Today is tip day, and for those who start and end their day with Microsoft Outlook, it's their lucky day. With hundreds of millions of users worldwide using Outlook, there are a million different ways to make the program faster. Below, we present 10 of our favorite tips and tricks to maximize productivity and enhance the efficient use of this critical program.
- Organize your emails into folders
If you want to simplify your email, this is the obvious first step. But it can also be the most helpful, especially if you have an overflowing inbox. Also, organizing your emails into an easy-to- navigate will make a big difference – saving you a lot of time compared to searching through thousands of old emails. Plus, an easy-to-navigate folder system will motivate you to deal with each email as it arrives, rather than constantly putting it off until later.
- Take advantage of Outlook's easy-to-use email templates
If you find yourself composing the same kind of message over and over again, save one of your emails as a templateso you can quickly use it in the future. Go to File > Save As… > Outlook template, and then click Items > Choose Form… > User Templates when you're ready to use the form you saved.
- Save important emails, calendar events, and notes as files on your desktop
This not only helps to optimize your inbox, but also allows you to access critical messages and events even faster. Simply drag an email, calendar entry, or other note to your desktop or a folder, or click File > Save As if you want to save it in a specific file format. Then, when you want to access the email, double-click it and it will automatically open in Outlook.
- Schedule the delivery of an email
Want to compose a message now but send it later? Outlook makes it easy. Write your email, then go to Options > Delay Delivery > Do not deliver before, then specify the time and date you want it to be sent.
- Show emails as conversations
This feature helps make those long emails a little easier to read by displaying all linked messages in a conversation view. And it's easy to enable — just click View > Show as Conversations.
- Open Outlook on the web
Outlook 2013, Office 365, and other modern versions of the program shift much of the email/calendar/contacts infrastructure to a web-based view, where it's accessible from any device. Microsoft's Send email app for smartphones makes it even easier to send quick notes between collaborators, while all communications are imported into Microsoft Outlook history for easy archiving and access.
- Rely on phrases to create a calendar event
Instead of scrolling through your calendar to select a specific date for an appointment or meeting, type phrases like “next Saturday” or “two weeks from now” into the date field and let Outlook do the rest.
- Block emails from specific senders
While actual spam protection can be best analyzed by IT consultants, we're simply stating that you can take specific actions to block spam. Click Home > Junk email options, and then in the new window that opens, you can specify which senders (and even which countries) you want to block as spam.
- Rely on sticky notes for quick reminders
Press Ctrl + Shift + N from anywhere in the Outlook interface to create a new note that you can drag and drop anywhere on your screen. This is great for quick tasks that don't need to be manually entered into your calendar.
- Customize desktop notifications so you only get notified about the most critical messages
If you get a notification every time a message arrives in your inbox, you'll probably end up not paying any attention to notificationsat all. But you also don't want to miss important emails, so first turn off desktop notifications in File > Options > Mail Options, and then create a custom rule to only show notifications for emails sent to you by specific contacts.
