Most businesses need to review and change their current use of internal emails to manage workflows, workloads and the competing priorities their people are asked to manage on a daily basis.

Here are 3 reasons why internal email can be a costly drain on team and individual productivity within any business:

Reason 1: Internal email is a very poor workload management tool

Email, used well is a good communication component of an overall workload management process. It is not, however, a good workload management tool – no matter how people try to push it into that domain.

The ruthless reality for most people though is that  Email is mostly misused and abused!

Think about it for a moment. With Email:-

1. The 80/20 Rule is ruthless – In larger organisations especially – 80% of emails are generated within the organisation and only 20% of them are relevant to the critical results of the day.
2. Everyone has their own closed silo of communication and information, filed in their own particular hierarchical structure.
3. Everyone decides for themselves who needs to be in the loop and who is best to get a particular message to
4. Everyone decides for themselves who to send a message ‘TO’, who will get a ‘CC’ and the ‘BCC’.
5. Everyone decides for themselves why they will use ‘CC’ and ‘BCC’, sometimes for ‘political’ and ‘escalation’ reasons that undermine teamworking
6. Everyone gets fed up with the tsunami of emails they receive, there is universal hatred of ‘Reply all’ and pointless ‘Distribution list’ emails that people can’t disconnect from because the list controller is not easily identifiable within the organisation …………………………

I could go on … and in 12 years of running this business, believe me …. I could go on with example after example of real people experiencing genuine pain and frustration at the email culture and conditioning that has been built up within their business, whether by design or neglect in the face of other pressing commercial issues.

Only last Friday I tweeted about a cri de cour from a senior manager in a great job within an industry leading multi-billion dollar business….

‘Email seems to be becoming work rather than a tool for it.  Not having read an email within an hour of it arriving is increasingly frowned upon.  A trend that makes it increasing hard to do the work and not just reply to emails.  A trend that the mobile email platform has exaggerated, a reply now constitutes completion of a request.’

That’s why I consider it really important, when working with clients on time, priority and workload management training programmes, to incorporate modules around recreating a more resourceful culture and expectation management system around how they ‘Do Emails’. And it always gets amazing results - even within very large organisations.

It is possible to tame the email beast. It is possible to put an end to Inbox slavery and turn it into Inbox mastery. If it were not proven to be possible my clients would not continue to book us year after year.

I’m not stating this to big myself up. I’m stating it to encourage you to take heed of Confucius ‘It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness’  and of Mahatma Gandhi ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’

Reason 2: Current collaboration tools beat internal emails hands-down for productivity

You wouldn’t expect me to get too soft and fluffy here, so I’m not going to talk about ‘Social’ …Ooops, I just have.
let’s focus on Collaboration built upon social-like platforms.

There is so much good work being done in this field that I believe that internal emails will increasingly be seen as about as relevant to the transaction of business as the use of a telex machine is. Remember those?

Two platforms that we are currently considering for our team of six people who rarely sit in the same office at the same time but none-the-less have to be continuously in contact, are:

The VMWare platform: SocialCast.

We are currently working with vmware’s Social Cast platform live in the business and all 6 of us find it very intuitive, simple to use and very useful. I plan to write a full post on our direct experience shortly.

IBM Connections

I have seen IBM Connections demos and sat in on some webcasts about this platform and it does look incredibly powerful and rich. I also know some business associates who use it within their businesses and advocate it.

Microsoft Communicator and Lync 2010

Microsoft are also very busy in this space. Their Communicator product is well known and the new 2010 version of their collaboration platform Lync looks great from the outside, especially as it will work seamlessly with SharePoint and Outlook. We don’t know yet how Lync will work with the Macs and iPhones that some of us use, so this is one to trial later.

So, you see, internal email is more challenged than ever … and will eventually succumb to the more open, real-time collaboration options being developed and refined right here right now.

Reason 3: Younger, newer workers are increasingly seeing Email as archaic

Young people are no longer weaned on internet email accounts.

Most of them communicate on Social platforms like Facebook and through Text / IM in various forms.

Even at college and university, the communication platform of choice is increasingly ‘Social’ in structure if not in actual usage.

There is plenty of evidence recording the decline in use of  internet mail accounts by these leaders of the future, of which this research behind the chart on the right is only one that I am currently aware of.

This chart comes from ComScore Media Metrix

So, there you have it:

1. Internal email is rarely managed well in most organisations. It can be improved – especially with our help, as our clients advocate day in-day out
2. There are options to explore – and again – we can help your people make the change.

Let me know your thoughts, either here in the comment section, on twitter or by email. Oh, and if you want an old fashioned chat just call me

I have just come across this good overview from Paul Mew, Technical Director at ramsac . If you know of any other resources that you find useful please post them here.

