I wouldn’t be surprised if you used Outlook more than any other program on your computer, so it makes sense to learn some tools and shortcuts you can use to become more efficient at managing your emails.
Like most programs, there is usually more than one way of achieving things, and even experienced users are surprised at finding new efficient ways of doing things. Although productivity and efficiency is usually a topic for businesses, learning just a few of these shortcuts can make Outlook a lot simpler to use.
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Reply Shortcut: Once you are ready to send your email, rather than using the mouse to click the Send button, simply press the CTRL and Enter keys together. The first time you use this shortcut, Outlook will ask if you want to turn the shortcut on.
Create a contact from an email. If someone sends you an email and you would like to save their details into the contacts section of Outlook, simply click on the email and hold the mouse button pressed down as you drag the email down and on top of the Contacts menu button. When you release the mouse button, a contact card for that person will be created.
Create an task from an email. If someone sends you an email with a task that needs adding to your task list, simply click on the email and hold the mouse button pressed down as you drag the email down and on top of the Tasks menu button. When you release the mouse button, a contact card for that person will be created.
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Use words for dates. When setting up an appointment, rather than entering an actual date, you can use words, such as “Next Tuesday”, “Tomorrow”, “Last Wednesday this month” or “First Friday next month”. When you press enter, the date that matches what you have typed will automatically be entered.
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Change position of reading pane. The reading pane is where an email is displayed when you click on it. You can change the position of this window so the list of emails are above it, giving you a wider window, or to the right of the window, giving you a taller window. Go to the View tab and click the “Reading Pane” to set your preference.
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Cateogorize messages. If you receive an email you want to refer to later on, you can assign a category to it. Right click the email in the folder list and select Categorize. Select one of the categories, or use the “All Categories” option to create a new one. To find emails of a particular category, type category:=”Personal” in the search bar, where Personal is the category name.
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Paste an attachment. If you have one or more files you need to attach to an email, you can open the folder where they have been saved to on your computer, copy them, and then go to the email in Outlook, right click in the body of the email and select “Paste”. When you do this, the files will be attached to the email.
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Save an email in your folders. If you have an email you would like to save in a regular folder on your computer, you can select it in the list of emails in Outlook, press the CTRL and C keys together to copy it and then paste it into any folder, or even the desktop, on your computer. This feature works for multiple emails as well.
