Outlook-ing for Google

Microsoft Outlook is a product in the Microsoft Office package, and it used by a variety of businesses and in personal homes as the main means of sending and receiving email. The program is aesthetically reminiscent of the themes that Microsoft has designed into all of their 2012 Office package, which makes it easy to navigate if you have worked with any of the Office products before.

One the program is open, there are a variety of options on how you can use Outlook to your advantage. It has an inbuilt calendar and task manager, along with an easy to use and  functional contact base, along with a working inbox and outbox for your email uses. Once you have created events in the calender, it is an easy issue to then send an email with those particular details out to various others, which would load quickly onto their computers. Each part of the program interacts with the others, with tasks and the calender easily tied into the email system for ease of access. This would be of particular benefit to businesses wanting to use a unified system.

The program itself seems fairly easy to use at a first glance, and that would be a correct. It is easy to navigate through the various functions of the Outlook program - but the program itself can be a bit restricting merely in its own design Because the program is based only on your one computer, all of the settings, emails and events that you have saved on it are locked to that one computer. Whereas Google Calenders can be integrated into your mobile phone for ease of access and for quick reference, the Outlook programming can only be found on the computer that is installed on. 

This too can be slightly restricting for businesses, if they are constantly on the move. Desktop notifications of events are a handy integrated tool of the program, but not if you are somewhere else. Google Calenders has an ease of access that the Outlook program doesn't have, but, the Outlook program's Calender is more user friendly. The task lists are easier to use than the Google alternative, and do not require an internet connection to view.

And of course the program has its email, which can be forgotten under all of the other features that the software boasts. The email program is just like any other, with varying files for junk mail, and other folders to sort email's into. The inbox itself is fairly straight forward, not unlike the Google alternative, if only for layout.

To summarize everything here; I believe that the Outlook is a reliable and trustworthy program, capable of performing all of a businesses needs or demands with little hassle. However the program itself can be a bit restricting if needed for quick reference on a different computer or handset, since all the program only stores the information on the single machine. Depending on the Business type, Microsoft Outlook is absolutely one of the best choices when it comes to email and calender software.

I've... Had...The Quadrant Of My Life!!

Below, is my life, taken apart, and thrown into quadrants which represent where I spend my time, and how it is prioritized. At least, to me.

	URGENT	NOT URGENT
I M P O R T A N T	I ·         Work ·         Assignment o   Study (When left undone)	II ·         Personal Care (Showering) ·         Study ·         Classes ·         Family Activities
N O T I M P O R T A N T	III ·         Food	IV ·         Sleep ·         Surfing the web (favorite forums)- ESCAPING ·         Social ·         Watching TV

The above table, along with the graph that I designed in The Desk of my 168 hours of the week, shows how much time I tend to spend on what is called 'Chill out time' or what I should more truthfully call it 'Wasted time'. An enormous 54 hours of my entire week went into this wasted time, which was still me being a little bit modest. My actual study time probably only accounts for one hour of the day, and its normally stress filled, emotional devastating, and generally, last minute. I spend the rest of my time wasting it away on the computer, while I could be more effectively spending it.

More often than not, Study and Assignments are in Quadrant I, there because of the reasons above, and I spend most of my life in Quadrant IV. My sleep patterns are particularly bad, sleeping between 1am and 9am, depending on the particular day.

Surveys: For the Light Hearted?

Quick Survey: Have you, over the last week, made a survey on stress?

Well if you answered 'yes' then give yourself a big high five and reward yourself with an ice-cream sandwich, or some other kind of ice cream to treat yourself for your good work.

This week we all went onto the site Survey Monkey and designed a fun little survey on stress. It was good fun, navigating the site to add questions, and then making the questions! It was almost that fun that I'm surprised it isn't illegal!

Survey Monkey? This is BANANAS!

 In all seriousness though, Survey Monkey was actually quite enjoyable to use, and the interface was simple to navigate. I personally found the process quite easy to use. I can definitely see the practicality of such a site - the surveys are easily accessible no matter where you are, and the surveys themselves are quick to answer and easy to use.

There were so many options available - if you were willing to pay for them. Being a student with limited funds I wouldn't pay for the advanced features, but at the same time I don't have a real reason (other than for my own personal amusement) to pay for a target audience. The results that we are looking for will still apply with the limited numbers that we have, mostly because of our age and gender differences. Though having thousands of people run at my beck and call to answer the survey that I wrote about which flavor of ice-cream is more tasty would be amusing, for someone in my shoes, it would be a complete waste of time.

Though don't pretend that you wouldn't take part of that survey.

There are so many resources out there that deal with stress - its almost amazing to think that people deal with it at all. But I can understand why. Looking at wonderful motivated posters about how you should prioritize your workload and make a more effective schedule are good thoughts - in theory. Once you've gotten to week six of the term, you've already developed a routine of procrastination that is almost impossible to get past. As the stress levels rise, and you're wondering how on Earth you let those assignments get so late, you just find yourself more stressed. You wind yourself up then trying to figure out where to start until the easiest thing to do is to eat that ice-cream you were offered earlier.

I know I stress. I stress a lot about my assignments and completing themselves, and I know that I need to work on my stress management, and my effective time management before I'm going to get anything done.