All our consultancy, training and support programmes around Collaboration, Teamworking, Workload and Time Management and Project Management, are designed to drive foundational philosophies and principles, proven processes and Best Practice behaviours through the productivity tools that our clients already use without Third Party software add-ons. This makes it tough for those who diviate from the productivity tool norm in their selection process.

The ruthless reality for most Mac, iPhone and iPad users within an Exchange environment is that their choice carries a productivity price – at least for now. Take for example, perhaps the most common productivity tool combination – Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook. There is simply an amazing amount of productive capacity that can be released very easily individually and across teams with our support. Not all the processes work on Office2011 for Mac though.

Right now, we do not specifically support Mac /iPhone to the same extent as we support Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce and other major collaboration tools out there.

Here, though are our current favourite sites for Office Outlook 2011 for Mac on Exchange self help:

http://www.officeformachelp.com/outlook/ independent and ‘Unofficial’ Keep up the good work guys!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook Microsoft Answers site for Mac heads

Do you know of any other trusted resources? If so please add them here via the comments area. Thanksjot them down her please.

In short, we are going to do 4 things: Change our Calendar view, incorporate a ‘Sensitivity’ field (that’s Outlook speak for the ‘Private’ and normal calendar appointment value), change the Sensitivity of multiple calendar entries and recover our normal calendar view.

1 Change your Microsoft Outlook Calendar view

In Outlook 2007
In your Calendar: Select your ‘One Day’ view then >Click View > Current View > Select ‘By Category’.
Marvel at the options you have for viewing and managing your competing priorities in the Outlook Calendar.

In Outlook 2010
In your Calendar: Select your ‘One Day’ view then > ‘View’ Tab > Change View > Select ‘By Category’.
Marvel at the options you have for viewing and managing your competing priorities in the Outlook Calendar.

OK, you now have your Calendar in columns. And where you have columns in Outlook you can ‘Add’ ‘Delete’ ‘Rearrange’ ‘Sort’ and ‘Group’ by those columns! So …….

2 Incorporate a ‘Sensitivity’ field into your Microsoft Outlook Calendar

Right-Click on any column header – I suggest ‘Subject’ and select:

In Outlook 2007: ‘Customise Current View’. In Outlook 2010 ‘View settings’

In Outlook 2007 hit ‘Fields’. In Outlook 2010 hit ‘Columns’.

In the ‘Fields’ or ‘Columns’ dialogue box – select from ‘All Appointment Fields’.

Find ‘Sensitivity’ in the left box and add it to the right box just under ‘End’ in the list.

Click ‘OK’ twice to come out of the dialogue.

OK, now we are going to do that great ‘Group’ thing we can do with Outlook.

Right-click again on a column header and hit the ‘Group By’ box. See what happens? A ‘Group By’ area opens up at the top of your columns.

This allows you to dynamically group your total view by and Column header you want.

Now drag your ‘Sensitivity’ column into the area where it says ‘Drag a column header here to group by that column’. All you appointments are now grouped by sensitivity.

3 Change the Sensitivity of multiple Microsoft Outlook Calendar entries

Click on the ‘Sensitivity’ column to sort it with ‘Private’ entries at the top of the list.

Now click on ‘Start’ column until your future dates are at the top.

Scroll down to find the date range you want to change to ‘Private’.

Using ‘Shift’ or ‘Ctrl’ to highlight multiple entries.

Simply drag all those highlighted entries up into the ‘Private area of your list by holding down the left click and scrolling the selected items into the ‘Private’ group in your list.

4 Recover your Normal Microsoft Outlook Calendar View.

In Outlook 2007: Go to ‘View’ > Current View > Change back to ‘Day Week month’ and you are done

In Outlook 2010: Go to ‘Change View’ in your View tab and select ‘Calendar’

That’s it folks, I hope it helps.

A big part of that is being able to marshal the appropriate information we need to execute the task at hand, rather than go hunting for that information when the time comes to do the task.

That’s where the ability of Microsoft Outlook to integrate with other programmes helps you be more efficient and effective. One simple integration tool is the Hyperlink functionality.

So, next time you have to do your expenses or that report or perhaps work on a project work stream just build a hyperlink to that information within your Outlook Calendar or Task item. Here’s how

Why not go beyond tips now and deep-dive into serious, sustainable and integrated workload, priority and time management approaches with our specialist productivity training and support. Just hit the iceberg graphic to access an enquiry form or call me on 0044 (0) 1428 607763 and let me know what you want

1. In Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010 simply place your cursor into the notes area of your calendar or task form
2. Go to the toolbar of your form and hit the ‘Insert’ tab then hit the Hyperlink button.
3. Marvel at the fact you can insert hyperlinks to individual files or your whole expenses or project folders!

