How can you save time and effort managing your email with the folder features in
Microsoft Outlook? Hi, I'm Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro.
I'm also a Microsoft Certified Trainer. In this training,
we'll focus on working with folders in Outlook. What's your Outlook personality?
Are you a filer or a piler? That is,
do you move messages into a variety of folders or do most of your messages stay
in your Inbox?
Most people choose to leave them in their Inbox and even with the robust search
tools and Outlook,
keeping all of your message in your Inbox is a huge drag on productivity as
you're often touching a message many times over. Plus,
it can be easy to miss important messages because you're skimming through so
much content in your Inbox when you need to keep a message for future reference,
keep your Inbox clean and move it to the appropriate folder.
Let's focus on working with folders. Now,
many Outlook users create and work with folders which are topic-based such as
clients and under clients there might be Big Important Corporation, etc.
Now it doesn't take too long for this hierarchy to move from productive to
complex with too many folders and topics.
Plus with so many of us checking email on our phones,
having fewer folders might make more sense.
There's a switch in philosophy now in Outlook,
and certainly now with the Outlook search being so much more robust,
it's easier to find messages regardless of the location.
Consider moving from a topic-based to an action-based folder structure.
This will be a lot simpler. For instance, Pending, Parking Lot,
Processed, Reference. There might be a Reading folder,
a message you download for times when you are on travel or are not so focused on
your Inbox, Personal, that is,
action-based folders give you a place to move messages without having a really
complex system of folders.
Now as you explore which approach works best for you,
another option is to apply a hybrid mix of topic- and action-based folders.
Let's look at different ways to create a folder.
And you may already be quite skilled at this.
One way would be to right-click on the primary or parent folder such as the
Inbox. And so for Clients, for instance,
I could right-click here and notice all of these options and this would include
also other folder management tools. So definitely explore those.
In this case,
I'll create a new folder and this could be Big Important Client now.
This is contrary to the philosophy of having it be action-based and primarily
what I want you to see here is that this is easy then for us to get really
clogged up.
Here's the hybrid approach with action-based folders for instance,
Pending. We want to put it here while we're waiting for a follow-up and so,
in Outlook we can flag it for a follow-up and then be able to find it later.
That is maybe you have things that are processed that is,
I don't want to get rid of it yet,
but it doesn't really need to go to a folder that is,
you might come back to it periodically and just delete. So here again,
consider what makes sense for you.
Now another way for us to be able to create a folder is that we could go to the
Folder tab and from here is New Folder over on the left hand side.
The keyboard shortcut for this is CTRL+SHIFT+E and so this is a another way to
work with or to create a new folder. It brings you into a dialog box,
so just a different way to approach this and you might find that that
right-click menu is a lot faster to work with us.
From here, if I was going topic-based,
then perhaps if I'm planning on an upcoming conference,
maybe I'll create a new one here
and simply choose, OK, so different strategies for that.
Now notice as well that is whether or not we had created a folder,
we also have options here based upon where we're located.
Then we would have the option, for instance, in this case,
this is an empty folder, but we could then focus on renaming,
copying, moving, deleting, look at all of these choices.
Could sort, we'll talk more about that in just a moment and Add to Favorites,
which we'll also explore.
Lots of options available for us in terms of folder management,
whether you work with just a few folders or a lot of folders,
one of the keys to being able to clean up your Inbox is not just a matter of
just throwing a bunch of messages somewhere else.
It's that you want to take action and you've probably have heard of a number of
different time management and productivity tips.
Find out what works well for you. One simple approach,
especially when we're working with our Inbox is to make a decision so we're not
touching a message all the time. Do we want to delete it? Are we going to do it?
That is if it only takes us a couple minutes and might be a lot easier than
marking it for follow-up or trying to remember to do it later.
Is it something that someone else really should be taking on?
If you know it's going to take longer than that is something to perhaps defer
and then flag it for follow-up or even make it an appointment item that you will
dig into and address.
So these are some of the things that you also want to consider.
It's not just a matter of creating a folder structure,
but whether or not those messages even need to go to the folder so that you are
able to start clearing your Inbox. Now, how do we move messages?
Well, there's a lot of different options for that.
One is that we could simply drag a message to that. So we here again,
when we have more folders, then this can be a little bit more cumbersome.
But for this message, for instance, I want that to go to my Tech Newsletters
so I could simply drag that.
Now you'll see in a moment that Favorite folders is a way to make this a much
easier process. We also have the option to move,
and this is available to us in a number of ways.
On the Home tab of the ribbon here is Move.
And then we would see our most recent locations here.
And this would be a way for us to do that.
Another option is to right-click on a message and you will then also have the
Move options.
So very similar to working off of the ribbon and from this you would also have
the option to move to other folders and to manage them.
Another option is the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+V.
Now you probably won't find this to be the easiest but there always will be a
keyboard shortcut option and so just to know that this is yet another way to be
able to move a message.
And finally we could create a rule in Outlook to automatically move messages
from your Inbox to a designated folder.
And that might be the case for things like these Tech Newsletters,
which I want to read,
but I also don't want to have them get in the way of maybe higher priorities
that I'm working with.
Let's go back to those folders that we use on a regular basis.
That's where we can take advantage of our Favorites.
Now this is a really helpful time-saving tool.
For instance, my Tech Newsletters,
I want to be able to work with that.
Now I'm going to right-click here and simply left-click on add to Favorites.
This is an option that's also available in our Folder ribbon,
so let's say if I am also wanting to focus on an upcoming conference for this,
I could then select it and either right-click on it or I could from the ribbon
choose Add to Favorites.
So what happens with this then is that we are actually building a Favorites area
above our primary Inbox folder structure and this is something that you can
continue to add to.
Now these are just shortcuts and you always have the option, for instance,
to right-click and you could then remove it from the Favorites.
That is as you might have projects that come in and out.
Then there might be some things that you no longer need to focus on when you're
removed from Favorites.
It is simply a shortcut and so you're not deleting the contents that would
happen if you actually physically remove the folder that we have in this case
under our Inbox.
These Favorites are also things that you can rearrange.
Now if I wanted that conference to be above the Tech Newsletters,
we could also add others here as well.
And then this can be then highly customized to make it a lot easier.
So for instance,
here I have an email related to one of those conferences and I can simply drag
right into it and have that then available.
Likewise, here's something for my Tech Newsletters.
So it becomes another way to also be able to easily access and even if you do
have maybe a little ambitious folder structure.
The other thing to keep in mind is that in your existing folders,
whether or not you're working with Favorites, these can be rearranged.
And so that is really helpful and something that wasn't available in some
earlier versions of Outlook.
And that's why a lot of people don't know about it yet. So from here then,
if this was one of my priority conferences, I could actually drag it around,
maybe Important Projects I want to move up.
There could be other things that I'd like to rearrange.
And so it's no longer necessary for this to be alphabetical order.
But at any time if you get too ambitious or you'd like to just put them back the
way it was, you can simply move to whatever folder that might be.
Now it could be within specifically in conferences here.
I could right-click here and simply say Sort Subfolders A to Z and also you can
see the Move Up and Move Down.
So just these could be a rearranged or it could go to my Inbox.
And notice that this option is also available in my Folder tab of the ribbon.
And so from here then I could just rearrange of those to be alphabetical order.
So how can you leverage the folders and make them work better for you to be able
to save time and to really clean up your Inbox?
Now you've seen how to save time and effort by taking advantage of folders in
Microsoft Outlook.
For more tips on being productive with Microsoft Outlook head to
TheSoftwarePro.com/Outlook.
If this training was helpful,
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This is Dawn Bjork, The Software Pro. Thanks for watching.