Holly Uverity CPO®, Office Organizers
Managing email can be a real challenge but if you’re an Outlook user, there’s hope. Outlook is a great productivity tool, and while it’s designed to help people better manage their time and tasks, most people still use it primarily for email.
Here are four of my favorite Outlook tips that can help you get through that cluttered Inbox.
Flag for Follow Up or Add a Reminder
- If an email contains an action item that you don’t want to forget to do, you can flag the email for follow up or you can set a reminder. You can flag and set reminders whether the email is open or not; simply right click on an unopened email and you’ll see your flag options as well as an option called Add Reminder. On an email that is open, both options are available under the Flag for Follow Up icon. Once you’ve clicked on Add Reminder, a window will open which will allow you to set the exact date and time you want to be reminded. When that option is chosen, your email will pop up just like any other reminder you set.
Change the Subject Line
- Often the subject of an email will change but the subject line won’t. To change the subject of an email after you’ve received it, just highlight the subject line, type in the new subject line, and hit close. When prompted to save, say ‘Yes’ and your email will be saved with the subject line you just created. This allows you to group emails together in ways that make sense to you regardless of the subject line.
Use Favorites
- Outlook automatically alphabetizes the folders in your Inbox. This can be problematic because it can happen that the folder you use the most is near the bottom of the folder list simply because of the name you gave it. Many people work around this issue by adding a star, a number or some other character in front of the folder name so the folder will be at the top of the list. This can lead to odd folder names and in fact, can make it more difficult to find the folder you need. A much better solution is to use Favorites. Simply drag the folder you’ve created into the Favorites section and it will always be easily accessible. (Your Favorites section is directly above your Outlook folders on the left hand side of your screen.) In Favorites, you can organize your folders in any order so you can have the most used first, regardless of the name of the folder. This is a great place to drag and drop folders that are specific to projects that you are working on; when the project has completed, simply remove the folder from Favorites by right clicking on the folder and selecting Remove from Favorites. When you add or remove a folder from Favorites, you are working with a copy of that folder so whatever you do in the Favorites section has no effect on the actual folder that resides in your Inbox. .
Arrange by Conversation
- In addition to arranging your emails by date, sender, or subject (the most common ways that people arrange their emails), you can also arrange your emails by Conversation. Using Arrange by Conversation will group your emails by ‘thread’ which is a complete chain of messages with the same subject. Each thread is sorted by date and the messages within the thread are sorted based on the conversation – who replied to whom. If your messages are arranged by conversation, when you receive a new message, the entire conversation moves to the top of your email list. By default, only unread and flagged emails are shown and the conversations are collapsed until you click the arrow next to the heading to open them. Click the arrow and you’ll see all the messages in that conversation and the messages are indented so it’s easy to see all the responses. Using Arrange by Conversation is a great option when there are many back and forth responses on the same subject from different people. To find Arrange by Conversation, click on the View option and it is listed as a choice, along with the other options for viewing your emails. Another advantage to arranging by conversation is that you can opt for Conversation Clean Up which will read each email and delete the redundant ones. If a message is completely contained within one of the replies, that email is deleted.
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Office Organizers is The Entrepreneur’s Organizer. Founded in 1993, they work with business people to create solutions for their organizational challenges. Contact them at 281.655.5022, www.OfficeOrganizers.com, or www.fb.com/OfficeOrganizers.icon.
