Some tips that I personally developed after more than a decade of working in insanely big corporate environments: - Use smart folder called "To me" where i'm in the "To" list. Similar to what Leila has for "CC" emails, but without conditional formatting. - Extensive use of "todo" flags: today, tomorrow, this week. - Similar to what Leila suggested, I have 'blockers' in my schedule for desk work: writing reports, doing research, compiling financials. I mark these appointments as "Personal" and do not respond to any mails during them. - Archiving emails is great, but I went even further: I'm archiving all mails that have attachments and are more than 1 month old. - With the introduction of Teams, I enforced the etiquette of not attaching bulky files to emails, but putting them into specific Teams (or Sharepoint) folders and sharing only links.
Thanks for the tips, I do not use an action folder (only follow up folder) I also add a category/colour to focus on a few emails for action in my inbox. yellow = to do, red - urgent, green = waiting for input from someone else. when i put both colours, for example: 1st green, 2nd yellow, that means:1st waiting for reply, 2nd then I need to take some action after that.
I’ve recently graduated and started a new job and emails once brought me joy and satisfaction but now they bring anxiety and stress. Thank you so much for these tips, this is amazing and is sure to help me filter through and feel on top of it all
I just started working in an office life environment and in just 3 weeks i see so many emails where i'm not particularly sure i'm a part of. Thanks to your video, I manage to see how i can manage my outlook in a very VERY organized way. thank you so much.
I have just completed this plan over the course of a week. I went from 1150 UNREAD emails, plus about 6000 read emails in my inbox... to "inbox zero" and an excellent folder system. I feel so empowered and excited about being on top of my work! I'm more reachable and responsive than I ever was before. Thank you so much!!!
The one thing I don’t understand is what to do with the message after you respond to it? It still sits in the inbox. How can you actually clear it to zero?
we have a rule - if it is low priority, we can email, else talk to the person you were going to email. This really works. We really need think differently and consider how best to communicate. Tools like MS Teams are much more effective as well. Great video as per usual.
Totally agree with finding other ways than emails. Been more productive doing Teams chat (and only emailing the key agreements). Than doing 7 emails just doing some back and forth on project details, clarifications, etc.
my job wants everything emailed…. even if i am sitting right next to the person! very time consuming especially when i could get an answer before i could type out the email
@@OsukaMbalali Hi, we have a lot of trust in our business, and that trust extends to our customers (but regarded as partners). Working this way builds common goals and support to achieve those goals. I have worked in organisations that document everything in emails - we find that most people become keyboard warriors and loose track of what is important - working with your customers and delivering what they want, when they want, to the right cost and quality. Good luck in your working approach. Fortunatly, we all work in different ways and reap the benefits of those ways.
Custom color tip such a lifesaver! I receive 300+ email every day now I can easily seek emails marked to me individually / To me with other & CC!! Cannot thank you enough Leila!
I've struggled mightily for YEARS to organize my Inbox more effectively. I've already adopted several of your suggestions since watching this video yesterday -- and just managed to clear out/organize my past two weeks of messages, and now feel quite set up for continued progress. Thank you!
Thank you Leila! I just started a new job and I wanted to start off with good habits regarding emails. I've already implemented several of your suggestions!💐
The 2 most valuable time management lessons I've learned over the last 20+ years: 1) There are many time/life management systems out there--Franklin Covey, Getting Things Done (or GTD), etc. Pick one. You can learn it in one day on TH-cam, for free. 2) Stop being so meticulous with email folders. (I'm not referring to the ones Leila described in this video). Email search has become so good that you can just put ANY read email into the Archive folder. If you ever need to find an old email, the search function will find it in seconds. I promise you, this alone will save you so much time.
I 100% agree. This is a good happy medium. Once you develop an email routine it's easier to manage it all instead of having the email inbox open in the background and checking whenever a notification appears.
I like using the conversation view for my inbox. Having the entire email chain in one drop down box is so much better than hunting through outlook looking for a specific email in a chain, usually just to find an attachment.
Really great video. I am already doing app. 70% of presented tips and I must confirm that it works. I do not have any problems with email any more. The most important came to realize that it is not necessary to be on-line and it is good not reply immediatelly. Just by following this one rule the number of emails decreased about 300%. If people know that you will not reply, they will stop sending tens of emails.
The best thing I have done is to enable VBA in outlook. That meant a few reports are created automatically by reading the email and adding information in Excel files. Off course it depends on your work, but that has saved me probably about 1-2 hours a day.
I am working professional and spending good amount of times on checking & segregating emails but using your techniques definitely it will help me to increase productivity without wasting time. Thank you for sharing with us. 🙂💐
This is great. I've got used to inbox-zero. I also use defined search folders of key people/companies, instead of proper folders/sub folders, which I agree can get out of hand. I've got into the same practice of; if it can be done in minutes, do it and send to archive. If it can wait a bit or might be interesting to read later, I flag it as follow up and move it to archive. It still shows up in the To Do list when it's due. Some feel happy seeing thousands of unread emails. I can't work like that.
I have watched this twice now over the last year and it is still relevant. I need to implement and stop trying to send all email to task manager or notes and dealing with them.
My biggest problem is how long it takes me to write an email. I want everything to sound perfect and end up rewriting them 20 times and an email that should take 5 minutes takes 2 hours. Such a drain sigh
I would also advise using: 1. Conversation view (I would go insane without this) 2. Single line view on the inbox and other folders instead of the multi line message preview 3. Message preview in the right and inbox/list in the middle 4. Add the mentions column to your inbox view 5. Moving your shortcut bar below the ribbon and add all your frequent actions to it both on in inbox view and the open message view The drag message directly to calendar icon is a new one for me, excited to try it!! Thanks for sharing
Watching her excel videos helped me increase my income about 40k in a couple years. My excel skill got so good I could basically negotiate with the government jobs I had higher amount for the increased skill.
