(*These email tips apply to just about any email program - not just Outlook.)
© Jan Jasper; 2001-2008
Clear Email Subject Lines Save Time
Clarity is just as important in email communication as it is in verbal communication - perhaps more important, because
we need to compensate for the lack of the vocal and body language cues. When an important email is masked by a vague or
irrelevant subject line, it can be just a minor annoyance - or may create an email management nightmare.
Example - A team is exchanging emails titled "June event"; one person wanders off on a tangent
& mentions in the same email that today's 4 pm meeting is cancelled. Several people show up for the cancelled meeting because
they didn't read the email. In a rush to make the 4:00 meeting, they had decided that reading emails about the June event could
wait until tomorrow. Had the meeting cancellation message been in a new email, with the subject header "Today's meeting cancelled,"
everyone would have been spared this inconvenience.
If you must insert a non-sequitur in the middle of a discussion, do your colleagues a favor:
Add a clarification to the end of the subject line: "June event - Today's meeting cancelled." Leaving "June event" at the start
of the subject line keeps the email in the same chain of discussion, which helps people find it when they sort their inbox by
subject line. Tacking "Today's meeting cancelled" onto the end of the subject line alerts recipients to the news flash
about the cancelled meeting. That's good email management and helps everyone with time management, as a result.
Use Your Inbox as a To Do List
Most people, once they've deleted unneeded emails, simply leave the 'keepers' in their Inbox. This can lead to serious email
overload. An acquaintance of mine has over 8,000 emails in her Inbox!
Instead, create folders to store older, important emails. The result - Your Inbox only holds
new, unread messages or older messages you still need to act on. Everything else has been filed away. Your Inbox becomes an extension of your To-Do list.
This is a huge email management time-saver - and it makes follow-up easy. It greatly reduces the number of things that "fall
through the cracks" -- and the stress that goes with it!
Save Time With Email Templates
Do you get many emails requiring similar replies? Save time by creating an email template. Let's say you receive many email
inquiries about an event you're planning, or an association you belong to. Create a template or boilerplate letter answering the most
commonly asked questions.
Some email programs make it easy to create such custom templates. It's very easy in
Eudora or Goldmine,
for example. In Outlook it's less intuitive - try this workaround: Use the SIG file function, which works
basically the same way. You create SIG files in Outlook by going to Tools, Options, click on the Mail Format tab, then select
Signatures. By creating multiple Signatures (SIG files), you can create boilerplate replies for the most common inquiries you receive.
Then when you want to answer an inquiry, just apply the appropriate SIG and customize if necessary. Saves lots of time in managing email!
Microsoft Outlook Tracks Your Activities, Past and Future
An excellent feature in Outlook is the Activities tab of the Contact record. The Activities tab (third tab from the left) contains a
comprehensive list of every meeting, task, and email related to every person or company (i.e., contact) in your Outlook database.
You can also make journal notes of important phone calls here. Of course, it only works if you link the meetings, tasks, and journal
entries to the contact involved. (You already do that, don't you?) The emails are linked to the contact automatically, so email
management is a breeze. Much of the effort people spend finding ways to filter and search their Outlook data could be saved just
by using the Activities tab.
Sorting Your Contacts
Need to sort by criteria such as which project they're related to, what industry they're in, or where you met them? Or perhaps you
need to sort Tasks by project or client. Sorting this way is a huge time-saver, but to do it, you must first label your tasks and
contacts. If you use Act! or
Goldmine,
you'd do it by creating customized fields, which is easy - especially in Act. But if you use Outlook,
you'll find the fields are not easy to work with.
The solution for Outlook users is to use Categories instead of fields. Create your own custom
Categories by going to the Category Master List and creating a new Category for anything you need to sort by, such as project, referral
source, industry, prospect, client, etc.
(You can delete any of Outlook's default categories you don't need.) Now you can assign the appropriate category to any or all of your
contacts, tasks, appointments, journal notes, or emails.
If you've created a lot of categories and you sync your Outlook to a handheld, you'll need to buy a
decent sync program. Check out those from CompanionLink, DataViz, or
Chapura.*
However, if you use the built-in sync utility that comes with your handheld, only a limited number of
Categories will sync.
Backing Up ALL Your Microsoft Outlook Data and Views
There are 2 kinds of people - those who have lost their contact database and those who will. If you've customized your Outlook and then tried
to restore it from the pst back-up, you've learned the hard way that it doesn't look like it's supposed to. Sure, Microsoft's website explains
how to do a complete back up, but the instructions are so complicated that I doubt anyone has understood them, much less gone through the whole process.
There's an alternative: Eazy-Backup* software - check it out!
*The usual disclaimers apply. My mentioning these products is not a guarantee of any sort. Obviously, you should not change anything
until you've completely backed up your files. You already do that, right?
About the Author:
Jan Jasper has been training busy people to work smarter, not harder since 1988. She helps clients streamline
work procedures, manage information overload, and use technology efficiently.
Her specialty is helping people who've already worked with professional organizers and coaches and are still not able
to get it all done.
Jan is the author of Take Back Your Time: How to Regain Control of Work, Information, & Technology
(St. Martin's
Press). She recently completed a North American media tour as the national efficiency spokesperson for IKON
Office Solutions, Inc. She has appeared on radio and TV all over North America and is quoted regularly in print. Jan is an adjunct
instructor at
New York University.
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