License 2 Code

Okay, it didn’t save my baby…but it is pretty sweet. I’ve used it extensively at my office for the past 6 months or so.

ClearContext (http://clearcontext.com) is a great Outlook plug-in for managing your email. There are others for managing your workday (such as the GTD - Getting Things Done - plug-in). However, I feel this one has the most active development and a great featureset.

The reason I need a plugin like this is because a) I want to be as responsive as possible to people and b) I want to keep a clean inbox everyday. Keeping an clean inbox ensure I haven’t missed an important conversation.

The #1 feature I use is the auto-categorize feature. The way this feature works is: first create have a destination folder for email threads on a certain topic, then drag an email in a thread to that topic folder. ClearContext will then assign the remainder of the emails in that thread to the topic. Then, you can move these emails to this folder by pushing the assign button (either the current selected email or the whole thread).

The #2 feature I use is the feature that schedules an appointment from an email. It automatically copies the selected email as an attachment and inserts the first part of the email as the body of the appointment. A future release will automatically add the recipients of the email to the appointment.

The #3 feature I use is the ability to “defer” an email. This feature pops up a dialog asking you how long to defer the email (# of hours, # of days, # of weeks, a specific date, etc.). Then the email is removed from your inbox until the appointed time when it is reinserted into your inbox as an unread email.

The #4 feature I use is the prioritization of email. ClearContext assigns a priority of email based on the “importance” of the email using a custom algorithm. I’ve found this categorization to be fairly representative of reality.

There are other features including a dashboard overview of your inbox, tasks, and appointment, the ability to find related emails, the ability to convert an email into a task and others. However, this is a good start. =)

I had a manager that gave me the advice to “never leave a job because of unhappiness”. It took me many years of thinking and internalizing this before I really understood what it meant.

Leaving because you’re unhappy implies that you haven’t identified the specific reasons that you’re unhappy. You owe it to yourself to understand why the current job isn’t meeting your expectations. Changing employers is often risky and stressful - for you and those who depend on you.

Once you’ve identified the specific reasons you’re unhappy, you owe it to yourself and your company to attempt to resolve the issues. You’ve invested in relationships (often spending more time with coworkers than family), knowledge (including proprietary knowledge), and skills which may not be wholly transferable to a new job. Sometimes friendships endure between jobs - but even if some do, not all will.

Finally, leaving because you’re unhappy implies that you aren’t leaving for a better opportunity (otherwise you would have said so). I suspect that most people who leave because they are unhappy end up getting a job that is similar to their current job and work environment. After the initial euphoria of a new job wears off, the reality that the new job is suspiciously similar to the old job begins to set in.

In short, “I’m leaving because I’m unhappy” is ambiguous language that implies that you don’t know why you’re unhappy, haven’t attempted to resolve the issues resulting in your unhappiness, and aren’t leaving for a better opportunity.

(Caveat: This is a generalization which are never universally true, but are probably generally true.)

Ha. We had a contest to restart blogging. I won.

I had a recruiter from Google contact me about a management position (likely they Googled my resume off my personal website). It’s so very cool being contacted by one of the hippest and most-coveted tech companies in the world.

(For those concerned, I’m not planning on changing jobs anytime time soon.)

REINSTATED.