If you are still using Microsoft Outlook 2003 see this post to help you force Outlook 2003 to let you insert a hyperlink to a Folder

Do yourself a favour! Tips and Tricks will never help you build and sustain a smarter working productivity platform. My training and support will!  Check out what others say about us and then get in touch. Together we will deliver results worth talking about – that’s a promise.

Most of us who are economically engaged and use computers as a necessary tool of trade are assaulted by a daily tsunami of emails which we have to triage and execute with high efficiency and total effectiveness. Especially if we aspire to a zero inbox (which, by the way, is very achievable with our training!). Email signatures can be a hindrance or a help in this endeavour. Let’s all work to make signatures more helpful. Here’s a few ideas. Do you have any others?

1. Never, never, never place all your contact details inside a graphic file where the text cannot be copied into a Contacts form or other CRM system – no matter how pretty or professional the signature picture looks. It does not work for people who want to use your contact info in their CRM or Contacts systems – and you do want to be there, don’t you! See how you can create Contact forms from emails here.
2. Your marketing people may get all excited by large, graphic-rich email signatures promoting your goods, services or special promotion. Your readers are not, especially when reading on their mobile devices.
3. With most email platforms you can create a number of signatures for different types of messaging. Use them. You can also easily change your signature within each email. In Microsoft Outlook all you have to do is right-click on your signature text to select a signature more appropriate for the mail you are sending.
4. Long, multi-line signatures with different fonts and random graphics are the domain of the enthusiastic amateur and it shows. A wonderful person who corresponds with me regularly insists on using an 11 line signature with 2 graphics plus a 4 line disclaimer – 13 lines in total!
5. Always use a Signature, even if it is a two-liner for internal mail and for use with established clients, prospects and suppliers. This need only contain your name, direct office number and mobile number. It just helps the receiver get back to you from the mail itself.
6. Remember it is perfectly possible to create a purposeful, professional email signature with appropriate graphics and contact text that your reader can slip into their Contact form or CRM system. You do want to be there, don’t you? Here is an example of an email signature that reinforces the brand (they all drive those funny cars!) and is fully readable by CRM /Contacts forms.

Over to you now – What are your thoughts on email signature usage? Do you have any great examples you wish to share? What have you found that works really well for you?

It is so simple. There are 2 methods. I will set out my preferred one first.

This method is favoured because it allows us to enter all key contact information into the various Contact Form areas very simply.

1. You have opened an email and decide you want to add the sender to your Outlook Contacts list. Once you have done what you want to do with the email, close it
2. Now, with the email closed and still highlighted in your inbox, simply left click – hold down and drag the closed email over your Contacts folder and release.
3. You will see that this opens a new Outlook Contact form with the sender’s name and email address already in place. This is not enough information for good relationship, priority and workload management  so you need to populate other key fields. That’s easy!
4. Scroll down the text of the embedded email within your Contact notes area and find the signature. Now simply highlight and drag the various contact information from the signature to the appropriate fields in the contact form. Simple!
5. Once you have all the contact information in the appropriate fields simply delete the rest of the text.

The second method is to create an Outlook Contact from an open email but you have to populate the other fields manually so I consider it the weaker option. It is included here for completeness:

1. In the open email, right-click on the sender’s name and select ‘Add to Outlook Contacts’
2. You will see that the ‘Name’ , ‘File As’ and ‘Email address’ fields have been populated and you need to manually complete the rest.

Naturally, if you are looking for Best Practice training or speaking services in key relationship management and priority workload management just get in touch

OK, so I use  Qlockwork (non-affiliate) straight out of the box and – as mentioned in my earlier post – I have it set at the 2 minute recording slot option, simply because some of my work does involve interrogating a number of programmes, files and web sites, often in short bursts at various points of the project cycle.

1. I use Microsoft Outlook Categories as key tools in my priority management and project management methodologies. I therefor have a ‘Category’ column in all my relevant Outlook views.
2. I still want to apply Outlook Categories to all critical priority workloads so I use these along with Qlockwork Project labels. I have created a ‘Category’ column in my Qlockwork calendar folder. My preferred Qlockwork view is ‘View Activities in a List’ view, to which I have added my Categories column.
3. One of the first things I do when starting a project is to define (and where I am working with others – agree) a naming protocol for the project and all collatoral and communications that flow as a result of the project management and the associated priority management decisions I / we will be making as we move the project forward.
4. There will, invariably be a folder for the project in Outlook and a project folder on our system.
5. The only additional set-up step I include to accommodate my priority time tracking and management approach with Qlockwork is to create a ‘Project’ within Qlockwork. I create a new project name and then, in the ‘Subject Matches’ area include all keywords that would capture work in Outlook, MindManager, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any other programmes I use to plan, execute and deliver the project.
6. I have found that this workload management approach allows me to more accurately track, record and manage time spent on individual project work simply by grouping all the recorded activities in my Qlockwork list view by Category. (right-click on column headings and select ‘Group by this field’.
7. The ability to manually add Project labels to work flows that might have been missed through the automatic settings (Control or shift to select items and then selecting the project from the ‘Set Qlockwork Project’ dialogue box in the toolbar) completes the picture.