Oh my goodness I love this. I thought I had some pretty spiffy Rules. I don’t even know if I am getting more CC or direct emails. What a great way to find out where time is being spent.
Picked up a couple of great new ways to flag my mail. I really hadn't played with the flagging feature in outlook.. Thanks again for your simple well directed info. To many don't keep on topic and jump around to much.. each feature you talked about you were careful to fully explain that feature before moving on. I can't follow those who try to talk flagging an email while showing how to sort it to a new sub folder and marking it to alert you later. It's the difference in demonstrating what you can do and teaching some else the features so they can figure out how to use them;
On my previous job, we usually receive hundreds of emails everyday. In order for us to address concerns on a timely manner and based on priority, we set up a Subject Line format that each team members should follow - this will ensure that the rules we setup on our inbox are going to work every time. E.g. If the concern is to rebut an audit finding, the email Subject Line should start with "Reconsideration Request:". When we setup this workaround, callouts and escalations were dramatically reduced as disputes were addressed within our rebuttal timeline which is 48hrs. So this is something that everyone can follow. You not only managed your inbox but as well as your team's. :)
Inbox - Action Required - Archive with show mails as conversation is my outlook setup since this video. it works like charm easy to maintain easy to focus
Thank you Leila. The company I currently belong to is "EMAIL IS EVERYTHING" kind of corporate culture, therefore my inbox is always flooded by, both from "very-important-never-to-miss" to "just-a-say-hello". In such corporate culture I've been struggling how to catch up and not to left-behind... Your Tips & Techniques help me A LOT. Thank you!
I love your videos! I, too, try to immediately process things that take two minutes or less, and I also delegate right away. If however I need to save something as a next action or deferral, I press Insert to flag it and then Delete to archive it. Later on, when I have set time aside to handle tasks I go to Microsoft To Do and handle the flagged emails there along with other tasks. Outlook combined with Insert and Delete keys and Microsoft To Do work well together!
Hello Leila, first of all, thank you so much for these great tips (as always), I learn a lot whith this channel and I really appreaciate the way you show it, this is both very pleasant and easy to understand. 😊 Just to add my personal contribution (sorry if it had already mentionned, I did not read all the comments) : on my side I like to use flags, I find them very handy to use as you can define categories that you can apply simultaneously for emails, meetings and tasks : - 1st, you can keep a certain logic to organize and view your data - 2nd, you can use the flags to create search folders afterwards, so when you put a flag on a email, this one is automatically assigned o the related search folder - 3rd : you can use flags to narrow researches (mails, meetings, tasks) PS : sorry for my bad English 😕
Fantastic advice! I’m a business financial consultant who receives a lot of informational and action oriented messages. After 20 years I have developed many of those same techniques, but like your experience, I have ended up with a vast number of folders for overly detailed organization. Your advice will help me reconsider my rules and organization to simplify things more and make things more manageable.
Another idea. Under options, reading pane set your inbox so emails only get marked as read if you open them. This way you can scan through your inbox in the reading pane and move or delete non action emails leaving the action emails as unread, letting you know you need to action the email.
I put another layer of prioritization by having "important person" rules. So I prioritized to read the mail from selected important person first (auto move to a folder). The other mail in inbox can be read later day or even later in a week.
This is very wonderful lady...this is the job before we die ...just teach and coach wat is good and what you got ...thank you and wish you good days ahead...
At my main job i just a mix of rules which automatically moving mails to folder and applying a GTD-like System: The majority of the mails, will be sorted. Those which are a real "to-do" will be flagged and marked with red. As soon the task is done I apply a quickstep to remove the flag, remove the color and move it to the done folder. To get an overview, I have a search folder which collects mails with flag and red color. This System allows me to have my mails sorted by topics AND at the same time getting things done from multiple topics. I take from your Video the Conditional Coloring and the Starting Folder as ideas for improvements of my workflow. I think the Conditional Coloring would great apply to mails which are not necessary a To-Do and where are Mails mixed between where I (and the team) get addressed directly and where we are one in a bunch of "CC Subscribers". 😅 Thanks 🙏
Great content as always. I would add that when you flag an email to follow up in outlook it gets synchronised with the To Do app so you can get through your tasks without being distracted by more incoming mail.
@@puranyashkapoor7468 Microsoft acquired Wunderlist and the dev team rewrote it calling it Microsoft to do. Wunderlist was amazing and I am very happy with the new to do. I use it for groceries and other quick item lists. I also use everdo for task management with a more GTD approach with the extra fields like time to complete and effort. Really hope Microsoft adds some more GTD based items.
Thanks Leila jan, the conditional formatting tip is really helpful for us! For action folders I use PARA system to organize and instead of folders for actions I use Tags 🏷️ with shortcuts.
Hi Leila. Thanks for the Video. The conditional formatting for "cc" emails tip is really helpful. I would even say it's a life saver (for me) 😀 Thanks again
Nice! A GTD implementation using Outlook features! I had set up something similar in the past, but after a few organizational changes, I have slowly regressed back to the chaotic inbox mess.... also, I lack a self-discipline quality... But, Your video motivates me again to "Get Things Done!" Thank you, Leila!
Leila since you use the "Archive" /"delete" function as your triage of emails, note that "Backspace" sends the email directly to " archive" so that may speed things up even more not having to drag or select "archive" icon. Thanks for your excellent instructions on all your you tube posts.
Wow! Someone, somewhere on the planet, near Montreal QC, is getting a lot more efficient thanks to you. I am extremely grateful to you for all that you are teaching us.
