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Organizing Microsoft Outlook

Organizing Microsoft Outlook: How Categories Save You Time

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organizing Microsoft OutlookSending and organizing emails is not how we want to spend big chunks of our business day.  The problem is email communication is essential to most businesses.  So how do you save time with this task?  Use the categories feature with your contacts when you are organizing your Microsoft Outlook.

Putting your contacts in categories helps to group their information together.  You are not limited to one category per contact.  Your contact can be both in your “resource” and “advertising” categories for example. When you begin organizing Microsoft Outlook you will see that it provides you with standard categories to use.  These can be edited, deleted, or added to for your personal needs.

How does organizing Microsoft Outlook with Categories save time?

  • You can drag and drop.  Want to email all of your clients about a promotion? When you have spent the time organizing Microsoft Outlook you can just drag your entire clients category over and your To: field will populate with everyone in that category.  (remember for your recipients privacy you should cut and paste emails into the BCC area)
  • Need to export all of your Vendors into another program? No problem you can grab all of their information at one time.
  • Follow up is easy!  Want to send out an after event thank you? Create a category for your event, include everyone who is involved.  After the event simply drag and drop your category and send your thanks.  No going through endless contact lists and checking and double checking for fear you’ve missed someone.

While organizing your contacts into categories may take some upfront time, it will save you much more in the end!  Start by making a complete list of the categories you will want for your contacts.  Brainstorm them on paper to get a good visual.  Once you have a full list go to the Master Categories list and add or edit your categories.

Now you’re ready to get started organizing Microsoft Outlook. I would love to hear how it goes in the comments below!

The Best Tips to Organizing Microsoft Outlook

By Blog, Business Organizing, Expert Articles, Free Articles, Home Office Organization, Home Organizing, Organizing Microsoft Outlook, Quick Organizing Tips No Comments

organizing Microsoft OutlookHow many emails do you have in your Inbox?  100, 1500, 5000, or 20,000+?  The larger the number the more time you waste and increased stress.  Although many dream of getting to ground zero and only processing today’s emails, the reality of this happening is not high on the priority list. Organizing Microsoft Outlook is easy with all the new features in Outlook 2010.

 

Go ahead and look at the number in your Inbox.  Do you feel like you have a 100 pound weight sitting on your shoulders or are you smiling because you are one of the rare few who only has this week’s emails waiting for you to deal with?  The number of emails sitting in your Inbox affects the speed of your Outlook searches and how much time you waste scrolling past the same email over and over.

 How to Start Organizing Microsoft Outlook

The key to getting a handle on your emails, improving your response time and staying on top of critical actions and time-sensitive tasks is to develop an approach to process your emails both from your computer and on your mobile devices.

1. Synchronize all your devices so you only process an email once.

For small business who don’t have access to a company server, set up a Google Business Account and use Google apps to connect your Outlook, phone and iPad to access your email, calendar, contacts and tasks from all your devices.  You can even access your Gmail account from anywhere and the sync will update your Outlook the next time you are at your computer.    If you only want to sync your email to your phone and iPad, you can use the free Gmail account, (note that you won’t be able to access your calendar, contacts and tasks).

2. Use the Conversation Feature – in Microsoft 2010 when Conversations is turned on, messages in your Inbox and other email folders can be organized by Conversation and Date.  This is handy when there are several emails in a conversation because you can delete all the previous emails and only keep the latest conversation.

To turn on or off Conversations – On the VIEW tab, in the CONVERSATIONS group, select or clear the SHOW AS CONVERSATION check box.  Next, click ALL FOLDERS.

3. Set up your Action and Reference Folders

Action Folders – are for emails that require action

Reference folders – are for emails with no action required.  You keep these emails to refer to them later, are permanent records or are for tax and legal requirements.

When you create your Action folders, type a period “.” in front of the action folder name.  Adding the period changes the sort order a moves your Action folders to the top of the list and your “Reference” folder under your Action folders.  You can also use numbers 01, 02, 03, 04 if you prefer to organize your Action folders in a certain order. Suggested Action folders:

..This Week (there are two periods here)

.Delegated – Deb

.Leads

.Parked

.Projects

.Receipts to Print

.Travel

.Waiting For/Pending

To create Reference folders, create a main folder called “Reference” and then second level folders using broad categories (example. Accounting > Budget 2012)

Separating your action and reference emails helps you gain control on what requires your attention.  No more wasting time scrolling past emails that don’t require your attention.

Arrange your emails by Conversation, From – In Outlook 2010, on the VIEW tab, in the ARRANGEMENT group, click one of the arrangement options.  One of the fastest ways to process your emails is to arrange by Conversations.

Organizing Microsoft Outlook emails is easy when you customize it the way you want to process your emails.  Now that you have your new action and reference folders set up, you can use the next four steps to process your Inbox and get it to ground zero, or close to zero depending on your preference.

