Seeing 120 unread messages in your inbox can be overwhelming. How would you like to get that number down to about 70 without reading or even opening a single message?
In the last Outlook blog, we showed you how to eliminate 40 distractions per day by turning Outlook off. The next step in attaining full productivity is getting all the messages you don’t need to respond to out of your Inbox altogether.
The first and hardest part is, getting your team and clients to follow some simple email manners. They must know that if they want you to act on an email, they need to put you in the “To:” box when they send it (not Cc: & not Bcc:). Getting everyone on the same page here is critical.
The easier part is setting up a rule to sort your messages in Outlook. We need to tell Outlook to put all the messages that aren’t “To:” you, in their own folder. Here’s how:
- For Outlook 2007, first go to “Tools” in the Menu Bar and click “Rules and Alerts”
- “Move messages from someone to a folder” will be highlighted by default. Click “Next”.
- Uncheck “from people or distribution list” and check “where my name is not in the To: box”
- Click “specified” under “Step 2” to define which folder your mail will be moved to
- Create a new folder named “Not To [your name]”, Click “Ok”, then click “Next”
- “move it to the specified folder” will already be checked. Click “Next”
- Choose “Exceptions”. For example, keep all emails from your boss in your inbox by checking “except if from people or distribution list”, then click on “people or distribution list” under Step 2, select your boss’ email, and click “OK”.
- Check the box next to “Run this rule now…” and click “Finish”
Now, any time you are merely in the “Cc” or “Bcc” field of an incoming email, the message will be moved to your “Not To [your name]” folder outside of your inbox. You can skim through this folder once daily to make sure you haven’t missed anything important.
The key to this system working is getting everyone on the same page about email manners. Make sure everyone you interact with understands the following: Any recipient that has an action item in an email, must be placed in the “To:” box. Anyone who is receiving the email as only an “FYI” can be placed in the CC or Bcc boxes.
Rules in Outlook can be tricky. If you need help setting them up, just give us a call!
