Easy Efficiency Boosts for MS Outlook
March 26th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 8 Comments
Are you a Microsoft Outlook user? Many people are simply because IT departments require them to be. If you live in Outlook all day, you can greatly improve your efficiency and save time by reviewing some simple tips. In this post, I’ll round up some useful ones.
From E-Mail to Contact. If you want to save the person who sent you an e-mail as a contact, with the e-mail open right-click on the person’s name in the From field and select Add to Contacts. Especially if you delete e-mails frequently or haphazardly, this can ensure that your contact list stays organized.
Check Me. Have any problems in the spelling department? You can easily have Outlook check your spelling in all outgoing messages. Just click on the Tools menu, click on Options, and select Always check spelling before sending.
Fast Delete. If you’re like most Outlook users, you send messages that you want to delete to your Deleted Items folder, then empty the folder—a process consisting of several steps. You can get the job done in one step. Just hold down the Shift key and hit Delete. Outlook will ask you on the fly if you want to permanently delete the message. If you have several messages selected it works the same way.
Fast Undelete. Want to make a message you have deleted reappear in an instant? Hold down the Ctrl key and press the Z key for Ctrl-Z if you have just deleted the message, and it will reappear.
Sync GMail. Do you use Outlook and GMail? If so, definitely get a hold of Google’s Calendar Sync application. It does a totally seamless job of keeping both your calendars updated.
Do you know of any good Outlook tips or applications?
8 Comments Post your own comment
Scott says: March 26th, 2008 5:15pm
You should check out http://www.xobni.com
It’s beta invite only, but it is an awesome tool for Outlook.
Tris Hussey says: March 26th, 2008 6:20pm
I use Xobni as well. But the best I’ve seen so far is ClearContext. Xobni and CC together is awesome. I’m also testing Tungle for calendar, that is looking pretty cool.
Shemeka says: March 26th, 2008 8:33pm
Ctrl+Enter is a shortcut when ready to send an email
Tim Howell says: March 26th, 2008 8:54pm
Outlook task management remains a huge opportunity - only 1% of users actually use the built in task capabilities of Outlook. ActionThis was developed with this in mind, comprising a rich Outlook client and a funky website. Have a look at http://www.actionthis.com.
James says: March 27th, 2008 12:12am
Yes it’s nice that the Google Calendar sync is easy, but quite frankly it’s got a poor featureset.
It doesn’t support more than one calendar, so only your primary (name) calendar is synced. It doesn’t support any categorisation/tagging of the items.
However the nice feature is the 2-way sync - something I couldn’t get working in the technically superior RemoteCalendars - especially if you’re happy to use google calendar as your primary means of sourcing data (I only sync to outlook to sync onwards to my phone, for example)
Remotecalendars supports multiple calendars (any iCal type, not just Google) and can categorise them automatically in your outlook display.
DEC says: March 27th, 2008 7:35am
I use these keyboard short-cuts constantly:
Reply to Sender: Ctrl-R
Reply to All: Shift-Ctrl-R
Forward: Ctrl-F
Mark as Read: Ctrl-Q
Move: Shift-Ctrl-V
Goto Folder: Ctrl-Y
New E-mail: Shift-Ctrl-M
New Contact: Shift-Ctrl-C
You can make Outlook display the keyboard short-cut in the screen tip of each toolbar button:
1. Right-click in the Toolbar area
2. Select Customize…
3. Select “Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips
4. Close
Denis says: April 13th, 2008 6:52am
Just for note - if you need some additional functionality for your Outlook, check http://www.4team.biz
Gezwicht voor Friendfeed | Nettooor says: April 14th, 2008 12:59pm
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