Organize Your Inbox - Part 1
There are several tools in Outlook that assist users in better organizing their Inbox. The focus of today's Tip is to provide examples of two of the organization tools in Outlook and how they can be used.
Flags:
Flags in Outlook come in six different colors. Users can determine a meaning for each color and use that to help organize and/or prioritize their mail. One thing to remember though is the colors do not travel with an outgoing message. Any outgoing message that is flagged will appear red to the recipient.
Flagging a message involves clicking on the grayed out flag icon.
To change the color of the flag from red to one of the other five colors, right click on the flag and the Flag menu will appear
Notice that there are several other options including; flagging the item as complete, clearing the flag, setting the default flag color and adding a reminder to the flag.
The reminder dialog box, or "Flag for Follow Up" dialog gives several options including; the action to take when the reminder pops up, the ability to change the flag color, set a due date for the reminder to appear, marking the item as complete (i.e. changing the flag to a check mark (Flag Complete), and finally a button to clear the flag. (see below)
Both incoming and outgoing messages can be flagged. By flagging an outgoing message the user can draw attention to the message, and also attach a reminder to the item. For example the recipient could be reminded to follow up on the message by a certain date. A reminder will pop up at the time and date set for the flag, and remind them they need to take action. It is very important to remember that when a user receives a flagged message the reminder will only work if the message is left in the Inbox. If it is moved to another folder the message will be disabled.
To attach a flag with a reminder to an outgoing message follow these steps:
- Open the new message. Click on the actions icon
on the toolbar or - On the Menu bar, click on Actions and then Follow Up and finally, Add Reminder.
- The Follow Up dialog box will appear and options can be set.
- For users who have Word set as their email editor, the Actions menu is unavailable. Click on the actions icon to get to the Follow up dialog box.
Two more very cool productivity features that are available when users utilize flags. The first is the "For Follow Up" search folder in the Favorite Folders list in the Folders List provides users with quick access to all flagged messages. Just click on that folder and it will show all flagged messages in the View Pane.
Finally, users can use the "Arrange by" option in their Inbox or the For Follow Up folder to sort the flagged messages by flag color and in the Inbox also move those items to the top of the folder. Click on "Arranged by" and select Flag. The two images below show the For Follow Up folder unsorted and then sorted by flag color.
Folders:
Organizing and managing the Inbox folders can really have an impact on productivity. The key is to find a system that works for you, the user! The system could be creating sub-folders based on topic, or sub-folders based on people, or sub-folders based on dates, or a combination of the above. What I have found is that topics works best for me. I have general topics with sub-folders that fall under that general topic. I also have a few folders that are named for a person. Most times, I can find an email I filed fairly quickly with this system. Now, not all my email that I save fits these two categories, so I then put that email into a folder for the current year.
To create folders in the Inbox, point to the Inbox and right click.
To create a new folder, click on the New Folder option. This will bring up a dialog box asking for the name of the folder. It will be placed as a sub-folder to the Inbox. Notice that there are also other options, including moving, copying, deleting and renaming the folder on which the user right clicked. It is very important that users keep all email folders filed under the Inbox and not in other locations in the "All Mail Folders" view. This helps keep things better organized. Once a new folder has been created, a sub-folder can be placed within that folder by right clicking on the new folder and selecting New Folder. Again name the folder and click ok.
When naming the new folder, there are a couple other options, but users should not change any settings in the dialog box other than adding the name of the folder.
As the Inbox grows and more folders are added, it is easy to move messages to a folder. Simply select the message and drag and drop it on the folder in which it should be stored. Be careful. I have dropped messages during the drag process and don't realize it. They end up in a different folder and I find them months later. :~)
Whole folders can be moved by using the option when right clicking on the folder, or just by dragging and dropping the folder into the new location for the folder. Notice once a folder has a sub folder it will have a twisty
next to it.
This image shows both open and closed folders, and folders with sub-folders.
Using Flags and Folders can really help users begin to better manage and organize their Inbox. Next week's tip will talk about using colors and rules to add more organization to the Inbox.