Below are 10 tips to help you clean up and be more efficient with your Outlook mail in 2013:
- 1. If you’re confident you won’t need a message, use Shift Delete to permanently delete items, which bypasses the deleted items folder.
- 2. Empty your junk mail regularly, as mail in that folder is not automatically deleted as it is in the deleted items folder after 7 days.
- 3. Use the conversations view so that you can delete an entire thread of messages with one click.
- 4. Sort by size and delete largest messages first, saving attachments to your network drive if necessary
- 5. Drag and drop messages to your computer network drive which you must keep but don’t need to refer to frequently and then delete the messages from Outlook, saving space in your mail database.
- 6. Save folders or messages you wish to archive as PDF, then delete from Outlook to save space.
- 7. Don’t check every email as it comes into your inbox. Have several check points throughout the day.
- 8. Take care of messages you can respond to in less than two minutes. For longer messages if you’re not able to delegate to someone else, save in a “needs response” folder or flag it as a task.
- 9. Call if a message is urgent or if there are too many emails in a conversation.
- 10. Save time using composing emails by using signatures or quick parts for frequently-used blocks of text.
Come to the Email Management and Productivity class on Tuesday from 1:30 to 3 p.m. in 8011 Wittson Hall to learn how to reduce and be resourceful with your email. Registration is required and can be completed online.