Organizing Items In Outlook

Outlook has several ways to organize your items (emails, contacts, tasks, appointments, etc.).

1. Create folders to "file" the items. (Like you would physical files)
2. Associate items with contacts.
3. Associate items with categories.

Using Folders

This is the old way of doing things. In all likelihood you will file items and not be able to find them again. (just like in the traditional filing cabinets) I have only added one folder to the standard folders already in Outlook called "Tagged Mail". I will expalin why later.

Using Contacts

When you send or receive and email or respond to a meeting request that contains someone who is in your address book (contacts) that item is automatically associated with them. When you open a contact and select the Activity tab you will see all the items associated with that contact. If you create an appointment without using the meeting request you can associate the contact with the item on the bottom right of the screen used to create the appointment. If you want to associate a contact with an email message you can do so by right-clicking on the message and selecting options.

Using Categories

Outlook comes with a bunch of categories already set up. Unfortunately, the standard mail form does not give you the option to select categories while you are creating the message. You either have to do this in the options dialog box prior to sending or do it later. Other items like appointments and contacts allow you to categorize them while you are creating them. The key to utilizing categories is to use as many categories as needed to describe the item. Don't worry about using too many, just think of the things about the item that you will think of in the future to find it. There is no need to open the categories dialog box either. Just type the categories separated by a comma. If it is on the list it will be selected, if it is not it will be added.

How to Use Categories to Find Anything

The Tagged Mail folder I mentioned earlier is used to store all mail after it has been tagged (categorized). When an email comes in that I need to respond to I tag it before responding so that my response is pre-tagged. At the end of the day I go through my Sent Items and Inbox folders and tag all the emails. Mutiple emails can be tagged at the same time by selecting them and choosing categories from the right-click menu. All tagged messages are then put in the Tagged Mail folder.

The Tagged Mail folder is arranged by the categories so when you want to look for something scroll down to one of the appropriate categories and you will find it.

It's as simple as that. I created a custom message form that allows you to categorize messages as you create or read them, but changing the default mail message form is tricky. Once I figure that out though is will save a lot of clicking.