Email management is fundamental yet far to overlooked. We receive hundreds upon hundreds of emails. I find it vital to combine Categories, Rules & Alerts, Quicksteps and Conversation View to manage my emails. Alas, so many people don't really do this... Not gonna lie, but if feel anxious just seeing other people's Inboxes 😵💫
This is exactly the stuff I teach my users. Only one thing I explain differently. The "Action required" emails (in our case a "ToDo" folder) are marked with a flag and due date (with a quick step). So These e-mails appear in the ToDo app where also the personal tasks and tasks from Planner are visible. Creating a calendar entry is of course the alternative way for Outlook only users. I like the idea to use a colorcode for CC emails. Will take is as an option to my next trainings. Thank you for your super great and understandable videos. Would love to be able to explain like you do!
Awesome tips and I love there are multiple options for some actions. Colouring the text of incoming emails based on conditions is absolute gold! Thank you Leila!
I started doing outlook cleaning 2 years ago first time is going to be a big job the biggest tip i could give just for starting is make a folder for subscriptions then make a rule that ALL emails with the word unsubscribe and the same but in your own language. Then make sure you set the rule that it will do it on past messages. Then when you feel like it when you have time go to that folder and instead of putting it on date put it on sender. Then you can pick one email of that sender unsubscribe from that and delete the whole bunch of past messages from that sender. Or without any rules you can also do that in the main folder if you wish. Just put it on sender instead of date. And just work your way through and then you can work on finding out who is important and needs a separate folder or any of the edits you have seen in this video. And if you don't even want to do that final idea i can give which is also handy when you don't use outlook and have an easy rule system. Do what i described in the message above but just when you receive a message. You just search every email from that sender and unsub from it deleted all passed messages. Informative video Leila
Worth watching just for the "create rule" portion! I used to be a zero email type, but the pandemic ruined me. Thanks for the tips that should help me dig out of the pile! haha
Thank you so much Ms.Gharani, I am a solopreneur with three business pillars. My mailboxes have been very messy for so many years. They are nice and clean for the first time. Highly appreciated :)
Thank you Leila ... all very helpful tips, some of which I've not known of before! I manage 3 mailboxes and can't wait until Monday morning to set them all up with these time saving processes. 😊
I Love this way of e-mail management. I have been worked in this way since I did a course based on the book Getting Things Done! Currently I’m working with 4 folders ( Action / Archive / Waiting Answer/ Read Review) Your tips help a lot to improve that and reduce this folders. Thanks a lot🎉
I’m the type of guy that keeps all in inbox. I actually color code CC emails in light gray, so that they do not catch me eye much. Also emails from bosses in red because you need to keep them happy. One tip I did not see and actually is great (for me) is the conversation view where all mails on the same subject are joint together.
We are pleased with your presence and the services you provide through this program. Because you are distinguished in communication through the service
Most of this was a summary of my current outlook process, but you also included a few new tips for me to try! Awesome video, thank you. I'm looking forward to trying these out.
dragging the email to the calendar was mind blowing feature. I was looking for this everywhere on Outlook to setup anything like this. Thanks for the shortcut.
@@LeilaGharani with my new role, I am getting so much emails that I can't do my actual work and even overtimes doesn't help enough. I was doing empty mail box method but right now it doesn't help anymore because I was using it as to do list. I am setting up some rules, categorize some with color so I know that those are assigned to someone by just looking at it. Next I will go thru your power automate guide to see what I can find useful.
This is great! I basically do the same thing except the Action Folder. I am going to try this. I would love to see some more on outlook (conversation settings, more advanced features) :)
The BIGGEST Issues that I have: "Email etiquette:" - Getting emails that require an action from you when you are CC'd. - Getting emails that don't follow a thread - like answering an email that doesn't follow the subject line - TIP - I use conversation view - So I can see the first email in the thread and the responses to that thread - Getting emails with vague subject lines that are big tasks - The screen clip emails that have important information that require research and you are stuck sifting through the whole email looking for the task in screen clips. - I work in an ERP/MRP centric company - That is very task oriented and I can get upwards of 350 emails a day (BTW the record is at 634 emails in one day) where 50% of them are actionable(either by me or my team), 25% are important information to retain for something that will be needed 1-2 months from now and the remaining 25% is other stuff (HR communications, IT Comms. other things that are important but not immediately actionable). So the hardest part of dealing with that is reading to determine what category they fall in when the simple rules are not followed. -TIP use CATEGORIES - This is a great feature but requires a good time setting up but once I had it - timesaver. - I also get emails for tasks from my Boss, their boss, Managers, Directors, VP's and the President of the Company. Requiring Action and they don't always act responsibly with etiquette either. - Also - the dreaded instant messaging software. Nice for quick ask questions but infuriating for asks that are multistep and WHAT A DISTRACTION. So teaching people how to email is big in my book. I enforce the behavior of my team to act responsibly with sending emails. - First thing I always say to them if you want me to action something and you CC me you may not see a response right away. - I teach them to move the names around in the email from To: to CC: based on the person that has to action. No vague requests and above all else - Read and re-read what you are sending. Have some structure to your email. - Don't answer OK to a task oriented email without completing the task (I know you got the email/meeting request I do not need affirmation of that outside of the normal means).
I think one way to keep it organized is to use the other microsoft apps. For example, Yammer for internal communications only (this would take a lot of comm. emails from your inbox). Planner for specific tasks instead of delegating them via email. Teams for faster communication, etc. A tip that works for me is to categorize the emails as Follow up and Urgent and then have a search folder on my favorites section to concentrate all the categorized emails. I hope any of these can help you with the big load you get daily!
I needed this a couple of years ago when I started my current job. Now I have 25000 emails backlogged in my inbox and I feel overwhelmed at the thought of sorting through and moving/deleting them.
Thanks Leila. These are great steps and I have implemented a few of your suggestions which I'm sure will help with my email issue for work and private to improve productivity and junk email.
