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How to master Outlook

Posted on 11 Mar 2009 at 16:03

By viewing email by category, you'll filter out the emails that don't relate to the projects, allowing you to ignore them or act on them as you see fit. This solves one of the biggest problems of email - being distracted by new arrivals when you're working. Any new email is uncategorised, so won't be viewable if you've filtered by the current project.

"Using categories in my calendar helps to ensure I dedicate the appropriate amount of time to each project, balance priorities and meet deadlines," added Strange.

Categories can be particularly useful for handling tasks. You might want to create an @Calls category, which you use to file away all the tasks based around phone conversations. For low-priority tasks, you could create an @Someday category. For things that can only be done at home, create an @Home category.

The other advantage of defining categories precisely is that any new tasks you add will be added by default to the "Categories: (none)" view; you can then sort through this at a convenient time and sift them quickly into the most suitable categories, where they'll sit waiting to be dealt with when you see fit.

Another advantage is that you can assign multiple categories to items. Compare this with the more basic folders approach, where you create a long list of folders and file items relating to a project within the relevant folder. The trouble is, often an email will cover multiple subjects, so where do you file it?

One of Outlook 2007's biggest advantages over 2003 is its improved support for categories, with colour-coding making it simpler to see at a glance what projects, for instance, are consuming your time. But if you can't use Outlook 2007, there's an interesting Outlook plug-in called CategorieZ that allows you to create super-categories and sub-categories, and generally take more control - you can download a 15-day trial from www.software-solutions.co.nz.

Supercharge your calendar

Sally McGhee often tells her clients: "You can't do everything, but you can do anything so long as it fits into your calendar." The end result for people in demanding jobs who don't follow this advice is that they run out of time. In good cases, that might be extending their day by an hour or so in the morning or evening. In bad cases, it means processing email at home at 11pm. Or later.

If that sounds familiar, you should consider planning your time more efficiently. Devote an hour each working day to sorting through email, so that you book meetings around it - after all, you're more likely to get a speedy resolution if the people who you've emailed are still at work.

McGhee recommends keeping a work and personal diary for a week, noting everything from the time it takes you to fetch a latt????© to how long you spend walking the dog, so you can see how your time is consumed. This will drum in exactly how much time tasks really take, and highlight things you perhaps should stop doing.

From this, you can create what McGhee calls a Baseline Calendar - all the one-to-one meetings you need to have, research time, the hour you need each week to review your long-term objectives, your three weekly visits to the gym. The end result? If implemented correctly, a better work-life balance and you using your time more effectively throughout the day, week and month.

The bigger picture

We've concentrated on the concrete steps you can take within Outlook, but most people will also benefit from taking a step back and examining the bigger picture. If you don't know what your longer-term aims are, how can you be sure that the tasks you're spending your time completing are actually benefitting you and your company? In short, are you wasting your time?