[Design] Chandler - Experimentally Userful Notes #7

[Jim Sowers]

Hi All,

Just some thoughts on potentially useful features. Not sure which of 
these have been discussed already.

* Would REALLY like to see the Location in the calendar layout, both on 
the screen and when printing. Very helpful feature for anybody that 
moves around during the day--salespeople, lawyers, etc. Want to see at a 
glance where events are taking place.

* URL field in events as in Thunderbird calendar

* Task list that carries over to the next day/week/month if stuff isn't 
checked off. Not sure how to articulate this, just that I often start 
with a list of things that I want to do in a given day or week, and 
would like to check off the things I complete, and have those that I 
don't complete rollover to the next day/week.

* Concept of having an alarm go off if you do not receive a response to 
an email. Often I send off assignments, so of which are not acted upon. 
I want to be pinged after x days about those.emails which were not 
responded to by the person to whom I sent them (integration of email, 
calendar, and contact list -- as far as I know, this is an original idea 
of mine)

* Ability to have color coating for events within a collection - i.e., 
to somehow be able to visually set off certain events within a collection

* Ability to import .PST files -- this could be huge. Are there legal 
impediments?

* Ability to filter emails into folders based on whether they were sent 
by someone in my contacts (testing against ALL emails, not just tht the 
primary email address -- contacts should allow for at least 3 email 
entries).

That is all.

Jim

P.S. Here is a snippet of Tom Peter's wisdom:

Your calendar knows all. (You = Your calendar.) Physiologically, we are 
indeed what we eat. Professionally, we are our calendar. Fact is, there 
is only one surefire way for the boss to underscore her/his commitment 
to quality or empowerment or innovation or the Web or whatever: Spend 
(gobs of) Time on “It.” Gandhi famously said, “You must be the change 
you wish to see in the world.” Tom, less famously, says, “You are your 
calendar.” Your calendar reveals all. (All = All.) Translation, if 
needed: Your calendar reveals like no other tool (such as soaring 
rhetoric) what you actually care about. The premier (only true!) 
indicator of caring is...Visibly Spending the Time:

    * You = Your Calendar.

    * Your True Priorities = Time Visibly Spent.

    * I care = It's on the Calendar. Big Time.

    * I don't care/it's not a priority = It ain't
      repeatedly/relentlessly on the Calendar.

Axiom No. 1: Calendars Never Lie!

All non-bosses are would-be Kremlinologists, as we used to call them; or 
intense Examiners of Tea Leaves. There's no more important survival 
question for an underling than “What's the Boss really thinking about?” 
And the answer is revealed...with crystal clarity...in that 
boss's...Calendar. If she or he is spending (lotsa) time on 
quality...THEN QUALITY MATTERS. If not...the converse is the case.

There's a crucial variation on this theme. I once watched a highly 
energetic chief ripped asunder by a senior member of his board. 
“Richard,” the determined board member almost shouted, “you are smart, 
energetic, creative to a fault, perhaps even a genius. But much of your 
'genius' is dissipated because you apply it to ten different things at a 
time, albeit with great skill.

“Let me tell you what you need,” he concluded. “A 'to don't' list.”

I don't know about “Richard,” but for me that was a profound moment. 
Fact No. 1: We all have 50 genuine priorities. Fact No. 2: If we get 
even two Big Things Done in a six-year tenure on the current job, we 
will have had a...Great Ride. Axiom No. 1: Therefore, what we choose not 
to do (the sole subject of that “To Don't” list) is at least as 
important, or more important, as what we choose to do.

And, finally, effective “To Don't-ing” is far, far more difficult than 
effective “To Do-ing.”