I was thinking about my friend Marc Orchant this morning while also looking for something about how to do a good weekly review when I came upon a post that Marc himself had authored back in 2004. He was actually referring to another post that explains how to set up Outlook to automate the process of performing a weekly review.

Marc’s original post is copied verbatim below, including the links to the post to which he was referring. The script for automation may require some updating but aside from that the advice is as good now as it was then.

by Marc Orchant

Michael Hyatt, whose blog is a must-read if you practice Getting Things Done, has provided a great Outlook macro script that automates the process of setting up a weekly review task list. I am a Visual Basic novice and it took me about three minutes to set this up (including creating a custom icon).

I figure I’ll save ten times that amount of time every month because now I can click a single button and my Weekly Review is all set up.

Great stuff.

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1. Can you use ActiveWords to name the VBA events?

Buzz

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Buzz Bruggeman

2. I’m not sure if you can directly invoke a VBA macro but you shoul dbe able to construct a script that calls the Macro window (Alt+F8), picks the appropriate macro by position in the list, and then exeutes the macro. I’ll try setting that up. As an alternative, you could try invoking the toolbar button by its speed key assignment.

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Marc Orchant

3. Hi,
You could use Outlook with the following command line option:

outlook /recycle /autorun macroname
This brings the currently running instance of Outlook to the front if there is one, otherwise launches Outlook, then it immediately runs the macro specified in macroname.

See also:
1. Outlook | Help | Search for “command line switches”
2. Additional command line switches in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296192
3. http://tinyurl.com/yrxg3 then click Switch Reference

Let me know if this answers the question.

Regards,

Marjolein Hoekstra

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Marjolein Hoekstra

4. Can you use ActiveWords to name the VBA events?

Buzz

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Buzz Bruggeman

5. I’m not sure if you can directly invoke a VBA macro but you shoul dbe able to construct a script that calls the Macro window (Alt+F8), picks the appropriate macro by position in the list, and then exeutes the macro. I’ll try setting that up. As an alternative, you could try invoking the toolbar button by its speed key assignment.

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Marc Orchant

6. Hi,
You could use Outlook with the following command line option:

outlook /recycle /autorun macroname
This brings the currently running instance of Outlook to the front if there is one, otherwise launches Outlook, then it immediately runs the macro specified in macroname.

See also:
1. Outlook | Help | Search for “command line switches”
2. Additional command line switches in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296192
3. http://tinyurl.com/yrxg3 then click Switch Reference

Let me know if this answers the question.

Regards,

Marjolein Hoekstra

Posted at 6:20AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Marjolein Hoekstra

Tags: Getting Things Done, Oliver Starr - former Editor of GTD Times, Software //
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