I have a short attention and, like most EAs, my work day is full of interruptions. I need effective systems to manage core tasks so nothing slips through the cracks. Over the years, I’ve experimented with all the tools Outlook has to offer. My Top Three Outlook productivity tools are: Quick Parts, Quick Steps and Color Categories.
I look for tools that are easy to use and give me the most bang for my buck. I live by KISS – Keep It Simple Sweetheart – I hear Han Solo’s voice say “sweetheart.” It makes me laugh. Hey, I’ve been working from home for 3 years. I’ll take all the entertainment I can get. Also, Your Worshipfullness does not fit this acronym.
All three tools have been around for a long time, yet I’m surprised how few people use these. They are not flashy. They are simple, powerful tools anyone can leverage to be more productive.
For new EAs (particularly if you are new with no prior admin experience), implementing these three tools will save you at least 1 week’s worth of time per year. That’s time you can take training, work on a high value project for your executive or take a week’s vacation guilt-free.
One last note about today’s post: there are no videos or screenshots because at home 1) I use Gmail and 2) I have the free Office 365 Online, which has limited capability (as you might guess because, hey it’s free).
Quick Parts
Think of Quick Parts as a permanent clip board. It allows you to quickly generate routine emails. Once you’ve fine tuned the wording for an email, including formatting and links, you create a new Quick Part then insert the content into a new email.
How I use it: I own and co-moderate a large membership email list with over 22,000 members and a number of related subset lists.
For example, partner teams will send informational emails to the All Members list and a subset list. I use a No Duplicates Quick Part to reject the email sent to the subset list. It explains why I’m rejecting the email and asks the sender to update their template. After a few rejections, the duplicate emails vanish.
This one Quick Part saves 5 minutes per email. Every month, we moderate between 20 – 100 emails per month. On average, that is 60 emails, with half sent to a subset. This Quick Part saves me an average of 2.5 hours a month or 30 hours per year.
How to set it up: write Your Brilliant Content, select it, click Insert in the Ribbon, select Quick Parts then select “Add Selection to Quick Part Gallery.” Give it a simple name because a short name is more readable in the Quick Part Ribbon list. The next time you create a new email, put your cursor in the body of the email, click Insert on the Ribbon,click the drop down menu for Quick Parts and select your custom Quick Part. Send. Done..
Quick Steps
Anything you can do to an email, you can automate with a Quick Step. My favorite use is: Create an Appointment from an email with the email attached. I use this when I need to do some research before I respond to the email.
From the Home menu in the Ribbon, click Create New and select your desired actions from the list. You can add as many actions as you need. Give it a short name, and if you like, assign a keyboard command.
Kick it up a notch
Combine a Quick Step with a Quick Part to create a done by you pre-filled email in seconds. Just add attachments and send. For example you have 1 Quick Part that creates and addresses an email to your stakeholders, cc’s you, color codes it Green for Board of Directors with the subject line: “Monthly Financial Report.” You create a Quick Step with the email content that says the financial report is attached. Every month, click on your Monthly Report Quick Part and insert your Monthly Report Quick Step, attach your report and send.
Color Categories
Most people have tried Color Categories so I won’t go into details but I’ve noticed that most people over-complicate their list. I remind you to KISS. Create the fewest number of categories to cover the majority of work: high priority, office hours/power hour, Optional/Delegate, etc. You want just enough categories to make it useful at a glance and help you run a calendar audit, but not so many categories that you give up because it’s cumbersome.
What about Rules?
I’ve experimented and fine-tuned many rules over the years. Rules come in at #4 because I find they take a lot of finessing to get right. More importantly, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve logged in to find the overnight Outlook update broke half my rules.
Yes, I have Rules. Very. Simple. Rules. These three rules save me about 30 minutes per week or 25 hours per year.
The basic format of these rules: take a specific type of message, move it to a specific folder and (maybe) mark it as Read.
- Undeliverable Message. Managing all those large email lists means I receive bounces every day. I don’t want these clogging up my inbox so undeliverable messages are marked as read and moved into a folder. At the end of the week, I review the contents of the folder and update the manual subscription lists if needed.
- Automatic Reply. Like undeliverable messages, I get a lot of Automatic replies. These go into another folder and are left unread. When I’m scheduling high priority meetings or need to track who may not be attending a key meeting, I need to know who’s out of office so I can notify my leader.
- Meeting Invite or Update. I currently manage 4 calendars so I receive and generate a lot of meeting invites. This rule moves all meeting invites into a Meetings folder so I can batch review them throughout the day. This keeps me from obsessively checking my inbox throughout the day.
For those playing at home: these 4 tools save me approximately 96 hours per year. Work smarter, my friends, not harder. My top 3 Outlook tools: Quick Steps, Quick Parts and Color Categories are simple yet very powerful productivity tools.
Implementing these tools allows a new EA to more quickly transition from a tactical calendar jockey to strategic business partner because you’ve freed up time on low value tasks to focus on high value projects. The faster you become a partner, the more valuable you become to your executive and your company.
Hey, guess what? You also just learned how to create macros. You can now transfer this knowledge to creating, for example, macros in Excel or actions in Photoshop.
Go forth and conquer!
