Seven Microsoft Outlook Tips for Writers

Even since I did sessions on time management at a couple of ASJA conferences, other writers have often asked me about how to save time. I thought I'd put together some tips for making Microsoft Outlook work for effectively for those who use it. Unless I explicitly mention an alternative, these functions are unavailable in Outlook Express:

• Turn Emails Into Contacts Drag-and-drop is a great Outlook feature. If you get an email from someone you want to add to your contact list, position the cursor over the closed email, hold down the left mounse button, drag it over to Contacts, and drop it. A contact record with the person's name and email already in place will appear. Copy phone numbers and addresses from the body of the email (which is now in the notes field) to the appropriate places, erase the email remains if you want, and save. For Outlook Express, open the email, click on the Tools menu, and select Add to Address Book.


• Turn Emails Into Calendar Items Click and drag the email as above, but drop it on the Calendar. Choose the day and time and then save.


• Turn Emails Into Tasks Same thing here - drag and drop the email onto Tasks, fill out the due date, and save.


• Remember Tasks You can set up a task that you need to perform on a given date. but how do you remember to get it done? Check the Reminder box and pick a day and time to be reminded. You can set the reminder to occur before the due date, so you start in time, and can keep moving the reminder forward to get additional reminders. Also, you can track the progress as either 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%.


• Track Your Email Queries After you've sent an email to an editor or other client, go into the Sent folder. Open the email and click the little red flag icon. You can set a follow-up flag for a given day, and also add a reminder for a day and time of your choosing. To get an overall view of what you have out, look at your folder list. See the folder called Search Folders? Click on it and you'll see a few sub-folders, including one called For Follow Up. Click on that and you see all emails that you've flagged for follow up. You can similarly flag any email you receive, as well.


• Track Your Contacts You can also set a follow up flag on any contact. Go to the contact record and click the red flag. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to show up in the Search Folders/For Follow Up folder along with the flagged emails, and you can't set a reminder date, so it has limited value. However, you can see which contacts are flagged. Go to Contacts, and then click the View menu at the top of the window. Choose Arrange By/Current View and choose By Follow Up Flag.


• Group Contacts Go to Contacts and open any contact. Click the Categories button at the bottom. You can put a contact into any number of categories, and can create new categories as you want. Then, when in Contacts, you can choose View/Arrange By/Current View/By Category and see all the contacts under each category. That can be handy for concentrating, say, on particular groups such as editors or PR reps.


• Track Everything With Journal You can set Outlook to automatically track a number of things, including meetings, phone calles, and emails. Go to the Tools menu, choose Options, and under Preferences/Contacts click the Journal Options button. Check off your business contacts and then the times you want to track. You will get entries in the Journal, so you can trace the time line of a discussion or item. Some things the system watches for, like emails. Others, such as phone calls or letters, require you to go to the contact record directly click on the Actions menu, and choose the appropriate item.

This won't change your business overnight, but it will make it easier to keep track of what you're doing while spending less time doing so. If you've found these helpful, I have four more here.