All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

At work, my co-workers use Outlook to retrieve emails, and view their calendar/tasks. However, when I’m called to work on one of their computers, it’s difficult to work on them when 20+ alarms pop up. Then it’s a quick game of clicking “Snooze” on all the small windows before I can continue my task.

The problem: People have so many alarms that the lesser important tasks inevitably mix with the highly important tasks. Before you know it, you’re overlooking everything on your lists and just becoming reactive to the most critical tasks that grab your attention.

My suggestion: Don’t use alarms! If you’re not paying attention to them anyway, it’s pointless. Instead, print out all your tasks. When you feel the need to look at them, glance at your sheet then adjust yourself accordingly.

Remember, only place date-sensitive tasks on your calendar if it absolutely needs to get completed. If it’s not time- or date-sensitive, keep it off your calendar.

Sidenote: Personally, with Palm Desktop, my Tungsten E, and Datebk5, all my tasks are undated except for the ones I’ll absolutely need to have done on a specific day. Datebk5 also helps because I have special views setup so I don’t see the tasks that aren’t in context to where I am (i.e. I won’t see @Home tasks @Work).