Great tips, I am a new subscriber. I actually use a rule and a separate folder for emails where I am in CC and only look at there occasionally. This alone largely reduces the number of emails in my inbox. I use colour coding to mark emails coming from Managers I report to, so I know that is something I need to look at with more importance than others. I work in a large corporate environment, a global IT company with 100K+ people. I have been using the newsletter folder and rule for many-many years now. I will start to promote your videos for my team, we can learn a lot from them.
How do you organise your data and work folders in general? This would interest me as well. Folder organisation is probably the most underrated and least discussed productivity issue for every person in the office. I would be very interested to learn your tips and tricks. Thanks
don't use folders. Use categories. Not only do you get free color-coding, but you can assign many categories to one email (Project X, Finance, Client, etc) try doing that with folders! Plus you can search on categories (show me all the client finance emails on project x)
There are some incredible suggestions in this video. I love that you’ve taken ideas from two methodologies and synthesized them into your own. Inbox zero stresses me out too!
Really nice, like it. I additionally disabled automatic set on read after clicking opening the mail. This saves me from the substructure of folders together with coloring. When I reply it automatically turns readed otherwise it remains unleaded even if I did. In case I got the message but do not need to react ctrl + q flags it as read. Getting familiar with search also helps a lot. I have all in one box for about a Year. > 8.000. And it works fine. At least for me. But definitely the best is to time-box. I look 3 times into my inbox. Right away in the morning. After lunch and before turn off. And not more than 20 mins. Ok because I don’t have more time but it also forced me to focus on the important bits.
You can customize the headers of the task list and have that show on the right side view. You can then make task items and drag emails right into the item and save it along with any notes. This way you can have any files and attachments related to the task Right there and set reminders. I also heavily use the delay send function to send myself emails when I need to look at something again
@@eonstar You can add and remove columns and then in one of the settings somewhere you can rename them. I did it years ago I can’t remember now but just mess around with the task function and right click in the task area. There is options there
Stanford did a study showing multitasking doesn't exist. We're like working on a single core processor and we use pre-emptive multitasking. A little of this, then a little of that. Back and forth, back and forth which is why we don't do a good job on either task.
instead of having an "action folder", i just leave the emails i have to deal with in my otherwise empty inbox .. if i put it in a folder somewhere i will never think of getting it again LOL ..
🌸 similar I prefer to leave it in inbox till I deal with it & then archive it in a relevant folder. I unsubscribe from junk as frequently as I can to reduce nonsense lol
I tell people if you want me to action something, put me in the “To” list. If I’m CC I will not action, and might not read. I treat CC as being informed in case something happens later.
Excellent tips Leila! This will improve productivity and lower irritation levels. Many thanks for this great video; Outlook will return to being less scary than horror movies!
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Some tips that I personally developed after more than a decade of working in insanely big corporate environments:
- Use smart folder called "To me" where i'm in the "To" list. Similar to what Leila has for "CC" emails, but without conditional formatting.
- Extensive use of "todo" flags: today, tomorrow, this week.
- Similar to what Leila suggested, I have 'blockers' in my schedule for desk work: writing reports, doing research, compiling financials. I mark these appointments as "Personal" and do not respond to any mails during them.
- Archiving emails is great, but I went even further: I'm archiving all mails that have attachments and are more than 1 month old.
- With the introduction of Teams, I enforced the etiquette of not attaching bulky files to emails, but putting them into specific Teams (or Sharepoint) folders and sharing only links.
Really great tips! Thanks for sharing!
Very good tips Nick.
Thank you. 🙏🏻👍🏻
I’m literally emotional watching this video. You are giving people their life/time back. Thank you!!
In my experience, people only use 10% of what software can do. Thank you for showing us the hidden gems that make these tools outstanding!
Thanks for the tips,
I do not use an action folder (only follow up folder)
I also add a category/colour to focus on a few emails for action in my inbox.
yellow = to do, red - urgent, green = waiting for input from someone else.
when i put both colours, for example: 1st green, 2nd yellow, that means:1st waiting for reply, 2nd then I need to take some action after that.
I’ve recently graduated and started a new job and emails once brought me joy and satisfaction but now they bring anxiety and stress. Thank you so much for these tips, this is amazing and is sure to help me filter through and feel on top of it all
Oh my days! Thank you so much. I wish someone had shown me this 20 years ago! *sigh* better late than never. Now......to tackle my inbox!!
I just started working in an office life environment and in just 3 weeks i see so many emails where i'm not particularly sure i'm a part of. Thanks to your video, I manage to see how i can manage my outlook in a very VERY organized way. thank you so much.
My pleasure!
I have just completed this plan over the course of a week. I went from 1150 UNREAD emails, plus about 6000 read emails in my inbox... to "inbox zero" and an excellent folder system. I feel so empowered and excited about being on top of my work! I'm more reachable and responsive than I ever was before. Thank you so much!!!
How’s it going?
The one thing I don’t understand is what to do with the message after you respond to it? It still sits in the inbox. How can you actually clear it to zero?
I've been following Leila for a year and I can't stress enough how grateful I am of her contents. Helps me a lot as a professional. Thanks Leila :)
we have a rule - if it is low priority, we can email, else talk to the person you were going to email. This really works. We really need think differently and consider how best to communicate. Tools like MS Teams are much more effective as well. Great video as per usual.
Totally agree with finding other ways than emails. Been more productive doing Teams chat (and only emailing the key agreements). Than doing 7 emails just doing some back and forth on project details, clarifications, etc.
my job wants everything emailed…. even if i am sitting right next to the person! very time consuming especially when i could get an answer before i could type out the email
Bad ideia.
Cover your ass and Have everything documented.
Email the person then give him a call if it requires urgent action.
@@OsukaMbalali Hi, we have a lot of trust in our business, and that trust extends to our customers (but regarded as partners). Working this way builds common goals and support to achieve those goals. I have worked in organisations that document everything in emails - we find that most people become keyboard warriors and loose track of what is important - working with your customers and delivering what they want, when they want, to the right cost and quality. Good luck in your working approach. Fortunatly, we all work in different ways and reap the benefits of those ways.
