ClearContext Rocks My World
I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but sometimes it’s not until we loose things that we realize how much we really appreciate them. Specifically, I’m referring to ClearContext Information Management System, an add-on for Microsoft Outlook that turns Outlook into a top-notch tool. (Outlook’s other issues such as broken HTML rendering notwithstanding.) Recently my demo expired and while I already deeply appreciated the tool, that appreciation has been further emphasized due to the tools absence. So how did ClearContext make my day easier while using GTD and Outlook 2007?
Email Categorization. By using predefined filters and a handy drop-down list of existing categories, I could quickly and easily label the contents of my inbox.
Portable Changes. I sync to a Windows Mobile device, and ClearContext works it’s magic using a combination of folders, categories, and probably other things, so that while the ClearContext features are obviously missing on the pda, everything is still readily usable and syncs back and forth without issue. I’ve used another Outlook add-on in the past that made so many proprietary additions to Outlook that syncing was an absolute nightmare and the mobile device ended up with a complete jumble of information.
Threading! Decent threading in Outlook. A miracle, I know! Due to the limitations of Outlook (see above) the threading feature isn’t as good as Gmail’s, but it’s still a HUGE improvement over Outlook’s default capabilities. (Microsoft? Are you listening? You REALLY dropped the ball on this one.)
Clean Inbox. Once an email has been assigned a topic, I can instantly file away that message, that thread, or even the entire topic. I LOVE this feature! I can go through the inbox, processing and reading, then clear everything away with a couple quick presses of the file button.
Convert Email To… This is another big time saver, ClearContext can instantly create a task or appointment from an email message (while also linking them) and even tries to pull the needed information from the body of the message, while copying the message contents to the items notes field. Revolutionary? Probably not, but a big convenience regardless.
Other There are a ton of other useful features from ClearContext, and while I use some of them the ones listed above are what really made a big difference for me. From reading the ClearContext blog it looks like there’s lots of exciting new features and improvements in the pipe, and visiting the ClearContext forum it looks like they really take customer feedback to heart.
Shameless Plea Despite all the improvements made to Outlook by ClearContext, it does have one downside. It’s, well…. expensive. At $90 for the full version (with many of the features above) I’m finding it hard to make room in my college-student budget after ramen and the occasional beer. Thus my most pressing feedback for ClearContext becomes to offer student pricing, or some sort of similar discount. And if someone from ClearContext happens to come across this (completely unsolicited) post, and would like to “donate” a license so that I can continue to evaluate new ClearContext features, I REALLY wouldn’t say no! 
All shamelessness aside, between the new features of Outlook 2007 (To-Do Bar especially) and ClearContext I’m the happiest I’ve ever been with my personal information management system, and it just wouldn’t be possible without ClearContext.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Commentary, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
PreMagination » Post Topic » Xobni VS ClearContext April 22nd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
[...] not even remotely willing to give up my ClearContext. I’m a huge fan, as I’ve outlined before. Though to be fair, I’m still waiting on my Xobni invite so I haven’t had a chance yet [...]