There you have it. I’m still using it and continue to find it useful. Let me know if you want any further information or simply go to Anne Currie at Qlockwork and tell her Richard sent you.

Till next time,

Phil Benton is a client and a friend who has created, lead and sold a number of successful IT businesses over the years and I have had the privilege of training his teams in managing competing priorities with Microsoft Outlook over those years. He is now getting back to his roots again and is developing apps running in Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

His start-up is a member of Microsoft’s Bizsparks programme and it is through that programme that he introduced me to Anne Currie, who has a very interesting Outlook plugin that collects the time an individual spends on his/her computer undertaking different activities in different applications.

I have spoken with Anne and have been working with her plug-in for over a month now and am happy to go public with it.

Her plug-in is primarily used for billing out time worked although it can be very useful for general time management, especially in collecting the actual time an individual spends on activities within Outlook and other applications.

So, her product is called Qlockwork (non-affiliate) and it is a small file that plugs into Outlook , creating a Calendar subfolder called Qlockwork, and then automatically records the time you spend in various activities inside and outside Microsoft Outlook. All data stays securely within your own system and you access it directly via your Calendar subfolder.

You can select the time frames you want it to track time within and you can set up project rules to track time spent in various applications on individual projects.

The time frame tracking options are 10 minutes, 5, 6 and 2 minute slots. I originally had mine set at 10 minutes and – because I was not always in one application on one task for 10 minutes, the Qlockwork calendar folder was showing me a lot of ‘Unknown’ activities within various applications. Anne explained that this was because I was not in one app for 10 minutes, so I now have mine set to the 2 minute option. This allows me to look back on my days and see what actual emails, docs, spreadsheets, Web Pages I was working on – Awesome!

I strongly suggest that you download the free trial to see how it might help you in your overall time and priority management improvement efforts.  Feel free to call me about this, comment here or email me for further information. I have no business or affiliate relationship with Anne, I just like her product.

PS: When Phil sold his last business to a £169Million turnover market leader, their HR Director called me. She said that when they bought his company they knew they were buying a proven solution that slotted perfectly into their portfolio – what they did not know was that they had bought a very productive team based workload management process and philosophy which Phil said was partly due to our priority workload management training and support. Happily they ended up using our training within their own Management Development programmes. Happy days!

This manager had sent an email to 6 people requesting the same high priority action on an issue that everyone in the business knows is consuming a lot of management focus and attentaion at the moment.

It gets worse – The task involved a lot of investigation and pulling together of information from disparate sources.

Worse still – 2 of the recipients spent almost an hour each on pulling information together because ‘the boss wanted it urgently’. 1 person had already spent almost 15 minutes on it before asking one of the other two if she could help, then backed out of the task. 2 others were out of the office so did not get around to it.

The guy I was supporting was going through his triage and execute process on his inbox from our training about an hour after the email was sent by the boss and replied asking who should do what aspects of the work requested (Clever guy!). It was only after sending the mail and speaking with the others he discovered the appalling productivity impact of this poor email management.

It reminds me of my 12,992 pointless cc and bcc mails story  So many lessons to learn here!

1. Effective and productive communication in business is rarer than we think it is!
2. Because an email is so easy to create, it can cause confusion and priority conflicts too easily.
3. Tapping words into an email form is no substitute for the process, skill and art of effective delegation that all leaders and managers should be living and breathing on a daily basis.
4. It is always preferable to delegate work via an email to one person only
5. If we have to delegate work via email to a team or a number of people in the ‘TO’ box we MUST set out specific task actions to each person in the first few lines of the email body so that all recepients can triage and execute affeciently and effectively.

What else do you draw form this story? Do you have any experiences that match it?

Until next time,

Our ability to learn, unlearn and relearn is a key ingredient in future-proofing ourselves in an increasingly competitive world,

Learning, therefor, warrants a much higher priority in the management of our demanding days. 

Here’s an approach to help build a little structured learning from email newsletters into each and every day:
I subscribe to a number of newsletters that I really want to read BUT I never read them in my inbox.

