© Jan Jasper; 2001-2009
Here's an assortment of tips for Microsoft Outlook. Check back often for new tips.
Conceal Completed Tasks From View
If you use the task pad, you probably don't need to see tasks you've marked "Complete" - you only need to see what lies ahead. It's easy to hide completed tasks.
Go to "View, Current View" and select "Active tasks."
Create a New Contact Record From an Email
When you get an email from someone who's not listed in your contacts but they should be: In the open email, right-click on the sender's email address. Then
click on "Add to Outlook Contacts." A new Contact record will open with the person's name and email already filled in. Copy and paste their address
and phone number from their SIG file. Add your own notes in the comment box if you wish.
Look Up a Contact Fast From an Email Message
If someone is already in your contacts, you can easily get there from their email message. Right-click on their email addresss, then
click on "Look Up Outlook Contact" - you'll be there in a flash.
Get Rid of Those Annoying Task Reminders
Often clients tell me they they don't use the task feature because they don't want all those reminders popping up. Actually, the task and its reminder are two
different things - the reminder is optional. When you create an individual task, you can un-check the reminder. You can even change Outlook's default setting
to not assign reminders to tasks. Go to Tools, Options, click the Task Options buttons, and uncheck "Set reminders on tasks with due dates." If you
occasionally want a reminder for a task, you can check that box for the individual task. Another way to kill the reminders is simply not assign due dates
to your tasks. This generally is not good, though, because most people never look at undated tasks.
Making Outlook Windows 'Stick'
Isn't it annoying? You're looking at next month's calendar to schedule a meeting with a client, you go to their contact
record for their phone number, and when you go back to the calendar, it's re-set to today. You have to do extra clicks to
get back to the date you were looking at. Same thing happens if you pull up a contact, then go to your calendar, tasks, or email.
When you return to contacts it goes to the beginning of the alphabet, and you have to hunt again for the correct contact.
Here's the solution. In the navigation pane on the far left, right-click on the new folder you want to go to, then left-click on "Open
in New Window" in the submenu. It opens a new window on top of the existing one which remains open underneath. Drag one window
over, and you can view both contacts and the calendar (or the taskpad, or whatever) side-by-side. If you want to view multiple
contacts and dates you can keeping opening new windows - your only limit is the size of your monitor.
See the Entire Day and Evening at a Glance
Would you like to see all your day and evening hours on the calendar without scrolling up and down? Here's how:
Right-click on calendar background. (You can be either in the daily, weekly, or monthly view, just so you click on the background
and not on an appointment.) In the submenu that appears, click on "Other Settings," and you'll see a dialog box labeled
"Format Day|Week|Month View." Set the Time Scale field to "60 minutes." Now you can see all the day & evening hours without
having to scroll up and down.
Outlook Tracks Your Activities, Past and Future
An excellent, litle-known feature in Microsoft Outlook is the Activities tab of the contact record. (In Outlook 2007 it's a button, not
a tab.) The Activities tab contains a comprehensive list of every meeting, task, and email related to every person or company
(i.e., contact) in your Outlook database. If you use the journal to make notes of important phone calls, they're listed here too. You
must remember, though, to link meetings, tasks, and journal entries to the appropriate contact - unlike emails, they're not linked by
default. Try it - you'll spend far less time looking for information in Outlook once you get into the habit of using the Activities
tab.
Sorting Your Contacts
Need to sort contacts 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 you first have to label your contacts and tasks.
Frankly, the best way is by use custom fields, which is easy to do in Act! or
Goldmine. But unfortunately, in
Outlook - if you want much more than name, address, phone number, department, etc. - you're moving into programming.
A easy workaround is to use categories instead of fields. Categories are accessed via the command
button in the lower right corner of the contact, appointment, and task dialog boxes. This button takes you to the Outlook's Master Category
list where you can create new categories for client, project, referral source, industry, or anything you
wish. (You can also delete any the default categories you don't need.) Once you've created your categories, it's easy
to assign contacts, tasks, appointments, journal notes, and emails to categories. There are situations where shoehorning
categories to make them do the work of fields can cause problems down the line, but for many people it's adequate.
The built-in Outlook-Palm sync utility is limited and will only sync a limited number of categories. If you create a lot of custom
categories, you'll need to buy a decent sync program. Check out those from
CompanionLink, DataViz, or
Chapura.*
Use Your Inbox as a To-Do List
This one is more of a time management tip that applies to any program you use for email, not just Outlook. 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 emails you must keep. The result - your Inbox only holds new messages and those you still
need to act on; everything else has been filed away. Your Inbox becomes an extension of your To-Do list. This improves productivity
and reduces the number of things that "fall through the cracks."
For more email tips see Efficient E-mail Habits.
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. A great alternative is 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?
This article is available to reprint if you include my copyright notice and identify me as follows: "Jan Jasper, a productivity expert in the New York City
area, is the author of Take Back Your Time: How to Regain Control of Work, Information, & Technology (St. Martin's Press)."
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