What an interesting idea! I sometimes feel that people will still feel invaded if I just send them a chat. But I think your approach will be helpful!
Custom color tip such a lifesaver! I receive 300+ email every day now I can easily seek emails marked to me individually / To me with other & CC!! Cannot thank you enough Leila!
You're so welcome!
I've struggled mightily for YEARS to organize my Inbox more effectively. I've already adopted several of your suggestions since watching this video yesterday -- and just managed to clear out/organize my past two weeks of messages, and now feel quite set up for continued progress. Thank you!
Thank you Leila! I just started a new job and I wanted to start off with good habits regarding emails. I've already implemented several of your suggestions!💐
The 2 most valuable time management lessons I've learned over the last 20+ years:
1) There are many time/life management systems out there--Franklin Covey, Getting Things Done (or GTD), etc.
Pick one. You can learn it in one day on TH-cam, for free.
2) Stop being so meticulous with email folders. (I'm not referring to the ones Leila described in this video).
Email search has become so good that you can just put ANY read email into the Archive folder.
If you ever need to find an old email, the search function will find it in seconds.
I promise you, this alone will save you so much time.
As an IT Professional she is definitely right, i spend the majority of my day filtering through emails.
I 100% agree. This is a good happy medium. Once you develop an email routine it's easier to manage it all instead of having the email inbox open in the background and checking whenever a notification appears.
I like using the conversation view for my inbox. Having the entire email chain in one drop down box is so much better than hunting through outlook looking for a specific email in a chain, usually just to find an attachment.
km
o
Absolutely true! I cannot work without this feature turned on. It helps build a continuity.
I just learnt about this feature. It's a life saver
Really great video. I am already doing app. 70% of presented tips and I must confirm that it works. I do not have any problems with email any more. The most important came to realize that it is not necessary to be on-line and it is good not reply immediatelly. Just by following this one rule the number of emails decreased about 300%. If people know that you will not reply, they will stop sending tens of emails.
The best thing I have done is to enable VBA in outlook.
That meant a few reports are created automatically by reading the email and adding information in Excel files.
Off course it depends on your work, but that has saved me probably about 1-2 hours a day.
I am working professional and spending good amount of times on checking & segregating emails but using your techniques definitely it will help me to increase productivity without wasting time. Thank you for sharing with us. 🙂💐
My pleasure!
This is great. I've got used to inbox-zero. I also use defined search folders of key people/companies, instead of proper folders/sub folders, which I agree can get out of hand. I've got into the same practice of; if it can be done in minutes, do it and send to archive. If it can wait a bit or might be interesting to read later, I flag it as follow up and move it to archive. It still shows up in the To Do list when it's due. Some feel happy seeing thousands of unread emails. I can't work like that.
I have watched this twice now over the last year and it is still relevant. I need to implement and stop trying to send all email to task manager or notes and dealing with them.
My biggest problem is how long it takes me to write an email. I want everything to sound perfect and end up rewriting them 20 times and an email that should take 5 minutes takes 2 hours. Such a drain sigh
Try bullet points. Use these headings for direction: Purpose. Context. Facts . Request. It saved me lots my time. Best of luck!
@@steca101 great idea. I'll give it a go
perfectionism
@@supersmart671 Yup. Hate it.
My issue too.
😫
I would also advise using:
1. Conversation view (I would go insane without this)
2. Single line view on the inbox and other folders instead of the multi line message preview
3. Message preview in the right and inbox/list in the middle
4. Add the mentions column to your inbox view
5. Moving your shortcut bar below the ribbon and add all your frequent actions to it both on in inbox view and the open message view
The drag message directly to calendar icon is a new one for me, excited to try it!! Thanks for sharing
Many thanks for sharing your tips!
Watching her excel videos helped me increase my income about 40k in a couple years. My excel skill got so good I could basically negotiate with the government jobs I had higher amount for the increased skill.
40 years I've worked in IT, and here I am still learning something new; well done.
Oh my goodness I love this. I thought I had some pretty spiffy Rules. I don’t even know if I am getting more CC or direct emails. What a great way to find out where time is being spent.
Picked up a couple of great new ways to flag my mail. I really hadn't played with the flagging feature in outlook.. Thanks again for your simple well directed info. To many don't keep on topic and jump around to much.. each feature you talked about you were careful to fully explain that feature before moving on. I can't follow those who try to talk flagging an email while showing how to sort it to a new sub folder and marking it to alert you later. It's the difference in demonstrating what you can do and teaching some else the features so they can figure out how to use them;
On my previous job, we usually receive hundreds of emails everyday. In order for us to address concerns on a timely manner and based on priority, we set up a Subject Line format that each team members should follow - this will ensure that the rules we setup on our inbox are going to work every time. E.g. If the concern is to rebut an audit finding, the email Subject Line should start with "Reconsideration Request:". When we setup this workaround, callouts and escalations were dramatically reduced as disputes were addressed within our rebuttal timeline which is 48hrs. So this is something that everyone can follow. You not only managed your inbox but as well as your team's. :)
Thanks for your tips, Jimmy!
Inbox - Action Required - Archive with show mails as conversation is my outlook setup since this video. it works like charm easy to maintain easy to focus
Great setup. Thanks for sharing!
I would have loved learn all those things when I just started my career. took me a lot of years to learn them!
Thank you Leila. The company I currently belong to is "EMAIL IS EVERYTHING" kind of corporate culture, therefore my inbox is always flooded by, both from "very-important-never-to-miss" to "just-a-say-hello". In such corporate culture I've been struggling how to catch up and not to left-behind...
Your Tips & Techniques help me A LOT. Thank you!
Wonderful!
