Now is your turn to apply them daily and improve your productivity. These statistics show the importance of efficiently managing your inbox. Let me credential loop in Microsoft 365 share a few Outlook tips that will improve your email management. Set a reminder by selecting a time frame from the "Reminder" dropdown menu. Check Sync Contact Groups if you have groups in the contact list and would like to sync members of that group.

How can I manage complicated tasks?

For example, many messages can be responded to in two minutes or less. But if a message takes longer than two minutes to deal with, defer it. To get a sense of what two minutes feels like, try timing yourself. If you never want to receive another message as part of this conversation, ignore it. Categories aren’t a required aspect of this system, but they will make your life easier if you are diligent about using them. For example, they can help you more easily identify what you can do now and help you group similar tasks so that you can do them all at once.

I have 10 minutes: What should I read first in my Inbox?

• These would be your Archive Folders at the bottom of the Navigation (Folder) Pane.
• To view the Scheduling Assistant when composing a meeting request, on the Meeting tab, in the Show group, select Scheduling Assistant.
• To select a meeting time, select a time suggestion in the Room Finder pane in the Suggested times section, or pick a time on the free/busy grid.
• Go to File → Office Account → Update Options → Update Now.

For example, if you have only a few minutes, make all of your phone calls (if you have just a few). Tackle energy-intensive tasks (for some, that might be responding to messages) when you have more energy. Deal with your low-energy tasks, such as reading status messages, later in the day or whenever your energy is lower. By "bulk processing" your tasks, you will make progress on all of your projects simultaneously. Sometimes you receive a message that you don’t need to act upon, but which you might need at a future date.

Fix Tech Issues Fast

Messages to a Contact Group that only occasionally contain useful or interesting content, regardless of frequency, should have a rule and a folder. It’s a best practice to have a central repository for your messages, so that you can refer to them after Outlook sync help from FixTechGuide you've "dealt" with them. The Navigation Pane folder list should be reserved for folders you use often. If it's filled with folders you don't even recognize, move all mail into the reference folder and delete your existing folders.

Advanced: How do I create a Search Folder for email messages?

To apply the "Work Less" theory, have Outlook automatically file an email. Then you can read them all at one time without distraction. If you just want to remember a few related tasks, list them in Office 365 sync problems and login fixes the body of the task. If you have more than 20 items in your Inbox, process the last week of messages and then select the remaining messages and move them to your 1-Reference folder.

Recommended Reads

And as projects change, update your Quick Steps so that they are only the things you really do. For reference messages that you have responded to or otherwise dealt with. Your Quick Click category should be the category that you apply most often.



Let rules help you to read what is most interesting and pertinent to you. Read and unread states in Outlook help by showing you quickly which messages have been read at least once and which have not. However, the read and unread states of messages can be easily be triggered by clicking around your messages so they aren’t a perfect record — just a tool.