These still apply to today’s world but have been lost in the flurry of digital organizing. "Working less" means you touch each piece of correspondence one time only. Whether it’s an actual paper envelope with a letter or whether it’s an email. "Correspondence" means Incoming Information, not necessarily "follow-up tasks". In this article, we’ll give you some of the best Outlook hacks for digital office management, along with some awesome Outlook tips and tricks featured in the FixTechGuide email error solutions program. I told my boss I'd like to give a (voluntary) company-wide training in something someday as a self-development goal and he suggested Outlook/inbox management.

How can I manage complicated tasks?

Fortunately, with Outlook, you can view multiple accounts simultaneously. In addition to your work email account (Exchange Server), you can add other accounts such as Outlook.com or Gmail to the same profile in Outlook. As you go through your task list and your calendar, do similar tasks together.

I have 10 minutes: What should I read first in my Inbox?

• In the days of "paper offices" (pre-computer age), we had 3 filing systems.
• For example, if you have only a few minutes, make all of your phone calls (if you have just a few).
• Rather than using Bcc to inform a third party of an issue, forward the message after you send it.
• If you are taking notes or minutes for the meeting, you can also use OneNote to insert meeting details from Outlook into your notes.
• Categories aren’t a required aspect of this system, but they will make your life easier if you are diligent about using them.
• Use the Bcc feature to remove extra people from an email conversation when you deem that they no longer need the extra email or if the conversation topic has changed.

Regardless of your server setup or organization size, this document will be useful to you.

Fix Tech Issues Fast

But because it’s in your task list, you can move on to your next message, knowing that you will return fix MFA prompts not working to your flagged items later. If you receive a large volume of messages (more than 200 messages a day), search folders might be a good way for you to parse mail from different senders. If you are short on time, for example, between meetings, you can read the messages in blue – messages sent directly to you. Often these messages are waiting on you for the next step and are the most important.

Advanced: How do I create a Search Folder for email messages?

I don't manage his inbox but I did help Outlook stuck updating folders solution him get the Stack method set up and he's blown away by how awesome it is, so now thinks I'm an Outlook wizard. I'm decent but certainly not an expert - so I figure before I actually lead a training I should brush up. It’s liberating to depend on Outlook instead of your overtaxed brain to keep track of your tasks.



Some people try to use the read and unread states to indicate whether a message is new or a reference item. Inevitably, messages will be reread, and the mental tax of figuring out what you need to do will be paid again. A far more efficient Inbox plan is to go through your messages and decide what to do with each one.



For example, there might be a lengthy series of messages where the last one simply states, "Thanks, that answers my question," so you can just delete the whole conversation. Sometimes you can’t find a message by only searching in your reference folder alone — it could be a message that you sent or it could have been misfiled. In these cases, start by searching in any folder (Inbox, 1-Reference, etc.), then select the drop down menu from the search box, and then select Current Mailbox. The reality is that if you have a day filled with meetings, you have less time to complete tasks and write messages, so move tasks to other days. The goal of organizing your Outlook is to reduce the amount of unnecessary "noise" in your Inbox and to make the most important items bubble to the top.