MAXIMIZING THE UTILITY OF MICROSOFT OUTLOOK Presented by: Lisa Hendrickson (@callthatgirl) Deborah Savadra (@legalofficeguru)
INTRODUCTION: INBOX = MONEY Your inbox equals money, as it does for anyone who runs a business. Most, if not all, of the email you receive represents money coming in or money going out. Most folks already know the basics of sending and receiving email in Outlook, so we will move to a more in-depth fast track learning on simple ways to help you manage your emails (i.e., money) better in Outlook. A Word About MS Exchange? Typically, if you're working in a firm that provides you with an email account and Microsoft Outlook, you're probably using something called a Microsoft Exchange server. This means your emails are delivered to and saved on the firm's Exchange server. That same server has your contacts and calendar, too. Your Exchange server could be set up one of several ways that affect how, when and from which devices you can access your email. Ask your IT person for more information about your firm's specific configuration.
MANAGING EMAIL How do you feel when someone asks for says to you Did you get my email? I emailed you a few weeks ago You didn t reply You said you d get back to me Our typical response Sorry, I ve been busy Oh, no.i didn t get it (and maybe you did, maybe you didn t, or don t remember so this answer is easiest.
MANAGING EMAIL PART 2 WHY WE DIDN T EMAIL THEM BACK These are examples or probable reasons of why didn t you email this person back It wasn t a money reactive email As owners of businesses, we tend to react quickly to emails that make us money They wanted information you didn t have quickly It would take up a lot of time to go and find the information and since it s not really something that makes you money, it didn t attract you to move instantly on the request. You simply didn t consider it something important You didn t know what to do with it, not a standard email you would delegate to your assistant You don t know the person You didn t make it a priority
24X7 VERSUS 9-TO-5 WHAT TYPE OF PERSON ARE YOU? Checks their email via computer or phone all day/night/weekends Will respond to some email instantly if it includes making money or a current job in progress Usually attract other 24x7 people and love fast reaction time. Tend to read an email up to 5 times before deciding on what action to do with an email if it does not include making money. Problems these people have Email just sits in the inbox as they are just fielding new emails Expectations, if you send an email during off 9-5 hours, people expect you are working and will email you expecting further communications. Be careful and you might want to use the send later option.
9-5 Leave a job at 5:00 and either don t work from home/phones or cannot due to policy at work or chose not to work after hours/weekends. They come into work in the a.m. to emails from the day before, delegated work from the 24x7 people Spend a good portion of their morning working just on email, before even doing their job. Overwhelmed with morning emails, not sure where to start and how to start doing their real job. Believe it or not, email is not a job. Without a good email management strategy, they will waste more time going through their inbox doing the exact things a 24x7 person does, not knowing what to do with an email, so it just sits there
HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR EMAIL? Are you an inbox managed person? Never an email in the inbox, you keep it very clean Or are you a person with 1000 emails or more in your inbox If you are this person, and you are not alone... from a person who manages their inbox daily, where does one day start and one end? Do you keep your email this way because you like searching it? Or are you the type that is in the middle, it can get crazy but you clean it up often
HOW PEOPLE RESPOND/REACT TO THEIR INBOX IN OUTLOOK AND PHONE Money! New client or past clients. We all tend to reply to emails asap that include money. We all respond to emails that involve money faster than any other email Work you have to do. This is usually an email that gets answered while you are on a project/client jobs, etc. This is actually Your job. Things you don t know what to do, hate doing or are not exciting. Communications requests or other things you don t have time for, these emails usually don t get responded to quickly, usually non-making money emails. Junk/more junk Newsletters/journals/association emails
BEFORE MOVING INTO OUR FIRST STEP, WE MUST PREPARE FOR THE DECLUTTERING OF THE INBOX. Think of 4 or 5 important things in your work life. (Clients in progress, work to review, Projects, etc) Clients in progress Other business issues Personal Newsletters/Journals/Associations/ABA! Now try to think of one day a week you could schedule off your calendar 30 minutes to do the extra emails you don t want to do right away and that you can have as a quick response I ll do this Thursday This will be important for our management tip. You can consider this work I have to do but don t want to do time.
CONTINUED CLEARING THE CLUTTER Creating a few top-level folders, reason for this is two-part. You are more focused if everything you do is in the top four lines of your Outlook and on your smartphone. Make a new folder called "old inbox". If you need to create it as @oldinbox to make sure it s top level, that is fine. Create a work in progress top level folder, use the @ symbol to help it stay high Create a @Thursday folder
CREATE A NEW FOLDER
CLEAN UP YOUR INBOX Move every email in your inbox to that new folder old inbox. This gets it out of the way, but it's still searchable and you know where it is. This frightens people at first, but it s a good way to get your inbox clear enough so you can start learning better email management habits. If you are uncomfortable moving everything out, maybe just leave 100 emails and use these for your practice time.
PRACTICE WITH THE INBOX Practice making fast decisions on what to do with an email If you left some emails in the inbox, go ahead and start moving those emails to the subfolders. Consider this training. Have a goal though to get through those 100 in a day or so, so then you can get going on having a managed inbox. If you are on Exchange or IMAP, a tip for you on smartphone is that if you re a 24x7 person, at night and on weekends, start getting in the habit of reading your emails once and then doing an action with it. Get it out of the inbox. Otherwise as we said, you will read it 10x and what a waste of time that is. Right? If you have POP email, you will not be able to do this unfortunately.
