Hello all,
Figured I would share this simple little ‘hack’, in the event that it might prompt some further ideas.
I meet with persons on a daily basis for informal consultations.
Given that certain topics are discussed with all of them, I have used TextExpander to create a type of consultation template.
I invoke the template inside a new Text file, entitled [Date-Consultation with_Name] inside the appropriate Group for that person, during the meeting.
This brings up the TE template as a floating menu, allowing me to use the keyboard to cycle through several ‘questions’, and then select the drop-downs to confirm if it was asked/what was asked etc.
When done, hit enter, and all the selected dropdown options, are pasted into that Text file (either as plain text of rich text).
It also allows place for longer-form comments, that I then enter manually as notes to myself, once the meeting is done.
Two questions in particular, focus on whether or not I need to arrange a follow-up meeting with this person, and whether X needs to be monitored by me, going forward.
Since I use a TE template for this, if my answer to the above is YES, I can pre-define what “answer” appears as text inside the Text file for that consultation (based on how the Template is set-up inside TE).
CMS use:
I have created two simple smart-searches, now saved to the sidebar, that looks for TERM-X and TERM-Y inside the content of the Text files created inside the Consultation Group.
Since the TE Template has TERM-X and TERM-Y as possible dropdown answers to the questions of “Must I arrange a follow-up Meeting” and “Must I monitor X” respectively, and since these terms are unique (given how they are typed), the only instances where the Smart-search will ‘find’ matches, is where I have selected that as an answer(s) through the TE template during the meeting.
I can now periodically review the Smart-search, and ‘see’ the files that have those terms in them. I can see, from the filename, who the person involved is.
I can then fire-off an email to arrange the meeting, and once done, can ‘reveal’ the text file, and manually replace/delete the TERM-X or TERM-Y with a “&&&&”, that confirms I actioned the flag, and simultaneously drops that person/file out of the Smart-search…
It’s not overly complicated, and really doesn’t take long (despite what the above suggests), and is all ‘in-house’, so doesn’t involve Task-Managers etc.
I probably wouldn’t use it for BURNING appointments/tasks, but it does what it needs to, and as mentioned, is quite simple to manage.