When I’m at work, I practically live inside Outlook, so here are some of my personal tips to help you save time if you are a heavy Outlook user yourself.
Tip #1. Defer sending of email by 2 minutes
How many times have you clicked send, and then realised shortly after, that you should have put in an extra note in your email, or wished you’ve phrased your email in another way? Click Tools –> Rules/Alerts –> New rule, and use the outlook rule pictured above. After that, your emails will sit in your outbox for 2 minutes before it sends itself. Save time, and say goodbye to ‘instant followup emails’.
Tip #2. Highlight important emails in another color
This is useful when you want to make sure all emails sent by your boss or by your clients are instantly brought to your attention by having it stand out in another color. Click Tools–> Organise, then customise your preferences from there.
Tip #3. Separate low priority email
I have daily newsletters which are sent to my inbox daily, but rarely have the time to read them. To avoid sorting through them everyday, I set an outlook rule which files it to a directory the moment the newsletter arrives. This way, I can read through those newsletters when I have the time, and still not worry about them clogging up my inbox.
Tip #4. Template out common responses as signatures
Using an entire email as a signature can be a big time saver to keep you from repetitive typing. Click Tools–> Options –> Mail Format –> Signatures to get going. (Outlook will use this latest signature to the default signature, so change it back to your normal signature once you’re done.) Now, anytime in your email, you can go Insert –> Signature, and you can choose your predefined template.
Be creative, and you can use this to attach wordy disclaimers, templated emails, or other common responses you use in your email.
Tip #1 is a great idea. Despite my best efforts to proofread messages, I don’t know how many times I’ve sent something before I should have.
This will also help me to avoid the consequences of accidentally hitting Ctrl + Enter when typing a message, which sends the e-mail immediately.
THANKS ALOT!
Hey, someone exported his rule for delaying all outgoing mail by 1 minute. http://billrob.com/archive/2007/07/06/how-to-delay-all-outgoing-email-in-outlook.aspx
Does the mail delay rule work even if you press “send and receive” button after sending the mail?
Does the delay rule work even if you press “send and receive” button after sending the e-mail?
@svaroop – yes it does :)
thank you James :D
another question here :)
Hey Is there a way to identify or know if the mail sent to us was BCC’d by any way in outlook. Am using Outlook2007 win7.
Thanks in advance
Well if you did not see your name in the recipients list, but you got the email you would have been bcc’ed
hey, I mean my mane is visible on To field. But is there a way to find if someone is in BCC? may be your boss :)
Nope sorry you can’t :)
Hey nice tips, thanks a lot, especially tip#2 is a good idea!! Another suggestion to save time in Outlook is to use a search tool, which searchs through mails, contacts, attachments and desktop! I use Lookeen (http://www.lookeen.net), a fast helper, unfortunately not totally for free, but it is woth its money, saves me really a lot of time!