Have you heard of Outlook Quick Steps?
In Outlook 2010, Microsoft introduced Quick Steps.
Quick steps allow you to accomplish (in one click) common tasks with multiple steps.
Preset Quick Steps include:
Move to:
To Manager
Team E-mail
Done
Reply & Delete
Create New
I personally feel like only a couple of those are quicker than the actual steps, but luckily you are able to personalize the Quick Steps area.
But first, let's see how they work.
If you have read an email and are ready to file it away into a folder, you can click the "Move to" (or "Move to Folder, depending on your version) Quick Step and select the folder you wish to move the email into from the dialog box that opens and Click OK.
Now, for that example, you may have preferred to Click & Drag the email directly to the folder, but there are options you can setup such as moving the email to a specific folder, which definitely is quicker than clicking and dragging, especially if you have a lot of folders.
So, how can you personalize the Quick Steps?
It's really pretty easy.
Click on the bottom arrow on the right side of the Quick Steps area and select either "New Quick Step" and then select one of the steps from the sub-menu OR "Manage Quick Steps..." to open the full dialog box to create and manage Quick Steps.
Quick Steps that I think save time are the ones where you can perform multiple actions at once. So, for example, the "Flag & Move" allows you to Flag the email and place it into another folder with one click.
Practice using these and setting up new Outlook Quick Steps and let me know if you come up with anything new that might be helpful for others.
This is just one other way to use Outlook to help with Time Management.
If you're interested in learning how to use Outlook for Time & Task Management, download my FREE 65 Ways to Use MS Office to be More Productive! eBook.