal as a history of what's been done, and Tasks as a list of work
in progress.
One of my software products, NebulaManager, allows business
application software running on a server to generate Journal items and
all other Outlook items for employees running Outlook. This way
everyone has a record of events like: product just went beta, stock
just came in, big sale made, XX people missing from line today, etc.
It's also good for enabling CRM and ERP to software without buying new
packages that don't integrate with existing MS Office apps.
Whenever the phone rings and I talk to a client or prospect I create a
Journal item. When I'm working on projects I turn on a new Journal
entry like a time tracking device, and set the category to Billable,
non-Billable, etc. When I actually bill my time I select all entries
with category Billable and drag/drop them into Excel. That allows me
to do a Sum of the time. I then add in all of the non-Billable time
so that people know how much time I put in for them off the clock. I
then add the category Billed to all of these items when the invoice is
generated. This way I know every line item that has been posted,
whether or not it actually generates revenue. (I know, I should be
using my own NebulaManager software for this - cobbler's children have
no shoes and all that...)
If you need a reminder about something you have already done,
drag/drop a Journal entry into the Calendar, then set a reminder for
yourself to follow-up later. If you are tracking events by project,
drag/drop the Journals onto a Task item.
You can use Journaling for mundane things like "moved all dead
hardware into storage". So when someone asks where the hardware is,
and you can't remember because you haven't seen it in over a year,
you'll have this "message in a bottle" to yourself from the past.
(Drop Journals like this into the Calendar for follow-up next year
"dispose of old hardware in storage".)
Some people use Journaling to record every e-mail or Word/Excel
document they create. I haven't found that application to be useful,
but YMMV. At some point there is a tradeoff of having too many
Journal items, not enough, or spending more time journaling than you
do actually working.
HTH
Tony, Nebula R&D
(e-mail address removed)