Organizing Microsoft Outlook with F.A.S.T.

Use the F.A.S.T. Workflow Decision Making Process to quickly decide what the next action is.  With the F.A.S.T. process, you have four choices:

File – file emails in your Reference folders that have no action.  Drag and drop emails into the appropriate Reference folder.  A word of caution, at some point you will need to clean out these folders or move them to your Archive folder.

Act – these are emails that require action by you.  Drag emails that require action

Schedule – get your appointments into your calendar and save as an ALL DAY EVENT or at a SPECIFIC TIME.  If you are keeping the email to refer to at the appointment, simply drag the email to your calendar and all the info will be saved in the appointment.  Delete the email.

Toss – Read and delete whenever possible.  Be ruthless with the delete key.  You can set up your Deleted Folder to delete emails manually by you, monthly or whatever time frame you prefer.

If your inbox is overflowing with emails and organizing Microsoft Outlook seems like a daunting project, here’s a fast way to get your Inbox close to ground zero immediately.  Create an Action folder “.OLD EMAILS.”  Next, drag emails that are older than 7 days into the new .OLD EMAILS folder.  You’ll need to schedule time in your calendar to deal with this old emails.  This strategy gives you instant relief since you only have 7 days of emails to process.  You’ll be motivated to process the old email folder.

 What have you found was key to your organizing Microsoft Outlook? Join us in the Comments below!

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Organizing Microsoft Outlook: How to Never Miss an Important Deadline or Appointment Again

By Blog, Business Organizing, Free Articles, Home Office Organization, Organizing Microsoft Outlook, Uncategorized No Comments

Microsoft Outlook is a great organizing tool.  Are you using this powerful tool to the best of its potential? This article is part of a series of articles that will help you as begin organizing your Microsoft Outlook.

The Problem

You need to record to-dos on to your calendar, but you end up collecting scraps of paper everywhere as you jot things down to later transfer to your calendar.  You want to accomplish three big things:

  • Get rid of all those scraps of paper on your desk, in drawers, and lining your pockets
  • You want to have a clear list of what it is you need to accomplish today, and have an easier time planning your day.
  • You want to be able to see what the next action step you need to accomplish is.  Making it easier to cross things off the to-do list.

 Organizing Microsoft Outlook: Your Email Calendar

Your calendar can help you reduce stress and get through your day without missing any important to-dos.  When you get to organizing Microsoft Outlook you will find that your email calendar is a safe and reliable place to keep a number of important tasks. This means you won’t have to worry about forgetting daily tasks (or losing important slips of paper).

What Can I Track?

 Your email calendar is a great place to organize and record these everyday activities:

  • All of your important meetings and appointments
  • Follow-ups with clients or on important projects
  • Calls you need to make
  • You can set an all-day event reminder for time carved out for meetings, conferences, or other events
  • Block out time to work on specific projects
  • Life events: Birthdays, anniversaries, ect.

What Will it Look Like?

What does my email calendar look like?  Outlook gives you choices!  You can view the day, week, or month.  When you are organizing Microsoft Outlook you set your default view to what works best for you.

A Quick Tip: You can set your default view to Work Week. Then customize your view to show Monday through Friday.  This will give you a great view of what you have to accomplish during the week.

Organizing your Microsoft Outlook calendar can be even better accomplished through the use of the color coding system.  Don’t use so many colors that it becomes overwhelming and hard to read, but a sensible use of color can be very helpful.  You’ll be able to see what your day, week, and month hold at a glance and where your priorities are.

 Organizing Microsoft Outlook: Your Email Task List

Your email also contains a task list.  You may be confused about what the difference between your email task list and your email calendar.  Your calendar is for active tasks, items you are committed to doing, they have specific timelines and due dates.  Your task list is for an inactive list, things you intend to do, they don’t yet have a specific timeline or due date.

Using your task list for everyday tasks can create a HUGE list of tasks.  This frequently means that you only do the first couple things on your list and to-dos further down the list just keep going further and further down the list.

What are some good examples of items that work for your task list?  Ideas for future projects, family and friend gift ideas, music or bands you would like to find and listen to, books you want to read, your mission and vision for your business.  Think of your task list as a place for long term brain storming.

A Word of Warning

Another great reason to keep your daily tasks in your email calendar instead of task list, your phone may not sync with the task list.  Some phones, like the iPhone, do not currently sync with task list.  This means when you are away from your computer you would be disconnected from your daily to-dos, a sure way to miss something!

Organizing your Microsoft Outlook so your calendar and task list are handling the jobs best suited to them will help reduce stress and get your day running smoother.  Don’t delay start today!

I want to hear from you!  What is your favorite Microsoft Outlook feature?