Control Your Day - Microsoft Outlook Email Mastery System (Udemy.com)
A New Approach to Email Management Using Microsoft Outlook and the best practices of David Allen's Getting Things Done
Created by: Jim McCullen
Last updated May 2022
What you will learn
- A new way to manage email and tasks using Microsoft Outlook and the best practices of Getting Things Done.
How it compares
Against the other 459 rated Udemy courses in Office Productivity on CourseDuck:
- Rating4.3 out of 5higher than 18% of them
- Reviews2,003#91 of 460 by number of reviews
- Length3.4 hoursshorter than 57% of them
- Last updatedMay 2022earlier than 78% of them
Course Description
Take back control of your Inbox
Struggling with email management? Is your Inbox out of Control?
Control Your Day(CYD) offers a new and better way to manage your email and tasks using Microsoft Outlook. The system incorporates productivity concepts made famous by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done (GTD). The CYD system is in use by thousands of people in countries all over the world. There is no special software required just a standard copy of Microsoft Outlook. With CYD you will stop using multiple folders, to-do lists and reminders to stay organized, instead you will manage everything from one view inside of Microsoft Outlook.
This course will introduce you to the concepts of CYD, provide you with some great email productivity tips and explain how to replace folders with categories, use rules to auto process email messages, create search folders to organize your mail based on due date instead of received/sent date and add next actions and contexts to your messages. Once you are comfortable with the concepts I walk you through how to use CYD to take back control of your day.
If you have any questions, just send me a note through Udemy and I will respond as quickly as possible.
Get started today!
Instructor Details
- 4.3 Rating
2,003 Reviews
Jim McCullen
Jim McCullen considers himself a productivity hacker, always looking for ways to reduce the effort it takes to stay organized and get more things done. Jim is an avid GTDer and has built a system called Control Your Day that allows Microsoft Outlook users to apply GTD practices to manage their email, task lists and delegated work all from one virtual search folder in Outlook.
More Office Productivity courses
AI-Powered Social Media Management: From Beginner to Pro (2025)
5.0 (211 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 1.1h
$19.99
Microsoft Excel + AI: Go From Data Analysis to Visualization (2026)
4.9 (276 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 3.8h
$10.99
Complete Introduction to Google Sheets Pivot Tables (2026)
4.8 (3,570 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 2.9h
$64.99
Microsoft Excel - Managing Personal Finances with Excel (2024)
4.8 (810 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 3h
$19.99
Reviews
By Brenda Delgado on 5/21/2026
most of the presentation was blurry making it hard to see and causing a headache
By Ashley West on 4/27/2026
Our type of work wouldn't allow delayed emails. We are expected to answer pretty quickly.
By Vanessa Koller on 3/31/2026
the course is not really up to date and the system is not working in the modern world :) with doing the most email on mobile devices , a section how to handle shared inboxes would be interesting as well
By Anonymized User on 4/25/2024
What a game changer! I have been using CYD for 3 months and I was waiting to post a review to gauge success. Since I started using the system, I went on vacation, came back, got caught up. I have more capacity for tasks that matter, and my memory is improved, because I am free of the mental residue of not knowing what is in my inbox that I may be missing. I highly recommend!
By Sharad Varma on 11/13/2023
Real tangible and actionable steps that I can immediately apply to my daily work. I joined work after a long break and had 6k+ emails waiting in my inbox. I used CYD and processed all of them while taking this course in a matter of 3-4 days. Not only that, I'm now less distracted with random emails that used to clutter my mind before.
By Byron Jones on 6/12/2023
For years like a lot of other people, I have been completely overwhelmed by the number of emails which land in my Inbox each day. Using my Inbox as a to-do list was never an effective solution, as task were always falling through the cracks. I had begun using categories to organize my emails rather than folders, but I was still having issues making a system work. I have been using the "Control You Day" method for a couple of weeks now, and I must say it has really begun to help me get control of my emails. I wish I had discovered this course long ago. Thank you for developing this method and sharing it with the rest of us!
By Anonymized User on 6/13/2022
I have seen many videos and courses on using Outlook but have never followed through due to the complexity or lack of excitement it generated in me. CYD is different, I can't even explain how. It's simple and it works. I can't ever remember waking up and being excited to check my InBox (or in my case, my !DueToday folder. Bravo Jim!
By John P Mohr on 2/27/2022
I will have to watch this a few times to fully integrate, but what a great concept. Your inbox stress goes away, everything is still there! Meanwhile, you are using the search folders, your daily to-do list in CYD to keep your virtual inbox to zero. Love this concept and will use it for many years to come.
By D.Thompson Thompson on 11/27/2020
OMG, This course was AMAZINGGGGGG! This course gave me the tools needed as a program manager in a secure environment who can only use Microsoft Outlook. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who needs to get organized and stay on top of things ALL IN ONE SYSTEM. Easy to follow. Great job!
By Philip Gomez on 6/30/2020
Great course. I have a copy of the author's book, which I like, but it helps to see the system in videos. My only nitpick is that the screen shares were a bit large, which made it so I had to watch in full-screen in order to read some of the screen text. Otherwise, I highly recommend the course.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 86 / 100






