Using Outlook Search Folders. You’re welcome…

Here’s an oldie but a goodie — how Outlook Search Folders work. This is an absolutely mind-blowing time-saving tool, without which I don’t know how I’d ever process the hundreds of e-mails I get every day. It enables me to focus on the most important e-mails, and to get back to the people I’m working most closely with as quickly as possible. It’s been a feature of Outlook since 2006, but I rarely run into people who are aware of it. Adopt this practice, and you’ll dramatically improve your productivity and response speeds.

The way they work is that each Search Folder is a persistent search on people, terms, or other e-mail characteristics, such as “Marked Urgent” or “Sent Directly to Me.” The necessary mindset shift is that you need to start thinking of folders as dynamic containers which are constantly being updated versus static elements that you drag files into — always having to decide if you drag it into a particular project folder … or the person’s folder … or the other person’s folder … or the other project mentioned — you get the idea. With Search Folders, you leave all your e-mail in one giant pile in your InBox, and then slice and dice it with Search Folders … the same e-mail can be in multiple Search Folders, and when you delete a Search Folder the e-mails within it remain in your InBox. So cool — the developer who built this feature was a genius, or a former OpenCola employee 🙂

I’ve still got my braces in this video shoot … Randy and I did this one in the original makeshift studio we used before we found our super-seekret “studio between walls” space which we use now. Nice job Randy on de-identifying anything which is sensitive — I mostly use personal e-mail examples so we’re not showing any work stuff, but you’ll still totally get the idea.

#SearchFolders #Outlook #OpenCola #WonderfulWorldofMarketing #marketing

I do not have any financial interest in any of the products or publications profiled on this site (except when I’m talking about my employer, who pays me a salary). In fact, if you look closely you’ll notice I’m not running any ads; not dropping any pixels; not putting affiliate code in any links; and I’m NOT cookie-ing visitors to the site (you’ll never get re-targeted after visiting copernicanshift.com). In fact, this blog is entirely non-commercial, and exists for the sole purpose of marketing education and my own twisted sense of amusement and fun. I don’t even track the number of visitors to the site – I have no idea of the scope or geography of readership. I write these posts because I love these topics, and the act of converting these thoughts into keystrokes helps me to tighten my own marketing theories and to memorialize those thoughts for my own future access. That’s it. Enjoy.