So, I hope you have set up your folders in anticipation of a stress-free inbox.  One way you may find it easier to track your message is by changing the view so that you can see threads of converstations.  Experiment and see if you like it.  Go to the View menu and click on Arrange by and select Conversation.  If you have a lot of emails in your inbox this may take a while to re-order, but be patient.  Once the emails are listed by conversation you can easily track back to the original email and view the various responses.  Click on the little drop down arrow at the begining of the email and you will see all previous emails listed.

Flagging messages

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Yesterday I suggested having an 'Action' folder for following up important messages.  Another way of doing this is to 'Flag' the message.  Select the message you want to flag and then click on the red flag icon on the toolbar.  You will get the chance to choose when to flag for:

Note that you can add a reminder which will give you a short message prompting you to action the message. If you choose Custom Flag you can set the date for the flag.  Flagged items are automatically put into your Task List which can be a handy 'To do' list.
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A colleague was recently bemoaning the state of her Outlook inbox recently and this gave me an idea for a series of posts here.  How to manage your emails effectively without being overwhelmed with information overload.

I will focus on Outlook, but many of the main email management programmes have the same features, but perhaps located in different menus and toolbars.

One of the most effective tools in Outlook email is the folder system.  You can create folders in your inbox to sort emails into different categories.  How you do this depends on your work structure and your priorities, but here are some ideas for folders:
  • If you work for several managers, you can create a folder for each one and then quickly find the relevant email.
  • You may wish to add an 'Action' folder.  This is particularly useful when you receive a lot of emails but only need to 'action' some of them.  Sometimes these important emails get swamped with all the rest and you forget to act on them, so moving them into an action folder you check regularly means they don't get lost.
  • If you are working on a specific project, for example a report where you are getting chapters and feedback from different people, it can help to move all the related emails into one folder so you don't miss any.
  • I tend to have a folder for any personal emails that might come in.  I would recomend you keep these to a minimum and use a web based email account for any private work.  Your company's IT department could access your email if it was deemed necessary, so best to keep private work in a separate email account.
To create a new folder in Outlook, open you mailbox and then go to the File menu, select New and choose Folder.  Give your folder a relevant name, then click and drag emails from your inbox window to the folder in the folder list on the left.

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If you can't see your folder list, click on the folder button at the bottom of the left hand pane.
We'll look at more tools to organise your email tomorrow.
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It's Thursday and easing into the weekend so I think I need to ease the blog into the weekend too.  We've done a lot of stuff in Outlook this week so I thought I'd look at some rules and behaviour around emails.  Here are my thoughts:
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  1. Always remember that everything you put in an email is a written record of what you have said, and can be used in evidence. Be careful what you comit to keyboard.
  2. Make sure you read back what you have just typed.  Typo's will look very unprofessional and can lead to serious errors in interpretation (like leaving 'not' out of the sentence).
  3. Emails are a written communication, and therefore can come across as a bit formal, so you may need to 'flower up' text with phrases like 'I would be grateful', 'very kind of you to' 'Many thanks' to come across sounding less like a machine. 
  4. Having said that, if you are emailing for more serious reasons such as communicating with a solicitor's office for example, then use similar language to that you would use in a letter.  Telling the CEO of a company that his product is 'brill' may not set quite the right tone.  Putting in smiley faces and emoticons is not very business-like either.
  5. It's good manners to respond to an email, acknowledging its receipt and, if appropriate, thanking them.  Don't take this to excess by thanking them for a thank you!  People feel comforted to know that an email has been received, and we all like acknoledgement don't we?
  6. Be careful when sending attachments that they are not large files.  If you are sending things to Microsoft you might be able to overlook this one, but remember some organistions and individuals still have dial-up and you could clog up their whole email system.  See my post about sharing documents on Google Doc for a way round this. Try to keep files below 2MB unless you know they have a system that can handle more.  You should probably consider compressing files (zipping).  I will do a post on that subject in due course.
  7. Put something relevant in the subject line.  It will help the recipient relate to the content and will make it easier to find at a later date.
  8. Don't write sentences in caps.  This is seen as the electronic equivalent of shouting.  This applies to forums and chat rooms as well.
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In this post we will be looking at sharing our calendars in Outlook.  Firstly, how to share calendars with people using Outlook who are on the same network as you.

