“What’s in your Inbox?”

This morning’s Wall Street Journal carried a follow-up piece on the amount of email people store in their Inbox (and I assume, every other folder). It was in “Moving On / By Jeffrey Zaslow” and titled “Hoarders vs. Deleters, Revisited: Readers Share Competing Email Strategies”. As I recall the first piece, there was some connection between how you manage email may be a reflection of your lifestyle and how you were raised (“Hoarders vs. Deleters: How You Handle Your Email Inbox Says a Lot About You”, dated August 10, 2006).

Apparently, from the 700 readers Zaslow makes mention of in the follow-up piece, not everyone agreed to the idea that “…an awareness of our inbox behavior can help us better understand other areas of our lives.“ (from the first column) I could find myself and others reflected in both of Zaslow’s columns; it made for some smiles and frowns on my part, too.

But, that’s not quite what today’s Post is about. It was the catalyst to talk about a common question I get, “How do you use Outlook in your business?” Since most people see Microsoft Outlook as “email”, I have chosen to open this Post with a comment on managing incoming and outgoing email. Since most of you are probably quite familiar with its use, I’ll touch on a few items you may be less familiar with, or not at all.

Take the time to learn about the “Rules Wizard” for handling inbound mail. This automated handling can simplify the filing of incoming mail. This assumes you are good about creating folders for compartmentalizing incoming email. It’s no different than a filing cabinet or drawer. I’d like to find a tool like this for all the direct mail we get at our PO Box (auto-delete with rules would be cool).

Use “Flags” (for Follow-up) to your advantage. This tool allows you to have Outlook remind you, or a recipient, that action is required at a specific date and time. It’s quite handy to stay on top of things without much effort. Use the appropriate pull-down for the type of follow-up you desire. Learn how to sort your mail, too (“Sort by:” icons). This makes it easy to see all the “Flags”, email with attachments, or the status (read, unread, etc.). You can sort email on any column.

Push your email (drag and drop) between folders as people respond. As I mentioned in a previous Post, “shared” folders can be a good tool as a knowledgebase, or ‘forum’. I combined a Rule (using the Wizard) with a folder to have all the incoming resumes from candidates automatically go into the folder. Unread mail makes the folder name ‘bold’ so I know new email arrived.

Get familiar with “Find”; more importantly, “Advanced Find”. If you are an Inbox and Sent folder person, this can speed retrieval of stored email. Look at any email and you will find a reference at the top of linked actions, i.e., those emails that were ‘spawned’ from another. Click on it, and you will be taken to the other related email. It’s a quick way to tie it altogether.

Contacts. This is probably where I spend an equal amount of time to email. Not only is this an excellent place to store names and addresses, etc., but it can be an outstanding time-management tool, too. Learn about “Journal” entries in the pull-down menu. From there, you can document an activity by category; you can even turn on a timer during the activity. I use the timer to track calls (helpful when you bill by the hour). Then, use the “Activities” tab to retrieve all the activities; they can be sorted, too. Since I am usually interested in only one category at a time, I use the choice pull-down to speed retrieval.

From Contacts, learn about all the “Actions” that can be taken. Some examples are: Create a letter (pre-filled with Contact info), map a location (saves a Web search), send an email, use the automated dialer, forward as a vCard (to someone else), etc. While in the Contact screen, learn about assigning categories of contacts. You can assign them at the Company level, too. You can attach files and objects to Contacts; this can be useful to attach a proposal to the Contact. "Flags" can work for you here, just as they do with email.

I’ve barely touched the surface of how I use Outlook, daily. There is much more. I make use of the Calendar, Tasks, and Notes, too. I guess that’s why I found myself shaking my head from time to time while reading Zaslow’s column. Since I use Webmail (nothing stored, just read and write, only), and Outlook, email is just one of many ‘tools’ I use. I’m not sure what any of this tells me about my personal life outside business. By keeping my activities all in one place, I can tie it all in. I can’t say the same for “…other areas of our lives.”