"Maintaining a Positive Outlook"

Posted by Tom Mighell: "If you use Outlook as your primary email program, I'd wager that you spend a lot of your average day working in that program. And Microsoft would prefer it that way - that's why it takes care of most of the things you need during the work day - email, calendars, contacts, and tasks. But for something that we use so often, most of us don't use it properly, or make the most of its capabilities. Microsoft wants to help us out with that.

They've published a great 40-page document called Best Practices for Microsoft Outlook 2007. It's a really good collection of tips and tricks for using Outlook 2007 in more productive ways. The Outlook team that published this article also put together some basic principles of good time management that are worth reprinting here:

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:

-- Reduce the number of places you read e-mail. Filter all of the messages you need to read into one place -- your Inbox -- using a series of rules.

-- Let some e-mail pass by. Use rules to send e-mail you need to read to your Inbox and then let the rest flow into distribution list folders, untouched. 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.

-- Reduce the number of places where you manually file messages. Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages.

-- Process your e-mail using the 4 Ds When reading a message, decide whether to:
* Delete it.
* Do it (respond or file for reference).
* Delegate (forward) it.
* Defer it (using categories and flags) for a second review in your task list.

-- Reduce your to-do list to one list. Use a single to-do list and calendar to manage what you need to do.

-- Work in batches. Use categories to help you group similar tasks together.

-- Use good judgment when sending e-mail Follow the dos and don'ts of writing great e-mail. Review your time and tasks regularly.

The best practices document is great, and is available in both Word and PDF versions. Give it a look.