I love your videos! I, too, try to immediately process things that take two minutes or less, and I also delegate right away. If however I need to save something as a next action or deferral, I press Insert to flag it and then Delete to archive it. Later on, when I have set time aside to handle tasks I go to Microsoft To Do and handle the flagged emails there along with other tasks. Outlook combined with Insert and Delete keys and Microsoft To Do work well together!
Thanks for sharing your tips!
Hello Leila, first of all, thank you so much for these great tips (as always), I learn a lot whith this channel and I really appreaciate the way you show it, this is both very pleasant and easy to understand. 😊
Just to add my personal contribution (sorry if it had already mentionned, I did not read all the comments) : on my side I like to use flags, I find them very handy to use as you can define categories that you can apply simultaneously for emails, meetings and tasks :
- 1st, you can keep a certain logic to organize and view your data
- 2nd, you can use the flags to create search folders afterwards, so when you put a flag on a email, this one is automatically assigned o the related search folder
- 3rd : you can use flags to narrow researches (mails, meetings, tasks)
PS : sorry for my bad English 😕
Fantastic advice! I’m a business financial consultant who receives a lot of informational and action oriented messages. After 20 years I have developed many of those same techniques, but like your experience, I have ended up with a vast number of folders for overly detailed organization. Your advice will help me reconsider my rules and organization to simplify things more and make things more manageable.
Same here! I have way too many folders. It needs to be re-organised.
Excellent tips! I’m a power user who’s been using outlook for 20 years and still learnt something new
Another idea. Under options, reading pane set your inbox so emails only get marked as read if you open them. This way you can scan through your inbox in the reading pane and move or delete non action emails leaving the action emails as unread, letting you know you need to action the email.
The CC color code is mighty helpful. I did not know that. This way, I don't feel the need to read every email that comes in.
I put another layer of prioritization by having "important person" rules. So I prioritized to read the mail from selected important person first (auto move to a folder). The other mail in inbox can be read later day or even later in a week.
Cool! I do that and added a "warning message" READ FIRST!
@@jaimepocinho6875 wow warning message?! Sounds interesting! Would you elaborate more? 😊
This is very wonderful lady...this is the job before we die ...just teach and coach wat is good and what you got ...thank you and wish you good days ahead...
Thanks Leila! I think that the one touch rule could be reworded as “Act or Schedule”, I think that step is really the key but I have to work on it.
👍
At my main job i just a mix of rules which automatically moving mails to folder and applying a GTD-like System: The majority of the mails, will be sorted. Those which are a real "to-do" will be flagged and marked with red. As soon the task is done I apply a quickstep to remove the flag, remove the color and move it to the done folder.
To get an overview, I have a search folder which collects mails with flag and red color.
This System allows me to have my mails sorted by topics AND at the same time getting things done from multiple topics.
I take from your Video the Conditional Coloring and the Starting Folder as ideas for improvements of my workflow. I think the Conditional Coloring would great apply to mails which are not necessary a To-Do and where are Mails mixed between where I (and the team) get addressed directly and where we are one in a bunch of "CC Subscribers". 😅
Thanks 🙏
Great content as always. I would add that when you flag an email to follow up in outlook it gets synchronised with the To Do app so you can get through your tasks without being distracted by more incoming mail.
Which todo app?
It's an awesome feature but that works only for your outlook, hotmail emails but not for Gmail!
@@puranyashkapoor7468 Microsoft acquired Wunderlist and the dev team rewrote it calling it Microsoft to do. Wunderlist was amazing and I am very happy with the new to do. I use it for groceries and other quick item lists. I also use everdo for task management with a more GTD approach with the extra fields like time to complete and effort. Really hope Microsoft adds some more GTD based items.
Thanks Leila jan, the conditional formatting tip is really helpful for us! For action folders I use PARA system to organize and instead of folders for actions I use Tags 🏷️ with shortcuts.
Hi Leila. Thanks for the Video. The conditional formatting for "cc" emails tip is really helpful. I would even say it's a life saver (for me) 😀 Thanks again
Thanks for sharing your ideas, Leila!
Similar to you, I think "zero inbox" would become just another task for me, rather than freeing up time.
Great great tips! Now my tip, when is watch any of Leila's video I'll play them at x2.0 or x1.5. Awesome videos!
These tips have blown my mind. I had no idea there was so much I could do in Outlook!!
I just spent $60 on an email system that reduces my inbox. If only this video came out one week earlier.
فَاسْأَلُواْ أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ
Thanks Leila, this helps a lot.
Nice! A GTD implementation using Outlook features! I had set up something similar in the past, but after a few organizational changes, I have slowly regressed back to the chaotic inbox mess.... also, I lack a self-discipline quality... But, Your video motivates me again to "Get Things Done!" Thank you, Leila!
If you have email anxiety like me, dont watch but listen to the video. This helped me
Leila since you use the "Archive" /"delete" function as your triage of emails, note that "Backspace" sends the email directly to " archive" so that may speed things up even more not having to drag or select "archive" icon. Thanks for your excellent instructions on all your you tube posts.
Wow! Someone, somewhere on the planet, near Montreal QC, is getting a lot more efficient thanks to you. I am extremely grateful to you for all that you are teaching us.
Great to hear!
Email management is fundamental yet far to overlooked.
We receive hundreds upon hundreds of emails.
I find it vital to combine Categories, Rules & Alerts, Quicksteps and Conversation View to manage my emails.
Alas, so many people don't really do this...
Not gonna lie, but if feel anxious just seeing other people's Inboxes 😵💫
This is exactly the stuff I teach my users. Only one thing I explain differently. The "Action required" emails (in our case a "ToDo" folder) are marked with a flag and due date (with a quick step). So These e-mails appear in the ToDo app where also the personal tasks and tasks from Planner are visible.
Creating a calendar entry is of course the alternative way for Outlook only users.
I like the idea to use a colorcode for CC emails. Will take is as an option to my next trainings.
