E-mail Overload

Wednesday, October 20, was Information Overload Awareness Day. Now there’s a holiday I can relate to! For the webinar held in its honor, you could have registered for FREE if you pledged to not multitask during the event. Too bad my students don’t take that pledge!

Mark Hurst, the author of Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload, says the solution to e-mail overload is simple: Don’t become overloaded. Ha! Too late for that! As I read his list of what happens to a person when the Inbox is full of messages, I began to feel guiltier with each point he made.

The biggest message count Hurst heard of was 150,000! He claims he’s not making this up and said “that user said he did not feel fine.” Well, I’m feeling better now. Thank you.

Hurst says don’t use your Inbox as a to-do list, a file drawer, or a phone book—all those messages that keep those “bits” of information need to go elsewhere. Outlook has modules to hold those items; use them! Two ways to efficiently move the endless stream of e-mails from the Inbox to their appropriate destination include “drag and drop” and mailbox rules. These features make it easy to process your e-mail.

1) Turn e-mails into tasks and calendar appointments with “drag and drop.” Drag e-mails to the Task button to create a to-do item, or drag e-mails to the Calendar button to create an appointment. The e-mail is still in your Inbox, so go ahead and delete it.

2) Assign rules to your e-mails so they can automatically bypass the Inbox and go directly into a designated, already-created folder. This feature is powerful, yet easy to create.

“Drag and Drop” to Create Tasks or Calendar Appointments

1. Drag e-mails from your Inbox to the Task button (or Calendar button) on the Navigation Pane at the bottom left side of the screen. A new task (or appointment) opens.

2. Change the name of the task (or appointment) in the Subject line, if necessary.
3. Change the time and date and add a reminder, if you’d like.
4. Click Save & Close button.

Rule to Automatically Move Incoming E-mail Directly to Folder

1. Select an e-mail in the Inbox from the person you want to create the rule for.

2. Right click the message.
3. Select Create rule; the Create Rule dialog box displays. (Top half of box defines which e-mails will be selected; the bottom half identifies what to do with them.)
4. Place a check in the ‘From’ checkbox.
5. Click the Select Folder button; then, select the already-created folder from the list.
6. Click OK two times.
7. If you’d like to move all the e-mails currently in your Inbox that match that criteria, place a check in the Run this rule now on messages already in the current folder checkbox.
8. Click OK.

Define rules to automatically move e-mail to different folders, sound an alarm for e-mails from a particular person (the Big Cheese?), forward messages sent by a certain person to your manager. The possibilities are endless. The Create Rule dialog box has an Advanced Options button to create rules with even more selections. Experiment with it, and let me know how you use it.

One of Mark Hurst’s mantras is “Empty the Inbox as least once a day.” He says you can “delete most [e-mails], file some of them, but most importantly, get them all out of the Inbox…”

Happy Halloween!

Outlook Sticky Notes

April 22 is Earth Day, and one way to be more eco-friendly is to use fewer sticky notes. Even though I love Post-it® notes, I use too many of them and then can’t keep track of all of my reminders. Outlook has the solution! The Notes module has electronic sticky notes to write reminder messages.

Do you have too many notes? Can’t find your reminder when you need it? Outlook Notes has a search feature to help you quickly find the one you’re looking for.

Can you quickly change the size of your sticky note if you run out of room while you’re writing? No, you have to use another sticky note! Not so with Outlook Notes.

Creating Electronic Sticky Notes

• Use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+N) from any Outlook module.
• Type the reminder message.
• Press ESC key.
• To view e-notes in the Notes module, select Go | Notes from the menu bar, or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+5).
• You may also drag a copy of your e-note(s) to your Windows desktop.

Would you like your e-note to be part of your to-do list? It’s easy; drag the e-note to the Tasks button in the Navigation Pane. (Your original e-note stays in the Notes module, too.) A Task dialog box opens; add a due date and a reminder. Then, save the task.

To search for a particular e-note, click in the Search Notes text box (Outlook 2007). (For Outlook 2003 if you don’t see the Look for text box, press Ctrl+E.) Type the text you’re searching for, and press Enter.

To delete an e-note, right-click the note and select Delete.

Enjoy your spring, go green, and use electronic sticky notes!

More on Getting Organized with Outlook

Use the Reminder, Categorize, and Recurrence features to remind you to send birthday and anniversary cards. Set up the Reminder notification time to at least 1 week--that gives you time to buy and send the card, especially if the person’s special day is the first or second day of the month or year. Use Categorize to color code all birthdays and anniversaries on your calendar, and create a recurring “appointment” so you don’t have to fill in everybody’s holidays each year.

2007 Outlook Instructions:

• Create a New Appointment.
• Click Recurrence button (located on the Appointment tab in the Options group).
• Select Yearly (Recur every 1 year(s) and On: selected date should be selected).
• Click OK.
• Click the Reminder list arrow to choose 1 week.
• Click Categorize button to select Birthday/Anniversary category, if it's already been set up.
• Click Save & Close.

2003 Outlook Instructions:

• Create a New Appointment.
• Click Recurrence button on the toolbar.
• Select Yearly (Every “selected date” should be selected).
• Click OK.
• Be sure Reminder is “checked”; change time to 1 week.
• Click Save and Close.
• With the “appointment” still selected, click Calendar Coloring button.
• Select Birthday/Anniversary category, if it's already been set up.

Getting Organized With Outlook

How do you stay on schedule? Calendars? To-do lists? Do you use Microsoft Outlook? It’s an excellent tool to use, especially when you customize some features to help you remain focused.

"Getting organized is one of the top 5 New Year's resolutions people make…,” according to NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) Past President Standolyn Robertson. Is getting organized your New Year’s resolution—or at least one of them? Let Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar help; let’s take a look at two helpful features.

The Categorize feature helps you visually manage your calendar. Use colors to easily identify appointments—by location, by project, by type of appointment (for example, networking events (blue), client appointments (red), meetings (green), exercise (yellow), etc.), or whatever system works for you.

When I was teaching several classes at different schools, I color coded my classes by location. That way, I could quickly see where I needed to be during the week rather than having to read each appointment. You may create new categories, using the names and colors you want; or rename the default categories.

The Reminder feature—the alarm that reminds you of an upcoming event—helps you get out of the office on time. I often change the alarm to help me get to places on time because the default is 15 minutes, which may not be sufficient notification time.

Unfortunately, I missed a class I was enrolled in because I never changed the 15-minute default reminder (on any of my appointments). I had thought the class started at 3 p.m.; however, at 1:45 the reminder for the 2 p.m. class popped up on the screen. Yikes--I was 40 minutes away!

Be sure to include the time needed to get out the door, not just the travel time!