Tricks Island

Managing email effectively and efficiently is becoming an increasingly more important skill in today’s workplace, and finding a good time management system, such as the extremely popular Getting Things Done ® by David Allen, can be a matter of survival. The sheer volume of messages received on a daily basis can be overwhelming, and it is not uncommon to find users with hundreds and even thousands of messages cluttering up their Inboxes. With all that clutter, it is usually just a matter of time before important messages are lost or forgotten until it is too late to act. Many otherwise effective professionals and knowledge workers can find their work — and their careers — hopelessly bogged down by the demands for their time and for their attention that are delivered to them non-stop via their email accounts. Since Outlook is the preferred program for managing email in most organizations, getting control of email means learning how to make Outlook support your goal of getting ...

Tracing its origins back to the Morse code messages of the 1800’s, today’s email has become an invaluable productivity tool for both business and personal use. Unfortunately, this reliance on electronic mail can often lead to overly cluttered inboxes that actually end up impeding efficiency instead. Luckily, for those using Microsoft Outlook for their email needs, there are some simple tips and tricks to incorporate into your email routine that can actually help you sort and organize your mail in meaningful, easy-to-use ways. Sort Messages by Conversation One of the best features to come with Outlook 2010 is the ability to arrange messages by conversation. When you use this feature, messages that share the same subject appear as a Conversation, which can then be viewed, expanded and collapsed by simply clicking the icon to the left of the Subject line. To utilize Conversations, click on the View tab. From there, click the Show as Conversations check box in the Conve...

Part of the Microsoft Office suite, Outlook is a personal information manager. With an integrated task manager, calendar, contact manager, note taker, journal and web browser, Outlook is a versatile office tool, but it’s probably most well known (and most often used) for email. But are you getting the most out of your Outlook email? Here are some tips and tricks for being as productive as possible with Outlook: Set a reminder to reply to a message To remind yourself to reply to a specific message by a specific day, simply right click the message you want to reply to. From there, click on Follow Up, and then Add Reminder. A Due By list will come up. Here, you can pick the deadline date you have to reply to the message. A second list will give you the option to pick a time and a flag color. Finally, click OK and your reminder is set. Add a signature or logo to your messages From the Tools menu, click on Options. From here, choose the Mail Format tab. (If you more t...