Managing Your Mail In Outlook

Email is a phenomenon like X Factor and instant mash: we wonder how we ever managed without it. Its arrival put an end to the huge sacks of mail delivered each day to some of the big companies, and where before a two-way communication by mail would take days it can now be done in an instant.

This is all well and good and a tribute to modern technological ingenuity but with a current estimate of some sixty billion or so emails being sent every day, the chances are that quite a few will find their way to your inbox. And the greater the number of mails you have to deal with, the greater the problem of managing them becomes. Here are a few tips on how to get the most from your Outlook.

In the hectic world of the modern office communications there is the constant battle between speed and accuracy. You have to dash off an email because you are pressed for time but then you also wish to project an air of professionalism with no silly typos caused by your frantic key stroking. You can command Outlook to check the spelling in all of your outgoing mail by going to Tools/Options and selecting Always check spelling before sending.

While wading through the sea of emails you have sent and received you may find yourself faced with a query relating to something that was said in an earlier mail. This can be quite a daunting prospect as ideally you would like the previous mail at hand so that you can see exactly what you said, but you receive so many mails each day that hunting down the errant one would be a chore in itself. It could also be that the previous mail was sent days, even weeks earlier, so what is the best way to retrieve it?

To view all messages, both sent and received, that relate to the one you have open right now, simply follow these instructions. With the current message open go to the Actions menu and select Find All then Related Messages. That email you need to find should now be at your fingertips along with all of the others relating to it.

Cutting out the middle man is a commonly used term in the business world and it can be accurately applied to a method of streamlining your mail deletion process. As you will probably know when you delete a mail, it goes directly into your Deleted Items folder. To be rid of the mail permanently you then have to empty the Deleted Items folder. This is the middle man we can cut out.

To delete mails permanently at a stroke simply hold down the Shift key and press delete. You will be asked if you want to permanently delete the message and clicking Yes will dispatch your mail to the hereafter for good and all. This technique also works with multiple selections; just hold down the shift key and delete away.

Keeping on top of your mail is an important part of your daily routine as a disorganised mailbox can waste valuable time as you sift through hundreds of irrelevant mails in search of the on you need. There are many more ways that you can manage your mailbox and utilise Outlook to its full capacity. Email will be around for a long time after X Factor has warbled its last so getting to know the nuts and bolts of Outlook is a step that could set you up for the whole of your working life.