First go to your own calendar in Outlook.
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You can only see someone's calendar when they have changed the settings to share it with you, and similarly they can only see yours if you change your settings.  First we will invite someone else to share our calendar.

On the left of the screen you will see a list of options:

Click on 'Share My Calendar...'
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In the To:  line enter the email address of the internal member of staff you want to share with.  Note that there is a tick next to 'Allow recipient to view your calendar'.  If you put a tick next to 'Request permission to view recipient's calendar' they will be asked if you can do just that.  When they receive the email they can accept or refuse this request.  Click on Send
It may be that the member of staff has already given you permission to view their calendar through the calendar properties.  Then click on 'Open a Shared Calendar' on the left.  Enter the name of the person you want to view and you will be taken to their calendar, assuming you have the correct permissions.

Once you have viewed someone else's calendar it will be listed in the left hand navigation pane under 'People's Calendars', so you can refer to it quickly.  You can view several calendars from this pane by putting ticks in the boxes next to each name.  To hide the view simply click again to remove the tick.

Sharing your calendar by email

If you want to share your calendar with someone who is not on your network, such as someone outside the organisation, or perhaps you want to share it with your home computer, you can email your calendar.  From the navigation pane on the left choose Send a Calendar via E-mail...  Set the required date range, e.g. 7 days or 30 days, adjust the detail options as required, and click on OK.  Appointments will be listed in an email window and a calendar snapshot file (.ics) is attached.  Address the email and click on Send.  The recipient will be able to see the content of the email, but if they have a calendar that recognises an .ics file they will be able to see it in calendar format too.

So that's how to be nice and share in the office!
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While we are in Outlook I will show you how to set recurring appointments.  These are appointments that run every day, week, or month and you don't have to enter each date manually.

Go into your calendar view and create a new appointment.

Enter the subject, times and any other details you need.

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Click on the Recurrence button:
Decide on which recurrence pattern you want, i.e. Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly.

Note the following points:
  • Under Daily you can set it so that it skips weekends
  • Under Montly you can set it so it is the same calendar date each month, or the same day, e.g. first Wednesday of the month
  • Under Yearly you can set it so it is the same calendar date each year, or the same date.
In the last section of the window you can set whether you want it to end after a set number of occurances or by a set date.  Click on OK once you have finished and Save your appointment.

You may wish to address your appointment to others, in which case click on Invite Attendees at the top left.  When you are happy that it is correct click on the Send button.

Cancelling a recurring appointment

To cancel a recurring appointment, open the appointment from your calendar by double-clicking on it.  You are asked whether you want to open just this occurance or open the entire series of appointments.  If you want to cancel just that one date choose the first option.  If you want to cancel or change all dates choose the second option.  Make the relevant changes or click on Delete if you are cancelling the appointment(s) and click on Save and close.
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I thought I would do a couple of posts on Outlook since it is such a powerful office tool.  I will assume as an office worker you know the basics of sending an email and making an appointment in the calendar, but let me know if I'm wrong. I'm happy to post on the more basic stuff.  Anyway, the first post is about using the Groups feature.

Often we need to send emails to the same sets of people, or groups.  Setting up a group allows you to address the same group of people over and over and lessens the risk of missing someone out!  Here's how you do it in Outlook 2007, but it will look similar to earlier versions.
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In Outlook go to the New button on the right of the toolbar and click on the little drop down arrow next to it.  Select Distribution List from the drop down list (see left).

The cursor is flashing in the Name field.  Enter a new name for your distribution list.
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Now you want to add some members to your list.  If the people are in your address book or contacts list click on Select Members.  Find each member and cick on it and then click on Members at the bottom of the window.  When you have finished click on OK.
If you want to add someone who is not in your address book, such as someone who is outside the organisation, click on Add New.  Then enter the person's name and email address and click on OK.

Once you have entered your members you will see them listed in the main window.

If you want to send an email to the group or arrange a meeting you can click on the Email and Meeting buttons on the ribbon/toolbar.  You will be taken to the correct window for each process.  If you are in a blank email you can type in the name of your group and it will automatically be sent to everyone you added.
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Deleting members of the group:  It is important updating your list regularly.  To delete a member click on the Remove button:
DO NOT CLICK ON THE DELETE BUTTON AS THIS WILL DELETE THE ENTIRE GROUP!!

Made that mistake a few times!

Tomorrow we will look at recurring appointments.
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