Where Getting Things Done gives most of the mental strategies needed to quickly process incoming e-mails, the process is made much more powerful and quick when adding some shortcut keys to your repertoire.

Fortunately, Outlook has lots of shortcut keys that you can take advantage of. As soon as you’re getting used to keep the mouse motionless on your desk, you’ll start to find situations where you’d like to use the keyboard.

From the Reading Pane / Preview Window

Like when you need to save one or more attachments from an incoming e-mail. Lot’s of people that we train or coach use the mouse for saving attachments, but even that can be tackled with keys only.

1. Open your inbox and display an e-mail with attachments in the Reading Pane in Outlook (View | Reading Pane | Right).
2. Press Alt+F, N to open the Save Attachments menu item from the main menu.

   

3. Select the attachment that you want to save, then press Enter to specify the location and filename for that file.

   

4. Or choose ‘All Attachments…’ and press Enter to specify the folder where you want to store all attachments for this e-mail. The original filenames will be used to store them in the folder you specify.

From an open e-mail

Some people open each e-mail to process it. That is quite a bit slower, but if you prefer to open each e-mail when processing it, saving all attachments with the keyboard is a bit more difficult, but can still be done.

1. Open an e-mail with attachments by pressing Enter.
2. Press Alt+H to select the first Tab on the Ribbon (Home).
3. Press ‘X’ to select the button ‘Other Actions’.
4. Press ‘N’ to select the ‘Save Attachments’ item.
5. Press Enter to select the dialog in which you can select which attachments you want to save.
6. Specify the location of the folder in which you want to save these attachments.

If you open an e-mail and want to save just one attachment, you can also press Shift-Tab, the press the Right cursor key and finally press the context menu key to open the menu which allows you to save the attachment.

Save time

Once you’ve trained your fingers to use the keyboard for saving attachments, this may save you 40% of the time needed to save an attachment. And apart from saving the time, it will also help you to keep focused on your work instead of having to invest the eye-hand coördination effort that using the mouse needs.

The easier you make it for yourself to perform each individual step of processing e-mail, the greater your chance that your inbox will be empty each day. At least once every day.

In the Each Day Empty eBook I describe how you can quickly get your inbox to empty each day. But after a summer holiday you may be in for some serious help to attack your inbox when you arrive at the office again. My own Outlook started to download 3200 mails when I returned – and I was glad that I already knew some of the following tips.

1. Learn how to sort and group e-mails in your mail reader. In Outlook you could use the View | Arrange By item in the main menu.
2. Sort all mails in your inbox by Subject. A lot of the spam that got through your spamfilter will be grouped together now. You can quickly remove all mails starting with Cyrillic symbols (unless you happen to live in Russia). Also all spam that happens to have the same subject over and over again can easily be spotted.
3. Then sort all your mails by the To field. This may not be relevant to everyone, but I still get e-mails (especially spam) that was sent to another e-mail address than my own addresses. Sorting this way I can remove these messages easily.
4. Now sort the remaining e-mails by From and Date. This way you will group all mails that came from each specific sender – and in the order that they were sent. Your mileage may vary, but I tend to quickly scan through all mails starting with the oldest one. But I don’t reply to any of the mails yet. This way I can read up on the developments, better understand my customers and employees, and still prevent myself from replying to something which is changed or revoked in a newer e-mail.
5. After taking these steps, I’m up-to-date again. I’m aware of current issues, I know whether there are serious problems that need my attention and I know which e-mails I’m going to want to answer first of all.

Even before I go on vacation, I already think about the first days when I’m back in the office. In my out-of-office autoreply I do mention the date that I think I will be answering e-mails again - and it is several days after I return from vacation. This way I prevent having to tackle my e-mail straight away and in an ‘urgent’ mood, just as I’m feeling rested and relaxed from my vacation.

Fortunately, once I’m up-to-date again it’s quite easy to keep my inbox empty each day for the rest of the year.

Throughout almost all of Outlook you can press Ctrl+Shift+K to create a new task item in the default tasks folder. This works pretty good, but only for the default tasks folder, not for your Someday/Maybe and Waiting For folders. And it still requires you to start Outlook or switch your focus to Outlook.

For frequent users of the task list functionality in Outlook, using Fingertips could be a great idea. With Fingertips you can easily add tasks from anywhere in Windows to any tasklist in Outlook. And you can create custom commands to add tasks with specific categories or boilerplate text.

Open Fingertips command window

Once you have downloaded and installed Fingertips, you can open the Fingertips command window from anywhere in Windows to add a task to Outlook, start an application or surf to a favorite website.

Press Ctrl+Grave (`) to open the Fingertips command window

The Grave is probably located at the top-left side of the keyboard, or left to the spacebar. Pressing this key combination should display the Fingertips command window. In the options dialog of Fingertips, you can set this key combination to another combination if you prefer to do so.

Type the "na" command and the subject for the task

Type na, a space and the description of the task that you want to add to Outlook

"na" is the default Fingertips command to add a Next Action to the default task list in Outlook. Any text that you type after the default command and a space will be used for the subject of the task. Don’t use comma’s right away, as they are used by Fingertips to separate parameters for tasks.

