Last year I read David Allen’s Getting Things Done and it turned out to be a great way to effectively blend tasks from my personal and business lives. I liked it so much that I have incorporated it into the training programs for senior staff members and employees managing customer accounts. Today as I was writing a tutorial on using Outlook with this system something occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought of before. In many cases having strong technical or computer skills may actually be a hinderance to good time management for a couple of reasons. First, techies generally depend on the technology too much saying things like “Oh I don’t need to read that I use (Outlook, a PDA, a blackberry, etc.) to manage my time”. I would bet that most people using Outlook for “task management” aren’t getting anything out of it. Why? It’s because without a clear process for separating tasks, projects, appointments and operational activities even Outlook becomes a mishmash of forgotten or overdue tasks. Second, and probably more important, techies are notoriously bad at reading instructions. In some ways this is good, it’s the reason why techies make great technicians, help desk personnel and programmers. They are natural do-it-yourselfers and troubleshooters. However great this skill may be in certain situations when it comes to productivity software a good understanding of the functionality goes a long way toward getting the most out of it. My own experience has taught me that no system works when I depend on Outlook to do everything for me or I don’t read the instructions.