Finding the PIM and Proper Ways to Get Organized

If your goal is to get your life organized, you have plenty of options available using your computer.

Your first step is to figure out exactly what it is you want to organize, because there are different software packages available to help you organize particular information. When it comes time to track information relating to people and appointments, these types of programs are collectively known as personal information managers, or simply PIMs.

PIMs are essentially paper-based day planners on steroids. They allow you to keep track of schedules and appointments, maintain complete contact information, coordinate projects, maintain and update to-do lists and track expenses.

As the Internet has matured into a means of business communication, today’s PIMs also include e-mail organization and tight integration with Web browsers, namely Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator.

Before you spend money on a PIM, check the software you already own. The three major software suites, namely Corel WordPerfect 8, Lotus SmartSuite97 and Microsoft Office97, each include their version of a PIM that could be all you need to keep track of business contacts, appointments, e-mail, phone calls and notes.

I’ve tried all three (Corel Central, Lotus Organizer and Microsoft Outlook) and each product gets the contact management job done. However, Organizer is well-suited for Lotus Notes users and both Outlook and Central need some more work before I’d use them. For example, contact addresses contained in Outlook cannot be used within a Microsoft Word mail merge and Central relies on newly released Netscape Communicator for e-mail and Internet functions.

Still, it’s one of those “If you have it, try it” decisions. I will forewarn you, though. Use a PIM religiously for even a short time and the chances that you’ll want to spend time fiddling with a new program and transferring the data are slim.

There are plenty of publishers touting PIMs that will make your business life more manageable. I use Symantec’s $200 Act ([800] 441-7234; https://www.symantec.com) on both my desktop PC and Windows CE-based Casio hand-held PC.

With one mouse click, I can make an appointment, place a call, send e-mail or finish a to-do and have this noted in the person’s record. When the scheduled time arrives, a message pops up on screen as a reminder. If you need to schedule a follow-up, that’s on the same screen as where you clear the activity. No more “I forgot.”

Whether you use Act or another PIM, you should be able to design the contact layout screen so that it meets your requirements. Act satisfies this and also comes with 70 default fields. Within these, there are contact fields for e-mail and World Wide Web addresses. Clicking on either of these will launch the appropriate program and send you into cyberspace.

Act’s e-mail program relies on Microsoft Exchange and is far more troublesome to set up than it should be. If you use Act in a work-group environment, you can schedule meetings and share and update data, such as contact information.

Record updating, however, can be slow over a network. For example, it takes five mouse-clicks to update a record located on another machine on a network. Act is well-suited for small-business owners and its chief competitor, GoldMine ([800] 654-3526; https://www.goldminesw.com), is a worthy contender. At $20 less, GoldMine offers what Act does for contact management with some additional innovative features.

If your business depends on referrals, such as in a sales environment, GoldMine allows you to link contacts and create something like an organizational contact chart. You can also view contacts and calendars a multitude of ways, from outline-only to planning mode. The program comes with its own e-mail program, which allows you to track incoming and outgoing e-mail as well as send e-mail to users on a local area network.

Much of GoldMine’s features are hidden behind a cumbersome user interface that forces you to work hard to figure out where all the features are hidden. Had it not been for this fact, I’d be using GoldMine today.

For a simple no-frills PIM, the $60 Day-Timer Organizer ([800] 225-5005; https://www.daytimer.com)--which is a product of Day-Timer, a leading manufacturer of paper-based organizers--is a good choice. It has the look and feel of a paper-based organizer, meaning that to a large extent, you may already know how to use it.

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The problem with keeping track of your appointments on your PC is that it’s not always convenient to fire up a notebook and hand-held PC just to check an appointment. That’s where the Timex DataLink ([800] 448-4639; https://www.timex.com/datalink/) wristwatch comes in. Watches priced between $70 and $140 also come with Windows-compatible software that lets you track appointments, to-do lists, etc., on your PC and then upload the information into your watch.

You can use another PIM to get the data into the watch, such as Microsoft Schedule+ for Windows 95, Microsoft Outlook 97 and NetManage Ecco Pro 4.0. It’s a slick product and you’ll feel like Dick Tracy wearing it.

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Kim Komando is a TV host, syndicated talk radio host, author and online entrepreneur. You can visit Kim on the Internet at https://www.komando.com or e-mail her at komando@komando.com.