Thank you for your super great and understandable videos. Would love to be able to explain like you do!
Thanks for your feedback, Michael!
Never thought about that custom color for CC, thanks for the tips
Happy to help!
me as well, thanks Leila
Same. Literally setting that up right now.
Best tip! shit, mails flying now! :D
Its a good tip. But people in my organization have no sense of To & CC. They start well, but the replies all get mixed.
This is a easy thing that I have ignored before. Your tutorial changed mindset of me. Thank you for your suggestion.
Awesome tips and I love there are multiple options for some actions. Colouring the text of incoming emails based on conditions is absolute gold! Thank you Leila!
You're so welcome!
@@LeilaGharani would've been nice to see categories thrown into the mix.
I started doing outlook cleaning 2 years ago first time is going to be a big job the biggest tip i could give just for starting is make a folder for subscriptions then make a rule that ALL emails with the word unsubscribe and the same but in your own language. Then make sure you set the rule that it will do it on past messages. Then when you feel like it when you have time go to that folder and instead of putting it on date put it on sender. Then you can pick one email of that sender unsubscribe from that and delete the whole bunch of past messages from that sender.
Or without any rules you can also do that in the main folder if you wish. Just put it on sender instead of date. And just work your way through and then you can work on finding out who is important and needs a separate folder or any of the edits you have seen in this video.
And if you don't even want to do that final idea i can give which is also handy when you don't use outlook and have an easy rule system. Do what i described in the message above but just when you receive a message. You just search every email from that sender and unsub from it deleted all passed messages.
Informative video Leila
Worth watching just for the "create rule" portion! I used to be a zero email type, but the pandemic ruined me. Thanks for the tips that should help me dig out of the pile! haha
Thank you so much Ms.Gharani, I am a solopreneur with three business pillars. My mailboxes have been very messy for so many years. They are nice and clean for the first time. Highly appreciated :)
You are so welcome!
Thank you Leila ... all very helpful tips, some of which I've not known of before! I manage 3 mailboxes and can't wait until Monday morning to set them all up with these time saving processes. 😊
I Love this way of e-mail management. I have been worked in this way since I did a course based on the book Getting Things Done! Currently I’m working with 4 folders ( Action / Archive / Waiting Answer/ Read Review) Your tips help a lot to improve that and reduce this folders. Thanks a lot🎉
Glad it was helpful!
I’m the type of guy that keeps all in inbox. I actually color code CC emails in light gray, so that they do not catch me eye much. Also emails from bosses in red because you need to keep them happy. One tip I did not see and actually is great (for me) is the conversation view where all mails on the same subject are joint together.
All good work places advise that this is how to go about doing it. Better still use one note along side outlook
@@MsWatchdog can you elaborate? Are you able to take notes in Onenote from Outlook?
How to joint all mails w. same subjects ? Could you show step-by-step ?
@@lealudwig714 In Outlook 365, while in your inbox, go into the VIEW menu and then click on the "Show as Conversation" tick box.
Thank you so much ! That is incredible !!!!
We are pleased with your presence and the services
you provide through this program. Because you are distinguished in communication
through the service
Most of this was a summary of my current outlook process, but you also included a few new tips for me to try! Awesome video, thank you. I'm looking forward to trying these out.
Glad you enjoyed it, Sarah!
dragging the email to the calendar was mind blowing feature. I was looking for this everywhere on Outlook to setup anything like this. Thanks for the shortcut.
Glad it was helpful!
@@LeilaGharani with my new role, I am getting so much emails that I can't do my actual work and even overtimes doesn't help enough. I was doing empty mail box method but right now it doesn't help anymore because I was using it as to do list. I am setting up some rules, categorize some with color so I know that those are assigned to someone by just looking at it. Next I will go thru your power automate guide to see what I can find useful.
This is great! I basically do the same thing except the Action Folder. I am going to try this. I would love to see some more on outlook (conversation settings, more advanced features) :)
More to come, Michael!
Just watched through this and so many useful things I’ve just implemented now I’m managing 150+ emails a day! Thanks 😊
Fantastic!
The BIGGEST Issues that I have: "Email etiquette:"
- Getting emails that require an action from you when you are CC'd.
- Getting emails that don't follow a thread - like answering an email that doesn't follow the subject line
- TIP - I use conversation view - So I can see the first email in the thread and the responses to that thread
- Getting emails with vague subject lines that are big tasks
- The screen clip emails that have important information that require research and you are stuck sifting through the whole email looking for the task in screen clips.
- I work in an ERP/MRP centric company - That is very task oriented and I can get upwards of 350 emails a day (BTW the record is at 634 emails in one day) where 50% of them are actionable(either by me or my team), 25% are important information to retain for something that will be needed 1-2 months from now and the remaining 25% is other stuff (HR communications, IT Comms. other things that are important but not immediately actionable). So the hardest part of dealing with that is reading to determine what category they fall in when the simple rules are not followed.
-TIP use CATEGORIES - This is a great feature but requires a good time setting up but once I had it - timesaver.
- I also get emails for tasks from my Boss, their boss, Managers, Directors, VP's and the President of the Company. Requiring Action and they don't always act responsibly with etiquette either.
- Also - the dreaded instant messaging software. Nice for quick ask questions but infuriating for asks that are multistep and WHAT A DISTRACTION.
So teaching people how to email is big in my book. I enforce the behavior of my team to act responsibly with sending emails.
- First thing I always say to them if you want me to action something and you CC me you may not see a response right away.
- I teach them to move the names around in the email from To: to CC: based on the person that has to action. No vague requests and above all else - Read and re-read what you are sending. Have some structure to your email.
- Don't answer OK to a task oriented email without completing the task (I know you got the email/meeting request I do not need affirmation of that outside of the normal means).
Wow, all great tips! Thank you! Upwards of 350 emails a day is crazy. Hats off to you for staying organized in such an environment.
