Please welcome – Microsoft Outlook!
OK, so Outlook isn’t new, but your first thought was that’s just email, but in reality that’s just one of the sections that make up this program.
It’s really an integrated system to store personal information.
There are five sections that make up Outlook:
- Calendar
- People (Contacts)
- Tasks
- Notes
Displayed in the bottom right of the Outlook window is the navigation options. From here, you can click to move around between the sections.
The default option is the compact navigation.
This is is the main section that everyone uses.
In fact you may feel that this is where you ‘live’ when you’re using a computer, as you end up checking your new messages a lot.
In addition to showing the new incoming emails, you can also:
- Write, reply and forward messages
- Organise messages into folders
- Add categories to sort and organise messages
- Create rules to automatically perform commands
Calendar
Your personal calendar is the best place to store information about your upcoming, day, week, month, year and more.
Interesting Fact:
The Calendar has a last day of August 31st 4500
Enter details by creating one of three item types:
- meetings
- appointments
- events
One of the useful features, is that you can create one type (e.g. appointment) and change it easily to another one (e.g. meeting).
As you create a calendar item, Outlook automatically sets up a reminder for 15 minutes before the start time.
Note: All defaults can be changed for Outlook, or for individual items.
Appointments
These are the first and default type of items that you create.
Appointments are slots booked out in your calendar for a length of time (the standard (default) length is 30 mins), for a purpose you choose.
Use it to put aside time for a project, for a reminder, for lunch – anything that you want.
The key difference is that appointments are for you and have a reminder automatically set. Not sent to anyone else.
Meetings
Like an appointment, this is time booked for a purpose, however a meeting includes one or more other people.
Sending it to others, Outlook adds an email address field. Not seen in the other calendar items.
Tip:
Remember to include the purpose of the meeting and an agenda.
Event
There is a section at the top of each day that displays your events – defined as an all day appointment.
Use this type for reminders, as well as something that lasts all day (24 hrs).
Contacts/People
Do you know that this is the only section in Outlook that has been renamed?
From Contacts in earlier versions now called People.
Note: Interestingly you still create a new contact.
Contacts
You can use this as a place to store basic information on your contacts (sorry on your ‘people’ just sounded wrong), or you can choose to add more information.
Basic information includes:
- Name
- Phone numbers
- Company/Job Title
- Picture
- Addresses
- Internet – Emails and Web addresses
- Notes
For most people that’s more than enough information, but you can add more details if you want, for example partners name, manager etc.
One advantage to storing information here is that it’s searchable, so you don’t have to go back through emails for their phone number.
Depending on what programs you have/use, you could also make a phone call from Outlook (not have to dial the number), use your contacts for a mail merge (in MS Word).
Group
Groups are relatively new, and give you a way to connect people together.
They share a calendar, files and conversations with invited people via a single email address. When you create a group, Outlook automatically creates the email address for it.
With the other technology available to us, I’m not sold on this feature as you can use WhatsApp just as easily. Companies have other options as well – from MS Teams, to SharePoint and external programs.
Contact Group
Renamed from Distribution Lists a few versions ago, a Contact Group allows you to create a personal list of your contacts.
Sending to the contact group automatically sends to everyone listed, instead of entering all the names in manually.
Easy to create and keep up to date.
Note: Companies often create company-wide lists for departments and teams, the main difference is that this is a list just for you which you update as needed.
Tasks
This is your list of things/items that need to be done.
Somewhat confusingly, there are two types, although in this section you only create a task.
To-Do
These are automatically added to the To-Do list, when you add a flag to an email message.
They are automatically grouped together based on the date you selected for the follow up
- Today
- Tomorrow
- This Week
- Next Week
- No Date
When you select the to-do item, it displays the email.
Tasks
Write a list of items that you need to work on and complete with the task list.
Unlike To-Do, tasks can have a start and/or due dates to allow planning/scheduling.
You can work on several items at the same time and keep on top of everything with priorities and updating the status (Not Started, In Progress, Waiting) and the % Complete.
As you finish them, mark them completed to remove them from your active list.
Notes
This section is where you can save information that doesn’t fit anywhere else.
They are displayed as post-it notes (small yellow squares), which when opened can store a large amount of information.
They don’t have any formatting options, but can be organised using categorises.
Outlook – Working Together
One of the key advantages to having an integrated program is that you can use the information in different ways, without having to re-enter or duplicate it.
For example, a mail message can be dragged to tasks – it will create a new task with all of the information from the email displayed in the notes area.
You can create a free Outlook, or it’s part of your M365 account and it’s the most popular option for many companies.
Shhh – don’t tell everyone but I’m sharing my 5 Ways to get More Out of Outlook…
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