It seems as though I have my best ideas when I am driving.  That could be because I am usually listening to podcasts which inspire creative thinking.  With having gone over how to use Siri to send emails (Productivity Siries Part 3) today I want to share how I send emails to myself and create tasks with them in Outlook.

If you are like me, your email inbox serves as your to-do list.  An item that needs your attention stays in your inbox until you have responded, it then gets deleted or moved to a folder for safe keeping.  I have found this to be a potential recipe for dropping the ball on something if your inbox list becomes too long.

If I have an email that I know will take time or requires additional information to respond to, I will “flag” the email with a due date and move it to an appropriate folder.  It will then show up in my outlook task list.  I find this to be a better place to host my to-dos because they are arranged by a due date. Don’t delete the email until the task is complete, or it will delete the task as well.

Using Siri to set reminders (Productivity Siries Part 2) is good for some things but some items may have several steps or be part of an ongoing project.  In that case I have found that sending an email to myself with Siri’s help, then flagging it to show up in my task list works very efficiently.

The “subject” of the email is what will show up in your task list, so choose that carefully before you call on Siri. If you haven’t read my post on how to use Siri to send emails, I’ve linked to it above. The body of the email can contain further details.

For example I was listening to a podcast not too long ago that talked about a new app called “Snippet” which is a format for content creators. It was something that I wanted to research.  So I called upon Siri…. 

Once I arrived back in my office, I opened the email, flagged it with a future date for execution. 

I hope you were able to practice some of the tasks from last week without wanting to throw your phone across the room!

Today I will share how I send short email messages while I’m driving.  This took a little more time to learn to do.  Sending anything longer than one sentence was a challenge.  You have to know exactly what you are going to say before you call Siri to action.

My first attempts were quite frustrating and ended in a lot of failures.  My mind would go blank and Siri will not let you pause, not even a second. If you do, she thinks you are finished and cuts you off.   The trick is to keep them short.

Here is an example of me sending an email to a customer to confirm an appointment for the following day.  

In the audio clip, you hear me snap the screen shot on the left so you can see that it worked!  I forgot to mention to Ginny that I was sending that email as an example and to ignore it.  Shortly after I sent it, I received an email back from here stating that she didn’t remember we had a meeting.  Oops, sorry Ginny.

My email was accurately sent while I continued to drive safely.  Don’t get discouraged, keep practicing this one.  I can now send longer emails with a higher success rate.

Next week I will cover how to use her to create tasks in Outlook.

Last Monday I went over some very basic ways to get acquainted with Siri. Today, I will get a little more specific on how I use this technology to remain productive while I am on the road for hours at a time.

I am using audio clips for two reasons. One, I think it’s important for you to hear Siri actually working.  You will find it isn’t quite as easy as in the commercials. Getting Siri to respond accurately the majority of the time has taken some practice. I finally found a cadence that she “likes” which you will be able to hear in the recordings. Secondly, I love to learn new things and it was a challenge to learn how to post audio clips in my blog. I hope you find them useful.

The first task I will cover in this post is how to use Siri to schedule reminders for you.  Say you are on the road and you just had a phone conversation that resulted in something you need to remember to do.

In the olden days (heehee) it would look something like this…knee on the steering wheel, shoulder crunched up to the ear to hold the phone, one hand holding a pen, the other a notepad.  One eye on the road (hopefully) and the other on what you are writing.

Now, it can be much safer for you to remember to do the necessary task.  I would just click and hold the remote mic button and …

On the date and time I specified, my phone alarm would alert me and remind me of the task.

If the aforementioned phone call resulted in a new appointment, Siri can take care of that for you, as well. Again, tap and hold the remote mic button…

But, say you are trying to set up an appointment and already have one scheduled at that same time creating a conflict.  Don’t worry…

All that accomplished with my hands and eyes on the road. Brilliant!

This “Siries” may be even more helpful considering it will be illegal to text and drive in Florida very soon.

Using Siri can be frustrating at times, but like many things it is a communication issue. You have to learn each other and it gets better with use, trust me and forge ahead.

Go ahead and practice a little bit.  Next week we will tackle emails.