I think one way to keep it organized is to use the other microsoft apps. For example, Yammer for internal communications only (this would take a lot of comm. emails from your inbox). Planner for specific tasks instead of delegating them via email. Teams for faster communication, etc. A tip that works for me is to categorize the emails as Follow up and Urgent and then have a search folder on my favorites section to concentrate all the categorized emails. I hope any of these can help you with the big load you get daily!
Excellent Tips!! Very much relevant in corporate environment!!!
With every video I'm blown away by all the functions in these programs. Thank you so much for explaining them in an easy and practical manner!
You're very welcome!
Was just organizing my emails this Friday. These tips are helpful! Thanks Leila :)
Hope your inbox is now all clean and sparkly :)
@@LeilaGharani thank you Leila :)
I needed this a couple of years ago when I started my current job. Now I have 25000 emails backlogged in my inbox and I feel overwhelmed at the thought of sorting through and moving/deleting them.
Just archive everything older than 2 days. You can search for it if you realise you need to know something
Managing a shared mailbox with multiple team members is challenging. Would love to see a video with tips on thay.
Thanks Leila. These are great steps and I have implemented a few of your suggestions which I'm sure will help with my email issue for work and private to improve productivity and junk email.
Great tips, I am a new subscriber. I actually use a rule and a separate folder for emails where I am in CC and only look at there occasionally. This alone largely reduces the number of emails in my inbox. I use colour coding to mark emails coming from Managers I report to, so I know that is something I need to look at with more importance than others. I work in a large corporate environment, a global IT company with 100K+ people. I have been using the newsletter folder and rule for many-many years now. I will start to promote your videos for my team, we can learn a lot from them.
Hello! I prob work at your same company and am struggling to stay on top of everything! I love the CC rule and setting that up tomorrow!
Love it , I have been doing email mostly this way for over a year now . I didn’t know about the color coding CC . That is a great idea!
How do you organise your data and work folders in general? This would interest me as well. Folder organisation is probably the most underrated and least discussed productivity issue for every person in the office. I would be very interested to learn your tips and tricks. Thanks
don't use folders. Use categories. Not only do you get free color-coding, but you can assign many categories to one email (Project X, Finance, Client, etc) try doing that with folders! Plus you can search on categories (show me all the client finance emails on project x)
Color coding on cc is a great way to stop wasting your time in reading a mail which does not require your action. I will apply it. Thanks
There are some incredible suggestions in this video. I love that you’ve taken ideas from two
methodologies and synthesized them into your own. Inbox zero stresses me out too!
too mail emails? easy solution! its called DELTE
Really nice, like it. I additionally disabled automatic set on read after clicking opening the mail. This saves me from the substructure of folders together with coloring. When I reply it automatically turns readed otherwise it remains unleaded even if I did. In case I got the message but do not need to react ctrl + q flags it as read. Getting familiar with search also helps a lot. I have all in one box for about a Year. > 8.000. And it works fine. At least for me.
But definitely the best is to time-box. I look 3 times into my inbox. Right away in the morning. After lunch and before turn off. And not more than 20 mins. Ok because I don’t have more time but it also forced me to focus on the important bits.
Thanks for your tips, Felix!
What do you do to stay ontop of emails when you get 200 emails a day but are in back to back meetings for 90% of the day.
Leila why are you so awesome? 😂 It’s almost sickening how much I learn from you and how much I enjoy your content!
You can customize the headers of the task list and have that show on the right side view. You can then make task items and drag emails right into the item and save it along with any notes. This way you can have any files and attachments related to the task Right there and set reminders. I also heavily use the delay send function to send myself emails when I need to look at something again
how do you customize headers to show on the right side...
@@eonstar You can add and remove columns and then in one of the settings somewhere you can rename them. I did it years ago I can’t remember now but just mess around with the task function and right click in the task area. There is options there
OMG, I'm so glad I came across your video! Thank you so much Leila you're a lifesaver
Stanford did a study showing multitasking doesn't exist. We're like working on a single core processor and we use pre-emptive multitasking. A little of this, then a little of that. Back and forth, back and forth which is why we don't do a good job on either task.
You are Amazing. Your tips actually helped me to fix several issues I have been having on a daily basis. Thank you so so much!
instead of having an "action folder", i just leave the emails i have to deal with in my otherwise empty inbox .. if i put it in a folder somewhere i will never think of getting it again LOL ..
🌸 similar I prefer to leave it in inbox till I deal with it & then archive it in a relevant folder.
I unsubscribe from junk as frequently as I can to reduce nonsense lol
@@sunitafisher4758 the
Yes! Amen. So much easier.
Thank you so much for helping me organise my emails, and also for saving my time!!
Thanks! I'll implement the CC color coding, that's new for me.
Hope it'll come in handy for you.
I tell people if you want me to action something, put me in the “To” list. If I’m CC I will not action, and might not read. I treat CC as being informed in case something happens later.
Omg I need this but I not a computer person I just need you to do it for me lol thank you for video
Deleting emails is just a no go in my industry, you never know when you have to proof something. just archive and create pst
Last one sounds great. I am a Senior Financial Associate. I try from Monday 🎉
Wonderful! Let us know how it went.
9:08 why don’t we just the inbox as our action folder? that’s what I do ^^ everytime open my mail I go through them so that only the actions remain.
Excellent informative Outlook techniques, using Outlook more than a decade but still many are new for me.
Thanks for sharing this Outlook tips! I'm just wondering when should one use folders vs category in Outlook. Any thoughts or comments?
Something can be in multiple categories but only one folder, so think about the shape of what you're trying to do and choose accordingly
amazing!
I just started using outlook rules and it works like a charm!
Excellent tips Leila! This will improve productivity and lower irritation levels. Many thanks for this great video; Outlook will return to being less scary than horror movies!