I read them when I am in a ‘Learning moment’ – and I always schedule at least a couple of short slots a week for this, in addition to my ‘Learning on the job’ type learning. The key here is to make learning from email and newsletters ’Deliberate Learning’.

Keeping my subscribed newsletters out of my inbox is easy, I have an Outlook Rule that puts all Learning type emails into a numbered subfolder in my Outlook Inbox.
I call it ‘7 Sharpen The Saw’ because I am a big fan of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits and the 7th Habit is Sharpen the Saw. Furthermore, assigning a number to the subfolder makes it easily visible in my inbox folder system.

I also have a ‘7 Sharpen the Saw’ Contact in Outlook to log my key learning points and action decisions thereon. 

I may write more fully on this whole aspect of ‘Learning on purpose within demanding days’ soon, meanwhile how do you make sure you can learn on purpose when there is always a thousand things to do?

So, what do I do? Simple really. I have a numbered inbox subfolder (Called ‘07 Sharpen the saw’ since you asked) and then I have an Outlook Email Rule (Tools> Rules and Alerts) set up to divert these select senders into that folder for a more meaningful Read > Consider > Action process.

Why not go beyond tips now and deep-dive into serious, sustainable and integrated workload, priority and time management approaches with our specialist productivity training and support. Just hit the iceberg graphic and let me know what you want

I still run the 4D process on the other newsletters along with my other unfiltered emails in my inbox and if one strikes me as important in that initial triage I simply drag that into the 07 folder for later review.

Microsoft Office Labs might just have the answer for you, especially if you like learning by doing, enjoy playing games and perhaps have a competitive streak that responds to rewards.

They call it Ribbon Hero.  Here’s what Doug says!

I say it is a helpful, practical and fun way to familiarise yourself with all those ‘New’ ways of doing what you did without thinking in Office 2003. Give it a go and let me know what you think.  You can download Ribbon Hero from Microsoft Office Labs and get to grips with it in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Of course, when it comes to improving your workload management and overall productivity with Microsoft Outlook and BlackBerry you are better off asking Richard Maybury than you are asking good ol’ Doug. Go on, ask how I can help you and your team measurably improve your personal and team productivity.

I like Ian’s approach  for 2 main reasons: 1) It uses built-in Outlook functionality to make the job easier and 2) It focuses on deleting the low value emails first. 

The Golden Rule: Commit to Deleting emails before you take any other action, no matter how compelling a particular email appears to be when reviewing it in this triage process.

1. Go to ‘View’ in your top toolbar and hit ‘Arrange by’ and select ‘Show in Groups’ leaving the original View criteria in place.
2. Go to View > Arrange by > Type> and Delete all Meeting Request Responses by highlighting the Group heading and hitting Delete
3. Go to View > Arrange by > From > and delete all system / auto generated / spam mails using above method
4. Go to View > Arrange by > Subject and delete all unnecessary mails using the above method.

OK, we now move into a more selective Triage on the remaining mails

1. Go to View > Arrange by > Subject and/or Conversation (this will group mails by date within the Subject so you can review the newest to make a processing decision and delete the earlier ones).
2. Go to View > Arrange by > Importance and see if any High Priority mails really need urgent attention

Because the 80/20 Rule is ruthless, you will now have removed much of the low value / no value email bulk from your inbox. If you are not a fan of Viewing your email in Groups (and I do not use the Group view – it looks too cluttered to my eye), simply go back to the ‘View’ menu on your toolbar and select ‘Arrange By’ > Date > make sure the ‘Show in Groups’ option is unchecked.

So, there you have it – Ian’s approach. I like it. Over to you:

Remember, if you want to go beyond Tips and want to build a robust productivity platform to get stuff done that will serve you for years just let me know and we will build a proven, practical programme that will deliver measurable, lasting results for you and your team.

Go beyond tips, get into real productivity and achieve more with less easier. Book Richard ‘Mr Productivity’ Maybury for practical productivity training, speaking and support services. Click the ‘Go Beyond Tips’ graphic or contact us for proven, measurable results.

1. It provides an Xobni type   one-click access to emails, attachments and all other Outlook events related to the current contact or open email, no matter where you filed the earlier mails, without going outside Outlook – so you don’t have to be a ‘Social Media Junkie’ to benefit from it.
2. It can also form the base to allow Outlook to connect directly with external Social Media platforms like Linkedin.

You will find official Microsoft Download information here: Microsoft Outlook Social Connector for Outlook 2003 and 2007

If you are using Windows XP or Vista, you also have to download Windows Search 4 (it is built into Windows7). I don’t know for sure but I suspect that some of the technology behind this Search functionality originates from Microsoft’s purchase of Lookoutsoft

Windows Search 4.0 for Windows XP

Windows Search 4.0 for Windows Vista SP1

I am only using the People Pane functionality and have not yet added the Linkedin/Outlook Social Connector to my system as I already have this functionality elsewhere.

