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!