Microsoft’s Outlook has not ceased in its development since its inception, and now it has a myriad of features, although most users still use this application for sending and receiving email. Maybe sometimes also to keep track of dates on the calendar. However, Outlook can become an essential co-worker in managing the business.
Taking advantage of every second of the day in business is something in which the Outlook service can be truly practical, but for this, it will also be necessary to develop a new approach on how to manage your schedule, projects, and emails.
Use the two-minute rule for email
Trying to set one or two times a day to check the mail, and deactivate the alerts that appear every little bit informing us that a message has arrived, are simple but basic steps to avoid those small and continuous thefts of time if we work with a computer. This will allow you to focus more on whatever project or task you are working on.
Use the two-minute rule: If you can bear to spend just two minutes checking your email, then do it. If you need more time, it is advisable to move the message to the pending mail folder for later. This action will minimize work interruptions and miraculously improve your time management with something so simple. However, also remember that the email that you have left pending must be included at some point during the day.
Part of becoming more efficient with your work is accurately tracking your work. Experts acknowledge that taking a break every 45 minutes or so is necessary to maintain focus. If you have a problem with time tracking, you might find it interesting to try Toggl. This application allows accurate time tracking during your work hours, or if you are away from home you will also find other valuable applications such as Expensify
Using Outlook for time and project management
One of the most used features of Outlook to carry out these tasks is the lists of tasks and things to do, very practical, and easy to create. As mentioned above, if you have an email that requires a little more time, you can use this feature to create a new task. The list of pending tasks appears by default, being able to mark activities within a daily list that will appear in your calendar for a more comfortable follow-up, and also being able to see alerts on specific dates.
Outlook also allows the ability to share your calendar with someone who is using the program. This can have significant advantages if, for example, your business has several people working on a project. It can be shared via email, Office 365, or using Microsoft’s Exchange Server if you use it in your company. You can also configure the rules that will be automatically applied to an email when it arrives.
This can be useful when managing a project, to ensure that all incoming messages are automatically grouped together and associated with the project. In the case of Office Professional users, they also have a Business Contact Manager. This option is a powerful contact manager, which is intended to support customer services but is ideal for organizing contacts within any project.
Another very practical use of Outlook it to track employees’ activities, reports, and projects through software for employee time tracking like TimeSheet Reporter. This software work long with Outlook and can help you track your employees directly from the Microsoft Outlook calendar and improve the overall productivity and complete projects in less time. Another feature that we liked most about this Outlook is the Journal.
Outlook journal option
This option allows you to automatically record the actions that are related to certain contacts, which can then be viewed on a timeline. Also, other items can be tracked, including Word documents or Excel workbooks. For easy access to the journal, it can be added to the navigation panel in the configuration buttons.
If you want to tell us about your experience or doubts with Microsoft Outlook, you can do so in the comments section at the bottom. We will respond to you as quickly as possible!
