March 04, 2009

 

The average user spends more than one and a half hours a day to edit its electronic mail. It is for the most part not spam but the normal E-Mail madness. Despite the enormous advantages this communication medium offers us, we feel it often as a large time guzzlers which leads to deviation, misunderstandings, stress and further problems.

 

To lessen the daily rush of E-mail, meeting requests, appointments and tasks we want to show you some tactics in this blog on how to use Outlook more effectively.

 

 

 

The WAF-principle

 

Many messages can be edited after first reading. Look at your E-Mail block at all the messages and judge after following aspects:

 

 

-Waste: The most timesaving method to handle incoming mails is of course to delete them. Before you do it of course you must ask yourself: Can I safely delete this mail? One look at sender and subject is often enough for this decision.

 

— Immediately action: Edit particularly important messages immediately, as well as mails, that only take three to four minutes to completely edit them. If you ignore such mails, you will soon receive a huge data mountain. To ignore such “bagatelles”, to create a later execution date or task for this mails costs more time and power as the immediate execution. You don´t need to break activities because you already work with your E-Mail block. So: Speed up and dispose of this E-Mail mass as quickly as possible. Then you are one step closer to your destination – an (almost) empty Inbox.

 

-Filing: When a processing of a message would take more than five minutes and must not immediately be done, sort them into your file. But in such a way that you find this message again if you need it.

 

To sort an E-Mail into your file, there are three ways:

 

- A nameable follow-up action is required or this message contains information which relate to a specific date: convert them into a task or an appointment.

 

-The message requires a subsequent reply or additional processing steps: Deposit the mail in your folder tree and select it for later editing

 

- The mail requires neither a response nor another follow-up function, but you want to keep the message for later use: Deposit it in your folder structure.

 

 

 

Convert E-mails into tasks and appointments

 

Some E-Mails contain nothing more than one or more tasks you have to do. Others are meeting agreements or contain more information about an appointment.
If you receive such a message as normal mail, convert it into the corresponding item, so you are able to find the mail quickly when you need it.

 

 

To do so proceed as follows:

 

1. Click on the message with the right mouse button and keep holding the mouse button.

 

2. Pull the message to the Group button “tasks” or “calendar” below in the navigation pane (Outlook 2003) or place it on the right icon in the Outlook bar (previous versions of Outlook) and then let go of the mouse button.

 

3. In the now resulting menu click on the desired action. For example select “move as a task with attachment”. Then the E-Mail automatically disappears from the Inbox.

 

4. Outlook opens a new task form and automatically adopts the subject of the E-Mail. Add the entry with all necessary information.

 

5. Save and close the new task by clicking the appropriate button on the standard toolbar.

 

 

 

Create tasks and appointments from individual parts of an E‑mail

 

If an E-Mail contains for example several paragraphs, represent each a separate task (or a date), follow these steps:

 

1. Select the relevant passages.

 

2. Release the mouse button and place the mouse pointer over the selected text.

 

3. Drag the selection down, click on the appropriate group button in the navigation bar (Outlook 2003) or icon in the Outlook bar (previous versions of Outlook) and release the mouse button again.

 

4. Outlook opens a new (appointment or) task form and applies the selected text in the notes pane of the new entry. Add a subject and more information you need.

 

5. Save and close the new task or the new date by clicking the appropriate button on the standard toolbar.

 

 

 

Insert multiple E-mail messages in existing tasks and appointments

 

Individual or multiple messages and appointments, tasks, contacts and notes can be attached to already registered dates.

 

1. Open the relevant entry for example by double-clicking the date in the calendar.

 

2. In the date form select the menu “Insert” and then the command “Element”.

 

3. In the dialog “Insert element/ look in” choose the folder and then select the the desired E-Mail.

 

4. Click on “OK” to insert the message.

 

5. Save and close the date by clicking the appropriate button on the standard toolbar.

 

 

 

Mark pending messages for editing

 

Not completed E-mails, which have not been converted into tasks, can be marked with color labels, for easier tracking of outstanding activities. Outlook provides for the labeling of tasks the so-called message flag – small, colored flags which can be attached to the E-mail messages.

 

 

Assign your messages with a labeling:

 

1. Select the message you want in the message bar.

 

2. Click in the column label status (the small tangents icon), to assign the default flag to the message, or click in the column with the right mouse button and select the command “Mark for follow-up” and confirm with “OK”.

