Feedback from our readers indicate that the Outlook Tips to manage email and calendar have been very helpful and to keep them coming. As we know, Outlook is a useful tool but few of us really know how to make the most of its features. Learning a few simple tricks can save you time and help you work more efficiently at work and home. These tips are geared towards Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013.
Manage Read Receipts
Happily, Outlook is well-behaved enough to ask permission before sending a read receipt; you can customize its behavior further by clicking on the File tab, opening Options, selecting the Mail view and scrolling down to the Tracking section. Here you can choose whether receipts should be sent always, or never, and you can also configure your own receipt request settings. One useful option is the ability to request a delivery receipt, which confirms your email has reached the recipient’s mail server, without insisting on a notification when it’s actually opened.
Little Yellow Notes (“Post-It Notes”)
Outlook includes a built-in sticky notes feature. Press Ctrl+Shift+N from anywhere in the Outlook interface to create a new note, which can be dragged and positioned anywhere on screen. By default, notes appear in pale yellow, but you can assign them to categories, which causes them to switch to the associated color. To manage your notes, click on the Note icon at the bottom of the View pane: From here you can copy, organize and print notes, and also search, via the field at the top-right of the window, for notes containing specific text.
Time Zones
If you travel for work, you’ll know the frustration of finding meetings and appointments in Outlook show up at the wrong local time. Under File | Options | Calendar you’ll find the option for setting your local time zone: once you’ve done this, email timestamps and calendar entries will be shown with the appropriate offset.
You can also configure a second time zone to be shown so that (for example) you can keep track of what time it is back home, or see what time it is for your colleagues overseas, to ensure you catch them during office hours and don’t contact them at an inconvenient time of day. Click Swap Time Zones to easily switch from one location to the other.
Hope these simple tricks save you time in the weeks ahead and keep looking for time saving Outlook Tips next month.
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