1. Once installed, the People Pane is easy to use. It may take a while to index. Your Outlook profile should open up with the People Pane active. You will find the People Pane at the bottom of every Outlook form. By default it is minimised. Simply click on the arrow on the bottom right of the form to expand it.
2.  If the People Pane is not active simply click on View in your top toolbar and click ‘People Pane’  and select ‘Minimised. 
3. You will now see all Outlook collateral connected with this form and you can filter what you want to see by hitting the appropriate tab on the left navigation bar of the form.
4. You can access the appropriate email, or other Outlook form – even email attachments – with one click on the item name in the People Pane. 
5. Finally, to hide the Outlook Social Connector from all Outlook views, do the following: On the View menu, click People Pane, and then click Off.

 I’m finding it very useful because it means I no longer have to go to my email folders to find historical, associated emails. Simples!

 Imagine being able to use email tips like these on top of the ruthlessly practical, thoroughly simple and comprehensive email, priority and workload management training approach we provide. Training that will enable you to DO, and keep doing  all the important Best Practice elements of the Stephen Covey ‘First Things First’ and David Allen’s GTD that you have read about. Training that does not require any Third Party add-in or Bolt-on.  Training that delivers Results Worth Talking About 

If you want to make this a reality within your demanding days simply contact me or go here to request specific support

OK, so you get an email from a work colleague who is not sitting near you and who you haven’t seen around the office yet (Most of your emails do come from your colleagues don’t they?). You think that the email requires a telephone call response so that you can add value to it and move on. You are keen on managing your time, focus and energy and you don’t relish the idea of telephone tag and creating a voicemail load to add to your email load. Here’s a simple tip:

Go beyond tips, get into real productivity and achieve more with less easier. Book Richard ‘Mr Productivity’ Maybury for practical productivity training, speaking and support services. Click the ‘Go Beyond Tips’ graphic or contact us for proven, measurable results.

How about simply right clicking on their email address within the open email and selecting ‘Schedule a meeting’  and in the Scheduling tab check if they are available, out of office or busy before you pick up the phone. A 5 second scan can help your communication management, your workload scheduling and your productivity no end.

What other simple Outlook manipulations, tips and processes do you use to keep control of your busy days? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you are responsible for achieving more with less in the new normal of business life why not see how I can release measurable productive capacity for you, your team or your business. Call me on 01428 607763 or ask me here

Go beyond tips, get into real productivity and achieve more with less easier. Book Richard ‘Mr Productivity’ Maybury for practical productivity training, speaking and support services. Click the ‘Go Beyond Tips’ graphic or contact us for proven, measurable results.

Using this approach has a number of business benefits:

1 you are able to focus your recipient’s attention into the date range you select

2 It helps your recipient make an easier scheduling decision

3 It avoids excessive rescheduling email and ‘Meeting Request’ messages.

4 Your calendar information is available to non-Outlook users as well as Outlook users.

5 You can decide how much scheduling information you want your recipient to see.

Go beyond tips. Click here to become a personal effectiveness ninja and learn how you can leverage the way you currently manage your competing priorities, email load and mission critical results workload with our support.

The process is simplicity itself:

1 Open up a new email

2 Click into the body of the email

3 If you can see the ‘Include’ Group in your email top toolbar just hit the calendar icon. Alternatively, click on the ‘Insert’ tab in the top toolbar and hit the Calendar icon.

4 In the pop up dialogue box Select which calendar you want to send and the date range you want your recipient to focus on.

5 Decide how much detail you want your recipient to see. The default is just the free/busy detail but you can click on the Detail slidebar o the right of the box to reveal 3 levels of detail to transmit

6 complete the rest of your email as normal and hit Send.

How could you use this? Let me know. I use it to provide telephone call booking flexibility for important calls as well as for face-to-face meetings.

Go beyond tips, get into real productivity and achieve more with less easier. Book Richard ‘Mr Productivity’ Maybury for practical productivity training, speaking and support services. Click the ‘Go Beyond Tips’ graphic or contact us for proven, measurable results.

If your workload management approach with Outlook 2003 included Outlook Task Management and email/task integration you can find that your legacy of imported flagged tasked emails makes it very difficult to operate effectively within the 2007 To-Do Bar.  You cannot just delete flagged email Tasks because if you do you will  delete the original emails and they might have some value to you!

Here’s what to do. It will only involve a little work (including reverting to your default To-Do bar view if you are currently using my suggested Outlook settings) to clear flags then reset the To-To Bar customisations according to your training manual.

