7 Email Productivity Tips – Microsoft Outlook

Most of us start and end the workday by checking our emails. At times emails can get hard to manage and can even stand in the way of getting work done. You can avoid this and also free up some extra time by implementing a few changes to your email management. So, here are 7 best email productivity tips to maximise productivity and enhance the efficient use of Microsoft Outlook.

1. Organise emails by creating folders

Creating folders and organising them would be the first step to improve productivity. Click on “new search folder” from within the folder tab in Outlook to create a search folder. This way, you can find emails from specific people, or emails containing a specific phrase or keyword. The created folders will appear on the left-hand side.

Organising your emails into a folder system can prevent you from spending time searching for that old email amongst the long list of other emails. Besides, you will be motivated because of the easy to navigate folder system to handle emails as they arrive instead of procrastinating it.

2. Display emails as conversations to view all connected messages

When you need to keep track of long email threads or when you’re copied into long email conversations, it can be hard to keep track of all the connected emails. This is where Outlook’s group emails by conversation feature can be used.

To activate this feature, simply click on View and then select “show as conversations”. This feature will group all connected messages together in one conversation view. You can also keep your inbox tidier and organised.

3. Save time by using email templates

Save emails that you have to send repeatedly as a template so that you can quickly reference it in the future. To create a template, go to the File tab and click on Save As, then click Outlook Template, give a name for the template and save it.
When you need to use the pre-saved form – click on Items, go to Choose Form and select User Templates and choose the template according to your requirement.

4. Schedule delivery of an email

At times some people expect to receive emails at a certain time, like an update of daily activities. Or you may want to compose a message now but plan to send it later. There can be times when you might forget to send it at the appropriate time. Outlook has a way to help you.

Write the email, then go to Options and select Delay Delivery, then click on Do not deliver before and specify the time and date you want it to go out.

5. Save important emails as files

You can access crucial messages by saving emails as files on the desktop. To do this, drag the important email on to your desktop or into a folder, or you can click on File, select Save As and save it in a specific file format. Later, when you need to access it, just double click on the file and it will automatically open in Outlook.

6. Restrict desktop notifications

You can prevent the chances of getting distracted by the notifications that pop up time to time when you receive emails. Restrict email notifications according to priority by turning off desktop alerts. Go to File, then go to Options and click Mail Options. Then you can create a custom rule to only show notification for certain emails sent by specific contacts.

7. Archive and delete old emails

Last but not least of the best email productivity tips is permanently delete irrelevant emails. Use Shift + delete to delete mails permanently. To delete mails from the Deleted Items folder, go to the folder and delete the emails again.

Archiving and deleting emails can help you:

Keep free from clutter – Archiving helps you to access older emails if the need arises. At the same time your account can be tidier and easy to handle.

Save storage space – When your account exceeds allocated storage space, some emails might not get delivered to you. If you are using an Exchange server, all the emails will be stored inside the server rather than on your system. When the server is out of space, emails could stop getting through to everyone in the company. So, permanently delete emails that you don’t need any more.

These are the 7 best email productivity tips that will help you to manage your emails efficiently and increase the productivity of your daily life. If you have any doubts related to this article or any other IT related queries, contact us or email at helpdesk@computingaustralia.group Our IT helpdesk in Perth is 24/7 available to assist you

Jargon Buster

Microsoft Exchange Server – Microsoft’s email, contact, calendaring, scheduling and collaboration platform. It allows users to access their messaging platform from mobile devices, desktops and other web-based systems.
Template email – A pre-written email that you can utilise to replace with your own text so, you can quickly write and create emails.