USING OUTLOOK TO MANAGE INCOMING MAIL Rules & Alerts Quick Steps Converting Email to Tasks or Calendar Items Tagging junk
RULES & ALERTS o Find an example of an email you d like to move automatically o Right-click on it o Choose Rules o Choose the subfolder that messages from that sender should always go to o Choosing Create Rule will take you through a wizard that allows you to fine-tune email selection process (e.g., text in Subject line, all emails from a domain such as uscourts.gov, etc.)
QUICK STEPS Not comfortable letting your computer make decisions about moving mail out of your Inbox? Quick Steps is a more interactive way to automate email handling.
QUICK STEPS o Quick Steps commands are located on the Home tab in Outlook o Think of them as macros you can chain several actions together (mark as read, move to folder, etc.) o Different from Rules in that you get to select which email(s) need Quick Steps applied (CTRL-Click to select several emails; SHIFT-Click to select contiguous emails) o Quick Steps can also automate tasks related to outgoing email more on that later. o EXPLORE!
TAGGING JUNK MAIL Right-click on any message and choose Junk > Block Sender to flag it as a Junk item. That will re-route any future messages to the Junk folder. Conversely, check your Junk folder DAILY for anything that shouldn t be there, rightclick on it, and choose Never Block Sender (for an individual email) or Never Block Sender s Domain (for all emails from a particular company).
TURN EMAILS INTO TASKS OR CALENDAR ITEMS o o o Drag any email down to the lower left-hand corner to the folders When you release the mouse button, you ll have 3 options: o o o Copy as Text Embeds the text of the email into the resulting Task or Calendar item Copy as Attachment Good for any emails that have attachments you want to preserve within the Task or Calendar item Move as Attachment Ditto, except takes email out of your Inbox altogether When you release mouse button again, a new Task or Calendar item window pops up so you can complete and save.
USING OUTLOOK TO MANAGE OUTGOING EMAIL You don t think about outgoing mail as something to be managed, but how many times a day do you wonder: Did that person receive or read my email? Did my email get lost in an overflowing inbox? Would it be annoying/micromanaging to follow up to see if/when they ll respond? Why did that recipient reply to me and not my assistant as I instructed? Would I prefer to send this email later instead of right now, but I'm afraid I'll get busy and forget? I send this same email all the time - can't I automate some of that? I'm going to be out of the office - how can I notify the right people without making myself vulnerable to bad guys?
DELIVER/READ RECEIPTS Opinions differ as to whether these are a good idea, and they don t always return accurate or helpful information. But if you re sending a message for which these are appropriate, before you click Send, go to the Options tab and check the boxes highlighted at right.
FLAGGING MESSAGES FOR FOLLOW UP If your email is hosted on Exchange Server OR you re using POP email, you can attach flags to outgoing email to prompt your and/or your recipients follow up. The flags show up in the Inbox view, and flagged emails also show up on the Task list as something that needs to be done. Plus, at the date and time set on the reminder, a window pops up with an alarm (just like Calendar items). Effectiveness of this for outside recipients is a little iffy, but this works great for people on your same Exchange server.
REDIRECTING REPLIES Most Outlook users don t know they can control the Reply-To address for their outgoing messages. When the recipient hits the Reply button, you can designate more/other addresses for the To: address block of their message. This is good for redirecting replies to your assistant or ensuring specific people are included in the reply if the recipient doesn t hit Reply All. This feature is found on the Options tab.
DELAY DELIVERY / SEND LATER You can even control what date/time your outgoing message actually leaves your Outbox! This is good for: o o Just-in-time reminders (ex: remind client 1 hour before meeting with directions and parking instructions) Sending message right before a deadline when you know you ll be too busy NOTE: Your Outlook must be up-and-running at the date and time your message is queued to exit the Outbox; otherwise, it ll sit there until you start Outlook again!
OUT-OF-OFFICE (A.K.A. AUTOMATIC REPLIES) This is where you notify people that you re away from the office with limited/no access to email or otherwise unavailable. Check with your professional liability insurance carrier for guidelines on content and recipients. This is only available to you if your email is hosted on Exchange Server. The Automatic Replies button is found on the File tab of Outlook.
OUT OF OFFICE (A.K.A. AUTOMATIC REPLIES) Message to internal recipients Message to external recipients
QUICK PARTS FOR CANNED REPLIES, ETC. If you find yourself replying to email with the same text over and over, save it as a Quick Part for future use. Select your text, go to the Insert tab, and choose Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.
SIGNATURES To set up signature blocks, go to the File tab and click Options: You ll see the Options dialog box. Click Mail, then click the Signatures button:
SIGNATURES
MISCELLANEOUS TIPS Don t use urgent exclamation marks Using the flags for outbound reminders/great for assistants Put your Signatures on smartphones or at least your phone Texting with clients outside of I ll be there at 10 is not recommended Outlook cannot be configured to email text. This means you cannot get texts sent to your Outlook so you can reply faster than using your phone.
HOW MUCH TIME COULD YOU SAVE? Source: http://xkcd.com/1205/
FINAL HOW TO FOLLOW OUR TIPS QUICK OUTLINE Set aside some time to work on this Create the new subfolders you need for your top folder delegation Create your quick parts for quick replies with a canned message Create a scheduled day on your calendar to deal with the quick responses to deal with the email you don t want to handle as you get them Clear the inbox of all old email. Tip! Clear out everything past 100 and use these tips to help you with the last 100, training yourself. Now tackle on those 100, make an instant decision on what to do with that email
QUICK OUTLINE CONTINUED Answer immediately, then move the email to the correct folder on computer or smartphone to work work in progress folder Delegate it Respond and move to Thursday folder, use Quick Parts! Junk it