A)     First of all revert to original To-Do Bar settings:

1. Right-click on any column heading in your To-Do Bar and select ‘Customise Current View’ and, at the bottom of the dialogue box, hit the ‘Reset current view’ button.

B)      You can now clear these older flagged mail tasks in the To-Do Bar as follows:

1. Right Click the Column title bar at the top of the task list in the To-Do Bar. Click on ‘Arrange by’ and select ‘’Type’ and also select ‘Show in Groups’
2. If ‘Posts On Top’ is visible in the title bar’s right edge, click it to display ‘Messages On Top’.
3. With the flagged messages grouped, use the Shift method to select a predetermined block or hold Ctrl and click the messages you want to clear.
4. Right-click any flag in the selected block and choose Clear Flag/Delete Task.

 C)      If you use my Outlook To-do bar settings from our training, redo your basic customisations per your training manual.

I hope you find this useful, why not go beyond tips and inbox slavery and get into Workload Management Mastery with Microsoft Outlook. When it comes to managing competing priorities within demanding workloads and email loads, you can rely upon my expertise, why not get in touch now?

First, though, a quick message: If you aspire to working smarter to future proof your career and business you need to go beyond tips, you need robust, simple workload management processes driven through the software you have on your desk, be it Outlook, Notes, Act, salesforce.com or any other leading productivity suites. You need our training. Hit the ‘Go beyond Tips graphic to the right and connect with me directly to see how we can help, no matter who you are or where you are.

Outlook 2007 Search all folders option

• Go to your top Toolbar
• Click on ‘Tools’ >  ‘Options’  
• In the ‘Preferences’ tab towards the bottom click the ‘Search Options’ button in the ‘Search’ area.
• In the ‘Search Options’ dialogue box, go to the bottom of the form and in the ‘Instant Search pane’ area select ‘All Folders’.
• Click OK twice to  exit and activate

Outlook 2010 Search all folders option

• Go to your top Toolbar
• Click on ‘File’ >  ‘Options’  
• In the left hand ‘Search’ column, click ‘Search’
• In the ‘Results’ area change the default to ‘All Folders’
• Click OK to activate and exit

Remember, I’m always happy to receive your comments. Do contact me or Go Beyond Tips and talk about getting rock-solid support for your personal and team productivity ambitions.

Control is critical to success

Control requires clarity. Clarity of purpose. Clarity around expectations and delivery on deadlines. Clarity on priorities. Clarity under pressure. As one CEO client said to me the other week when he booked our support for his Board and his Senior management Team ‘I have a good business model and a good team, it’s just that they are all operating on a ‘Just In Time’ model – and when you work with people as opposed to a production line ……………

 ’Just in time is Just Too Late’.

It is my experience that most good people know what they need to achieve within a business, the difficulty lies in how they go about achieving it.

It is also my experience that many so called ‘Technological  Solutions’ to managing competing priorities only provide a partial, complex compromise on what you and I would know as working smarter not harder. Here I am thinking of all the high tech tools, either installed on our computers or accessed from the cloud that claim to be THE solution to individual and team productivity and effectiveness. Many, in my experience, only add another ‘To-Do List’ for us to interrogate.

So, technology itself is not the answer. The answer lies in welding time honoured principles and processes to the lightest use of technology so that people will use it well.

How many To-Do lists do you use?

It is not a trick question. It is serious. How many lists do you check physically or mentally in order to evaluate current priorities against incoming fire, whether in the guise of opportunities or threats?

Here’s a list. How many of these do you use?

1. Board Minutes
2. Management Team Action Points,
3. Business Plans, Project Tasks etc, usually written in other software programmes
4. Conference Call action points
5. Lists in other workflow management programmes and technologies you may use
6. Business Email Inbox and personal email account inbox(es)
7. Commitments from various internal and external meetings in a day-book.
8. Notes of promises and commitments from phone calls
9. Saved Voicemail messages that require action
10. Instant Messenger / Communicator / Social Media streams
11. Notes to self, written in a variety of places (even on the back of other available papers? – Surely not!)
12. MEMORY (Usually when you are trying to focus on some other work)
13. MEMORY (Usually on the way home).
14. MEMORY (Usually at 3 o’clock in the morning – accompanied by a cold sweat).

Here’s a second question:

How well do your To-Do lists integrate with each other?

How easy is it for you to see clearly the business impact of making one priority decision over another? To see, in front of your eyes – rather than in the back of your mind – the consequence of saying ‘Yes’ to one thing? To see how a delay in a scheduled activity will affect not only your delivery deadline but the time available for your colleague to do what they have to do before the work is finally delivered to the customer?

