Keep Focused

Overview

All day, everyday, interruptions happen.  And, with the Information Age of today upon us, more interruptions and "stuff" is hitting our plates faster and faster.  Quick Capture gives you a way to quickly capture things as they come in, get them contained, and allow you to continue to focus on the long term things; the important things like your projects.

With Quick Capture, you can quickly capture and create:

• Calendar Events
• Projects
• Tasks (for new or existing Projects)
• Notes (for new or existing Projects)

simply by typing them into the Quick Capture Widget on the Foresight Today window and clicking Capture.

Setup / Configuration

To configure Quick Capture, start at the Foresight Today window:

• Click on the Configure Foresight link in the lower right-hand corner of the window.
• Click on the Quick Capture Tab (shown above).

Calendar Tab - Associated Words / Phrases

Associated Words / Phrases are words and phrases that if typed into Quick Capture will create an event on your calendar.  For example, "Lunch" is a pre-configured word.  If you type "Lunch: Kevin Anderson tomorrow" into the Quick Capture Widget on the Foresight-Today window, Foresight will automatically create a calendar event for you, dated for tomorrow.  Other examples of words and phrases that you might want to add to this list include (but is not limited to):

• Breakfast
• Meeting
• Staff Meeting
• Laundry
• Jimmy's Baseball Game
• School Team Meeting
• Homework
• Run Backups

Calendar Tab - Add

Allows you to add a new Word / Phrase to the list.

Note: Calendar Associated Words / Phrases are case sensitive.  You must type them into the Quick Capture Widget the same way they show in this list.

Calendar Tab - Delete

Deletes the currently highlighted Word / Phrase.

Calendar Tab - Detect Phrase

Tells Quick Capture where - in the text you type into the Quick Capture Widget - it should look for the Word / Phrase.  Examples of what you would type in, based on each setting, are shown below the options.

Project Tab

The Project Tab allows you to identify what delineator, or symbol, you will use to indicate when you are typing a project name or identifier into Quick Capture.  An example of how you use the delineator is also displayed.

Tasks Tab

The Tasks Tab allows you to identify what delineator, or symbol, you will use to indicate when you are typing a task into Quick Capture.  An example of how you use the delineator is also displayed.

Reminder Tab

When an interruption does happen, Quick Capture is the tool to use to deal with it, either right at that moment or at a later time through a reminder.  When that reminder is displayed is configured on this tab.

Using

Create a Calendar Event - Examples

The following are examples of text that you could type into the Quick Capture Widget to start or create Calendar Events.  In these examples, "Breakfast" has already been setup as a Calendar Associated Word / Phrase and the Detect Phrase option is set to "Before Colon." (see above).

• Breakfast: Kevin Allison
• Breakfast: Kevin Allison 6/12/06
• Breakfast: Kevin Allison 6/12/06 8:30am
• Breakfast: Kevin Allison tomorrow
• Breakfast: Kevin Allison tomorrow 8:30am

Below are some examples with the Detect Phrase option set to "After Colon."

• John Chavez: Breakfast
• John Chavez: Breakfast tomorrow 8:30am

Below are some examples with the Detect Phrase option set to "Anywhere" and the word "Meeting" setup as a Calendar Associated Word / Phrase:

• Meeting w/ Carrie Myers 6/12/06 8:30am
• Marketing Team Staff Meeting

Create a Calendar Event Associated with a Project

Below is an example of creating a calendar event associated with a project.  For this example, the word "Lunch" has already been setup as a Calendar Associated Word / Phrase, the Detect Phrase option is set to "Before Colon" and the Project Delineator is set to "( )." The "Software Marketing Project," entered using it's short-hand identifier of "SMP" doesn't necessarily have to already exist.  If it does not exist, the Quick Capture Wizard will let you quickly create it.

• Lunch: Greg Myers 6/12/06 1:00pm (SMP)

Create a Project

You can quickly create a new project by typing the name of the project inside the designated Project Delineator (see above).  Some examples might include:

• (The Name Of My Project) These are the notes that will be captured to the project.  This is a great way to quickly create the project and put some notes / thoughts on it so later you can remember what it is about and map out the rest of the project.
• (ENG-101 Verbs Paper) I need to think through the next steps on this school paper.
• (Smith 2006 Tax Return) Preliminary tax planning project for John Smith > Call John re meeting.

Create a Task

As shown in the last example above, you can quickly create a task for a project using Quick Capture.  Just type the text for the task following a Task Delineator (see above).  Some examples might include:

• (My Project) > This task will be added to the project.
• (Smith2006) > Obtain K1 from State Bank.
• (ENG101VP) > Get book from library.

Note above in the last two examples that the Project Identifier was used instead of the Project Name.  This gives you a shorthand way of referencing projects and reduce the amount of typing needed to Quick Capture something.