“Outlook 2007 Best Practices” – 37 Pages toward email nirvana (well… that might be reaching a little, but you get the idea…)

Microsoft Downloads - Outlook 2007 Best Practices

“This article is intended to provide users of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 guidance on how to best use the product.

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File Name:	Best Practices for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.docx
Version:	1
Date Published:	10/30/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	607 KB

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From the document;

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The purpose of this paper is to provide customers of Microsoft^® Office Outlook^® 2007 messaging and collaboration client with guidance on how to best use the product. Created by the product team who created Outlook 2007, this guide represents our advice on how to get the most out of Outlook 2007. By no means comprehensive, it covers just a few core scenarios.

This guide is intended for people who:

• Work for a large company with an IT department.
• Receive more than 30 e-mail messages a day.
• Spend lots of time every day using Outlook 2007 to send and receive e-mail and to set up and/or attend meetings.
• Are using Outlook 2007 with a Microsoft Exchange Server account.

Regardless of your server setup or organization size, this document will be useful to you.

Why an Outlook "best practices" document?

We wrote this paper for the best possible reason: Our customers asked. We designed Outlook 2007 to be used by a wide audience with many work needs and styles. Although there's no one "right way," there are a few ways of working in the program that we know to be easier than others. We hope that by being aware of the best practices, you will have the best experience possible using Outlook.

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Basic principles of good time management

Outlook 2007 is a tool to help you manage your e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks. As such, it is at the center of not only your communications but also your time-management. To get the most out of Outlook 2007, we suggest a few basic principles:

1. Reduce the number of places where you read e-mail. Filter all of the messages you need to read into one place — your Inbox by using a series of rules.
2. Let some e-mail messages pass by. Use rules to send the e-mail you need to read into your Inbox and then let the rest flow untouched into distribution list folders (DL folders). You don’t need to read every message sent to you. Only the important ones should go to your Inbox. Remaining messages can be useful to keep — in case you get looped in on an issue, for example.
3. Reduce the number of places where you manually file e-mail. Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages.
4. Process your e-mail by using the Four Ds. When reading your e-mail, decide whether to
       Delete it.
       Do it (respond or file for reference).
       Delegate it (forward).
       Defer it (using categories and flags) for a second review in your task list.
5. Reduce your to-do list to one list. Use a single to-do list and calendar to manage what you need to do.
6. Work in batches. Use categories to help you group similar tasks together.
7. Use good judgment when sending e-mail. Follow the dos and don’ts of writing great e-mail. Review your time and tasks regularly.

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Many of us use Outlook day in and out yet how many of us use it well?

Personally I’ve achieved the much vaunted goal of the “Zero Inbox”, but it took a while to train myself to get there. How? Mostly by doing step #4 above (i.e. the Four D’s). Given that (and that, or maybe because, I’ve been using Outlook for forever) I still got some good ideas from this document.

Anyway, given how my time we spend in Outlook it seems a good time investment to ensure we’re actually using it smartly.