So, here’s 3 Productivity Pointers on To-Do Lists

1. Use fewer tools and integrate them better.
2. Think about your processes before you add another tool to your toolbox
3. As much as possible bring all your priorities into one place so you can evaluate and execute them with greater clarity and control.

This is why I think it is so much better to leverage the power of existing tools like Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and the other programmes you are already invested in, rather than buy add-ons or new packages.

A final thought:

Working smarter is all about clarity of purpose and simplicity of process, lets not overcomplicate it with too many tools.

If you would like to know how we help people to improve their productivity and effectiveness, both personally and as a team, why not call me or complete this request form so I can get back to you with some ideas. As always, if you have any views on this or want to contribute to the debate I’d love to hear from you below….

1. To achieve this you must log on to Microsoft Outlook as an ‘Administrator’.
2. To do this in Windows 7 simply close Microsoft Outlook
3. Now go to the Outlook icon in your Start menu or in your Taskbar and hold down the ‘Shift’ button whilst right clicking on the icon.
4. This will reveal an options menu from which you select ‘Run as Administrator’
5. When Outlook opens up, simply sort the emails in your Inbox by ‘Attachment’ and Open each email up, click on the attached file to open it.
6. When the ‘Opening Mail Attachment dialog box appears uncheck the ‘Always ask before opening this type of file’ and click ‘Open’. Then close the attachment and the email and move to the next email.
7. Remember that if you are running Outlook 2007 and Office 2007 you will have attachments of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other files in both ‘Office 2007’ and ’97-2003 compatibility’ versions. That’s why it is useful to sort your emails by attachment so you can run through as many as possible.
8. Once you have done this for your major file attachment types simply close down Outlook in Administrator mode and reopen as normal.

No more annoying dialog boxes!

If you are looking to help your company, team or yourself to work smarter on your priorities with Outlook why not ask us how we can help you. Go on, go beyond tips and get into a truly productive way of working on your priorities within your demanding workload.

How Email and information overload impacts our productivity

This is why, when we help people to work smarter on their competing priorities, we always incorporate strategies for managing information overload and regaining control of their inbox. This is all part of the challenge of Continuous Partial Attention (CPA) that we all face in this connected age. You will find some of my notes on CPA here

To access our proven expertise and experience in managing competing priorities within demanding work and email loads just ask here

1. Go to your main Outlook Calendar folder
2. Select the calendars you wish to view, the default position is to see these calendars side-by-side.
3. To see the commitments in all calendars within one calendar you need to engage ‘View in Overlay mode’
4. Do this by clicking the small arrow on the left of the title in the secondary calendar.

You can reverse this clicking the arrow again. Simple!

How could you use this Microsoft Outlook Calendar functionality to support your productivity? Why not let me know? If you want to move beyond tips and get into sustainable, measurable productivity improvements and work smarter on your priorities and technology tools just ask us now and we will get back to you.

I attended one of Richard’s courses on time management using Outlook and our current trend to urgency addiction. The results from attending the course were for me immediate, I am more organised, more focused and more in control and I am very grateful to him for the wisdom he imparted. If you’re considering engaging with Richard take my word for it and don’t hesitate to go for it!
Robert May MD Ramsac Ltd

1. Open any Office 2007 Word or Excel document
2. In the open document click the Microsoft Office Button on the top left of your screen and then click ‘Open’.
3. In the ‘Open’ dialog box, click the drive, the folder, or the Internet location for which you want to create a My Places bar shortcut in the left panel.
4. Right-click a blank space in the My Places bar below the existing shortcuts, and then click Add folder name. Note you must right-click at the bottom of the list for this to work. Your new shortcut appears at the bottom of the My Places bar.
5. You can then move it up or down the ‘My Places’ list by right-clicking on the name and selecting ‘move up / move down’
6. You can rename the shortcut by right clicking it in the ‘My Places’ panel and selecting ‘Rename’.

Go beyond tips and get into results management with our training support. Contact me now to see how we can help you and your team achieve ‘Results Worth Talking about’

To include an often used folder within your Office 2007 library:

• Click the Start button on the bottom left of your screen
• Now click on your user name in the pop up box.
• In the pane on the right of the dialogue box navigate to the folder you want to add to your short cuts
• Right-click on that folder name and select ‘Include in Library’ and then select where you want that folder displayed.
• To see your network folders, click on ‘Network’ in the left pane and navigate / right click as above to select.
• Click the X on top right of the dialogue box to close.
• To remove the folder from the library once you no longer need regular access to it simply right click on it within the library pane and select ‘Remove location from library’ Note that this does not delete the folder – only the short-cut to it in the library.

Go beyond tips and get into results management with our training support. Contact me now to see how we can help you and your team achieve ‘Results Worth Talking about’