Tips and Tricks

When dealing with Outlook, there are a wide range of techniques to cut down on your wasted time and make you feel more effective. Today, we’ll explore three rules most people should be using.

First, a quick point: when I say rules, I actually mean that we’ll be using a section of Outlook labeled Rules and Alerts:

To get this in action, click Tools at the top of the screen, and roll down that menu until you find Rules & Alerts. Then, click the button for New Rule in the top-left corner of the dialog box. Finally, select the option Check messages when they arrive and click Next. Now, you’re ready to try the following:

Rule #1: Cut Through the Limitless Carbon Copies

If there’s one thing I’ve found to be consistent among Power Users of Outlook, it’s that we receive far too many CC’s on things that aren’t any of our concern. You spend most of your time wading through CC’s looking for emails that pertain to your life. So, why not filter out all those emails that have you in the CC line? By definition, someone simply decided that you ’should be copied’, not that you had to perform any action related to the email.

To eliminate everything but the emails you’re concerned with, first create a folder inside your Inbox called ‘Copied On’, or something of that nature. Then, on Step 1 of the Rule process (Select Condition(s)), click the checkbox ‘where my name is not in the To box’. This will identify everything that is only tangentially your concern. Continue by clicking Next at the bottom of the dialog box, and then select ‘move it to the specified folder’ on Step 2. Finally choose the specified folder you created (mine was called ‘Copied On’, if you remember), and finish the rule. Every email that is not directly addressed to you will be moved out of your inbox, and into a subfolder that you can check twice a day. You’ve eliminated 25-75% of your email checking per day!

Rule #2: Work With Categories

In an earlier post, I told you I was a big fan of Categories. To help you categorize more efficiently, identify something specific, like a client or group of team members, that needs to be categorized. For example, last month I was put onto a team with several other instructors to complete a 6-month project. It’s already obvious to me that this will entail almost unlimited emails back-and-forth, which I’ll have to go back and reference constantly. The problem is, I don’t want to run searches every week.

Here’s what I did: on Step One of the rules procedure, I identified two things. First, all the emails would be coming from one of 4 different email addresses. Secondly, we agreed that all our emails would contain a specific ‘project phrase’. So, I clicked the checkboxes for ‘From people or distribution list’ and ‘With specific words in the subject or body.’

I set the email addresses that the emails would come from, as well as the phrase, then I moved on to Step Two, where I clicked the checkbox ‘Assign it to the category category.’ I picked the category I wanted all my emails to have, and I was done. Now all I have to do is filter, search, or sort based off the category I picked, and all the emails between my coworkers come to the surface. I’ve saved myself time in searching and in categorizing all at the same time.

Rule #3: Handle Your Business While You’re on the Beach

Here’s a common problem among support staff, whether it be customer support or technical support. You’ve planned a wonderful week in Tahiti, but you’re still in the middle of two or three problem-solving situations. You talk it over with a coworker, and they agree to handle the cases while you’re getting a tan. However, the client is still emailing you directly for help. Here’s how you get them in touch with your coworker:

Step One: identify their email addresses, and add them to the rule. Step Two: Click the checkbox for ‘forward to email address.’ This has the wonderful ability to redirect those problem emails to someone who’s around to handle the situation. Select your coworker’s email in the Step Two part of the process, finish off your rule, and go enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation.

Each of these rules stands a good chance at making your life easier – and isn’t that what it’s all about? These tools should be making our jobs the central focus, but more and more, the tools are becoming the central focus. Do you have tools that work especially well for you? I’d be interested to hear what others are particularly popular.

To see more about how Rules can benefit your work, as well as unveiling every other tool in Microsoft Outlook, check out our Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, and Managing Your Everyday courses. I think they’ll really work wonders!

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