Learn how to transform Microsoft Entourage into the ultimate GTD productivity system. If you haven’t already, read the previous articles in the series to get started before diving into these details.

If you’ve been following the series, you’ve now had a few days to try out the system and see how it works. In that time, I’ve received a number of comments and questions, so I figured I’d include some answers to those questions to help fine-tune your application of GTD in Entourage, as well as cover some tips on how to handle your reviews, the best way to carry your tasks with you at all times, and some ideas on how to capture information and keep your projects straight.

Learn how to transform Microsoft Entourage into the ultimate GTD productivity system. If you haven’t already, read the previous articles in the series to get started before diving into these details.

Today’s installment will get into the real fun part of un-kinking Entourage: The magical AppleScripts which make Entourage a totally smooth and easy environment for keeping your mind like water.

In our previous installment, you got a taste of this fun with the “Quick Project” script which turns a multi-step wizard into a simple menu item. But the scripts I’ll be sharing today will keep your tasks organized, archive old ones, and let you add new tasks, projects and even categories to Entourage from within any application without typing more than a single line of text!

Learn how to transform Microsoft Entourage into the ultimate GTD productivity system. If you haven’t already, read the previous articles in the series to get started before diving into these details.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, how do we actually go about setting this up? What categories and projects do you need?

Read on, and when you’re done, Entourage will be ready to roll to handle all your GTD duties!

Learn how to transform Microsoft Entourage into the ultimate GTD productivity system. Read the whole series to find out how.

Today’s installments cover the basics of how GTD methodologies can be integrated into Microsoft Entourage. I’ve broken it up into two parts to make it easier to read, but by the end of these articles, you will be able to set up Microsoft Entourage in a fashion that will work smoothly with GTD.

In later installments, we will get into the nitty-gritty of using AppleScript automation to further un-kink and streamline your workflow.

Do you want to manage your tasks and open-loops/projects easily and automatically? Do you want the ease of use of Kinkless GTD with the reliability of a commercial application? Well, so did I. This is what prompted me to finally settle on transforming Microsoft Entourage into the ultimate personal productivity system. This is the first entry in the series, so read along, and keep coming back to find out how you can work Entourage to your best advantage.

Introducing Send to KGTD Advanced Version 3.1!

…Now featuring full support for international character sets to support productive people around the world!

This is a simple, powerful script which allows you to quickly enter tasks, projects and/or contexts to your Kinkless GTD file. It’s faster and easier than doing it by hand via OmniOutliner, or using any other scripts out there!

New in Version 3.0

• Full Unicode support! The parsing engine has be re-written from scratch so now non-Roman character sets are fully supported.
• Support for KGTD files without date columns
• Support for KGTD custom inbox sections (uses meta-inbox)
• No longer requires any scripting additions!

It’s taken me a few days to consider what, if any, reaction was warranted by the recent announcement of OmniFocus. Given that I am hopelessly addicted to all the software Omni makes (although I don’t own all of it, I would buy it if I didn’t have a family to feed), I assume I will be migrating to OmniFocus when it ships or enters public beta.

However, I am currently stuck wholly in Kinkless GTD, and I expect to keep working there as well.

So the question comes down to whether I intend to continue to improve/support the many scripts I’ve built to enhance Kinkless GTD.

Fully integrate your email with Kinkless GTD!

Updated September 21, 2006: Removed link creation to work around a bug in a recent security update.

Have you ever been in your car, and you just want to remind yourself to pick up a certain CD on Amazon because you’re digging on the current tune on the radio?

Do you have web forms that send you tech support requests and you’d like to get those requests in your Kinkless GTD file?

Do you sometimes just want to remind yourself to follow up on an email, but you’d rather have everything in one place, and so you end up filing an email and then creating a task to follow up on it in KGTD, and pretty soon you can’t remember where anything is?

A number of users have reported that when their mail rules activate Mail to KGTD, they get an error type 8. I’ve tracked down the CAUSE of this problem, but I’m not quite at a solution yet.

The cause is that when messages come in, they don’t seem to have message IDs anymore. Since my script requests a message ID, everything borks when it tries to get it. Once messages are properly received (after rules are run), they have IDs (like they should), which is why Mail Act-On continues to work, as will the rule if you edit it and then request that the new rule run on all messages in your inbox.

A number of people on the Kinkless GTD forums have asked about running KGTD’s synchronization script from within other scripts.

Due to the design of the script, if you run it from another application, various terrible things will happen. Even if you get it to run, it will start the slowest, most painful sync imaginable.

This script avoids that by simply using Apple’s UI scripting to click the Sync toolbar button. It requires that you have previous sync’d your Kinkless GTD file and also that you have the Sync script as a toolbar button in that file and that it not be renamed (it has to be called “Sync”).

Welcome to Nik’s Picks. This is a little spot where I’ll devote some time to mentioning some of the best Mac-related hardware and software out there.

To begin with, I figured I’d mention the single application that keeps my life in order, gathers my thoughts, and spits them out in an orderly fashion: OmniOutliner Professional.

KGTD2Go is designed to export your Kinkless GTD actions to a hierarchy of folders and text files so that you can take them with you on your iPod as iPod notes. You can alternately use it to export to any folder on any disk, if you don’t have an iPod or have other uses for this script.

KGTD2Go can even be set up to automatically synchronize your KGTD file every time your iPod (or other external disk) is attached to your Mac, through the use of a folder action on your Volumes folder.