Three ways to get more out of Outlook

Originally published in GP magazine .

Written for GP magazine around 2002. This is the version I submitted - the published article may have been edited.

If you are using Microsoft Outlook as your main email software it is worth exploring its features to enable more efficient working.

Don’t just rely on the inbox and have it full of hundreds of messages. You can set up multiple folders and sub-folders that can be used as mini filing cabinets. Messages relating to a project can be stored in one folder, or all messages from one person can have their own folder.

Learn how to set up automated rules using the rules wizard. This tool can sort your incoming mail into the folders you have set up above and can alert you to specific messages or send automatic replies or even action other events. The out of office assistant can also be useful in that you can set it to forward all your email to another address such as an internet email address, e.g. Yahoo or Doctors.net.uk. This means that if you are away for any reason you can check your email for any interesting messages while leaving the rest for your return.

A new feature in Outlook XP is the ability to set up and use multiple accounts. You can check your home email from work and reply to a message as if it came from your home email. Many internet sites and other companies often want an email address from you; however, you may not want to give out your main address in case you are bombarded with junk email. This feature allows you to get around this. Using any free ISP, e.g. Yahoo, create as many email addresses as you need, e.g. myname-surf@anyisp.co.uk, and use these to give out to companies. Using rules, all messages from any address can go into its own folder and you can check it as needed. If any one address starts being bombarded with junk mail, just stop checking it and start giving out another one.