Pocket Profiles: Customer Needs vs. Long-Term Goals

Most sales planning and work scheduling software seems designed for someone with a fairly predictable work pattern and a high degree of control over his or her activities. Unfortunately, I have none of that. I am a corporate account director and have sales responsibility for a large worldwide customer with a large number of sites. I must think and act strategically for long term effectiveness, and at the same time react to daily events and problems that crop up in the process of keeping my customer satisfied. Keeping track of my work can be an overwhelming job.

I originally kept up with everything using the Day-Timer notebook approach, but that was limited in scope and became outdated quickly. Computer-based schedulers like Outlook and the FranklinCovey software did a better job, but created another problem: you had to be at a desktop computer, or carry around a notebook PC to keep things current. Since I spend about 50% of my time at my desk and the rest in the field with customers, I ended up having to make changes on my computer, print them out, put them into a binder, mark them up with new changes as I went about my daily activities, and then enter the new changes into my computer when I got back to the office. I was constantly chasing changes and printing them out.

I finally found a way to keep everything current and reduce the paperwork to a bare minimum. Everything is at my fingertips and I can make a change at any time, regardless of where I am, and know that everything is current without having to write it down. I can also keep track of the reactive events without jeopardizing my strategic actions.

Outlook, Pocket PC, and Pocket Informant

I now use a three-part system, which includes Outlook 2000 on my desktop PC, which I synchronize with my Compaq iPAQ 3800 Pocket PC. The third element is a little software package for the Pocket PC called Pocket Informant from Web Information Solutions (www.pocketinformant.com). I chose this program because it integrates all of the information from my Calendar and Tasks list with Outlook in such a way that I can see, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, where all of my appointments are and what I should be doing at that time to accomplish my goals. Contact list, telephone numbers, and notes are also included in the package, but the primary function that keeps me on track is the ability to keep my schedule and my to-do list up-to-date and accurate. With this system, I can make changes in the office or in the field and know that the other end will be updated to reflect the current status of the situation, without any further thought of the matter.

Making the system work for me

To make this system work for me, I had to customize the Outlook categories to reflect my objectives. You can do this by going into Outlook's Master Category List, deleting all of the standard categories, and creating new categories that reflect your own objectives. With Outlook running, open an individual task, contact, etc. Click on the Category button at the bottom of the screen and then the Master Categories List button. Select and delete the categories that are not relevant to you. Then type in the name of the new category/objective and click on the Add button. It's easy to add or delete categories at any time, so you don't have to create a complete category list the first time. In fact, my list is ever changing to reflect my changing objectives. In my system, an objective can be very specific, like "Get this done" or it can be a general category for a collection of general tasks, like "Personal" (Screen 1).

Screen 1: Using the Master Category List on my desktop PC's Outlook, I created new categories that better reflected my own objectives.

Every time you create a new task, the Tasks dialog box appears. Select the Categories button and your list of new objectives appears. Place a check mark next to the appropriate objective, hit OK, and fill out the rest of the Task dialog box.