Keeping your inbox under control
Outlook tips and tricks
In today’s fast-paced business environment, how do you manage to keep your inbox under control? How can you avoid having so much information and not knowing where to find it? How can you prioritize your correspondence?
There are several useful tools in Outlook to help you manage your inbox. Use these tips to help keep it all under control.
Keep your messages organized by utilizing the sorting feature. Messages can be organized by date received (newest to oldest or oldest to newest), subject, or sender (alphabetically A-Z, or in reverse alphabetical order), attachment, importance or flag status. You can find these sorting options at the top of your inbox.
Keyboard shortcuts can be used to quickly forward, reply to, or delete a message.
Press CTRL+F to forward the current e-mail message.
Press CTRL+R to reply to the current e-mail message.
Press CTRL+D to delete the current e-mail message.
Did you know e-mail messages can be read without being opened? The Auto-Preview feature allows the first three lines of a message to be seen. The Preview pane allows an entire message to be viewed. Go under “View” and click “AutoPreview” to utilize this feature.
Try setting up rules and alerts to better organize incoming messages. For example, do you receive a lot of e-mails that aren’t all for you? You can assign a color to e-mails that are only addressed to you. That way you know which ones you should read first. You can do this by right clicking in your inbox. Click ‘Customize Current View’ and then click ‘Automatic Formatting.’ Here you can add rules based on your preferences.
Rules also allow you to create a folder for each vendor, supplier, or associate from whom e-mails are frequently received. You can have certain e-mail messages automatically dropped into these folders before they ever hit your inbox. Also, flags can be set on messages as reminders. And you can create distribution lists for your outgoing messages.
Set aside some time each day to read/sort/delete e-mails. Hold the shift key and arrow up or down to highlight consecutive messages you wish to move to one particular folder.
Be sure to empty and purge your deleted and sent items, as using up too much file space can slow Outlook’s performance.
The calendar feature will remind you of meetings or events. As long as the sender of the invitation marked the “Reminder” box, you will receive a pop up reminder before the event or meeting.
The Contacts feature allows you to keep a virtual “business card” for each of your business associates or vendors. A search can be performed by name or category.
You can drag an e-mail message to the Contacts folder to add a contact for the person who sent the message. The subject of the message will automatically become the Contact, and the original message is stored in the contact information.
The Tasks feature is your electronic “To Do” list. An e-mail can also be dragged into the Tasks folder. The subject of the message will automatically become the subject of the task, and the body of the task will contain the message.
Use Outlook to your advantage! By learning these tricks, your e-mails can be better managed by making the most of the flexibility and functionality of Outlook.
Do you have any Outlook tips or tricks? Share them with us.