25th September 2001

Outlook may be frowned upon as strictly an e-mail client due to the nature of its ability to spread viruses, but there is so much more to the application than just e-mail. Outlook stores contact information, your calendar, a task list, notes and last, but far from least, the Journal. To the casual Outlook user, the Journal may seem like more of an annoyance than anything, but when you dig into its capabilities, you'll quickly see how it can be a great source of organization for you, particularly as you use other Microsoft Office applications. The Journal has two basic modes - Manual and Automatic. Making Journal entries manually is helpful in keeping track of telephone conversations, notes about a particular event, or heck - even pizza deliveries if you're interested in tracking your Domino's intake.

Enabling automatic journal entries is a great way to keep track of how your time is spent without having to track it by hand. Consultants can easily keep track of time spent on proposals, writers are able to log time spent cranking out chapters or while editing. This is all able to be done automatically by the Journal. As soon as you open a Word document, the clock starts. When you close the document, the timer stops. When you check your journal, there will sit a tidy notation of the time elapsed. Another leap forward is the ability for Outlook to serve as a pseudo contact management application, associating specific contacts you want to track with the Journal, logging phone calls, meeting requests, e- mails, tasks, and any documents you've worked on for the contact.

Opening up this world of automatic info assimilation is easy. Click Tools | Options | Journal Options. Now, simply check the boxes for each item, application and contact you want recorded. >From that moment on, the Journal will be diligently jotting down all applicable movements. Outlook doesn't even need to be running when working on documents in other Office applications. It all happens behind the scenes.