 

3. If you have edited a message, which already bears a label, you can use the shortcut menu to mark the mail as complete.

 

By using the shortcut menu you are also able to remove the labeling completely.

 

 

 

Overview of marked items with search folders

 

With the help of search folders you can search your complete public or personal folders and all their subfolders for E-mails, which match certain criteria. This was you can for example see all messages that are marked for later editing at once – although they are located in different folders for different projects. If you have created a search folder once you can open it simply with a click just like a normal E-Mail folder. The search folder itself contains no messages – you will only see the messages of all searched folders which meet the selected criteria.

 

 

Create a search folder:

 

1. In the folder list (left in the navigation pane) click with the right mouse button on “search folder” (below from Inbox) and select then on the shortcut menu the command “new search folder”.

 

2. In the dialog box “new search folder” in the list box “select a search folder from” select one of the predefined search criteria.
For example select mails which are “qualified to track”.

 

3. In the dropdown-list box “search in” you can select the personal/public folder on demand.

 

4. Close the dialog box “new search folder” with “OK” to create the new search folder.
It gets filled with the appropriate messages then.

 

The search folder can be opened like any other E-Mail folders by clicking on it. If you do not see the new search folder it in the folder list, you must first expand the list of search folders. Therefore click on the small plus sign before the search folder list. (To close the folder list click the minus sign.)

 

Through additional refining of your search, for example only messages of a specific sender should be displayed, the search can be simplified enormously.

 

 

 

Let Outlook sort your mail

 

With automatic filter functions Outlook decreases a part of your post processing automatically. With a rule you can move mail automatically after their arrival in the Inbox to the appropriate folder. You must not longer manually move the message and your Inbox gets not flooded by electronic mail.

 

 

 

Create rules directly from a message

 

A rule can be created directly from a message which suites the rule that should be established.

 

Open the message on which the rule should be based on (in Outlook 2000 and 2002) and choose in the menu “actions” the command “create rule”. Then follow the instructions in the rule wizard.
In Outlook 2002 you will find the command “create rule” in the context menu of a message as well.

 

 

To create rules in Outlook Versions since 2003 proceed as follows:

 

1. click with the right mouse button on the message, on which the rule should be based, in the shortcut menu the select the command “create rule”.

 

2. Oh the base of this message the resulting dialog box offers you some already prefixed options to filter the messages, like subject, sender or recipient

 

3. If these settings match your criteria, select the run action in the group box “run following “.

 

4. Close the dialog box “create rule” with “OK” to apply the rule or click on the button “advanced options”, if you want to make more adjustments. After that Outlook opens the rule wizard and offers you a variety of other options that it has already adapted according to the selected messages.

 

 

 

Create new rules with the Outlook rule wizard

 

If you want to create a rule and have no suitable message as a template at hand or want to change an existing rule, open any E-Mail folder and then proceed as follows:

 

1. Depending on the Outlook version you are currently using, select the menu Tools and there either the command “Rule Wizard” or “Rules and Alerts”.

 

2. In the dialog box that appears now you can see all previously defined rules and can add new rules, change the processing order, delete rules, modify existing rules or copy rules and then create another slightly different ones.

 

The rule wizard guides you almost self-explanatory through the rule design. You only need to enable the conditions or actions in each step and then specify the details of the rule by clicking the corresponding terms.

 

 

 

Clever communication with Outlook

 

The right communication tactics can help us in dealing with the daily E-Mail traffic and can also be as useful as Outlook features to facilitate our Inbox.

 

An active E-mail management can save us much time, effort and above all nerves when dealing with your daily data flood. Unfortunately all too often the Inbox is used as a storage platform for electronic waste. Already a great benefit can be achieved with a few changes in dealing with E-mails, and you will once again possess a clear and tidy mailbox.

 

 

As a summary here the most important tips on effective message management once again:

 

- Note the WAF-principle (waste – instant action – file) while first dealing with your E-mails.

 

- Convert important E-mails immediately to tasks and appointments.

 

- Create different tasks and appointments from individual parts of a long message.

 

- Insert tasks and appointments from E-mail messages in already existing tasks.

 

- Mark not processed E-mails with color mark to have a better overview.

 

- Create own search folders and find every E-mail you are looking for.

 

- Create your own filter and relieve your Inbox from the beginning.