Press Enter, or add a semicolon

Press Enter, or add a semicolon ( ; ) first, if you don’t want to see the Task Item itself

After pressing the Enter key, Fingertips will add the task to Outlook and display the Task Item for you to add any other information, set categories or modify the subject. If Outlook isn’t running yet, Fingertips will start Outlook first.

If you want to add a task to Outlook without extra information, you can close the command line with a semicolon ( ; ). Fingertips will then just add the task to Outlook, without displaying the Task Item to you first.

Creating custom commands in Fingertips

Once you get the hang of it, you can press the "Edit" or "New" button at the bottom right corner of the Fingertips command window to open the Options Dialog. In this dialog you can modify commands, copy them or create new commands.

As far as I know, using Fingertips is the fastest and easiest way to add tasks to Outlook. What are you waiting for?

The first article is about Fingertips, a free utility that enables you to quickly add items to any list in Outlook. I developed it to make it real easy to use Outlook as my trusted system. I will definitely write more about Fingertips on this website.

The other article is about The Happy Outlook Book (now renamed to The Each Day Empty eBook), the book that I wrote about using Getting Things Done in Outlook.

Or as Gina Trapani says:

“For more GTD-inspired Outlook productivity strategies like this one,
check out the Happy Outlook Book e-book,
my source for this excellent Move and Copy toolbar tip.”

Thanks Gina!

Use Alt + F2 to toggle the display of the To-Do Bar at the right side of the screen.

Ctrl + F1 hides or displays the Ribbon, this doesn’t work in the main Outlook window, but it can help to free up some space when editing a Task Item or other item.

If you delegate, order, or ask anything by email, you can instruct Outlook to add that email to a Waiting For list, just by adding a simple [w] to the body of the email.

A [w] at the bottom of your email is so inconspicuous, that most people will not even notice it. However, it can be a powerful tool to keep your Waiting For list up to date and your mind at rest.

To enable this feature, we’ll have to create a new WaitingFor-Email folder and add a rule.

I copied this description from my webpage at http://waiting-for.com. I built that website to inform others about the [w] and encourage you to do the same if you want.

1. Create a New WaitingFor-Email Folder

2. Press Ctrl+Shift+E to create a new folder.
3. Specify “WaitingFor-Email” as name of the new folder.
4. Choose “Mail and Post Items” from the dropdown box.
5. Select the highest (root) folder in the folder hierarchy.
6. Press the OK button.

2. Add a rule to copy outgoing emails with a [w] in the body to the new WaitingFor-Email folder

1. From the main menu select: Tools | Rules and Alerts.(If your Outlook is setup to connect with an Exchange-server, you may not be able to open this Rules and Alerts dialog until you are connected to the Exchange-server.)
2. Press the New Rule button.
3. Select the option “Check messages after sending”.
4. Press the Next button.
5. Select the item “with specific words in the body”:
6. Click with your mouse on the blue underlined text at the bottom: “specific words” to display the Search Text dialog:Type [w] in the upper edit box:
7. Press the Add button:
8. Press the OK button.
9. Press the Next button.
10. Select the item “move a copy to a specified folder”:
11. Click with your mouse on the blue underlined text at the bottom: “specified” to display the Rules and Alerts folder find dialog.
12. Select the WaitingFor-Email folder, then press the OK button:
13. Press the Finish button to return to the Rules and Alerts dialog.
14. Press the OK button to return to the main Outlook window.

3. Test your new [w] rule

Now test your new [w] rule to see if it works.

2. Press Ctrl+Shift+M to create a new email.
3. Compose and send a new email to yourself. Don’t forget to add a [w] to the body of this email.
4. After sending this email, press Ctrl+Y and navigate to the WaitingFor-Email folder, then press the OK button:
5. If everything has been set up correctly, you should see a copy of the message that you sent, with the [w] in it:

It took a few steps to setup, but now you can add a [w] to any email you send and Outlook will automatically archive a copy for you in the WaitingFor-Email folder.

The one thing you now have to do is review the WaitingFor-Email folder every week (or more often if your situation calls for that) and check if there is any follow up you need to do. Your subconscious mind can forget about these things, as they are safe in the folder.

[w] http://waiting-for.com

Adding the URL to this site enables the recipients of your message to look for themselves what the [w] is all about and gives them the recipe for a less stressful life, too!

You can use auto-completion software like the built-in Microsoft Word editor to make this as easy as possible.

In Outlook you set this up like this.

1. Make sure you’re looking at your Inbox.

2. Use the main menu to select Tools | Organize. The “Ways to Organize Inbox” window appears above the list with mails.

3. At the left side you’ll see three options, click “Using Colors”.

4. At the top right corner in that window you’ll find a button called “Automatic Formatting…”. Press that button to open the following dialog:

5. Press the Add button to create a new rule.

6. Name this new rule, for instance “Only CC”:

7. Press the Condition button to display this dialog:

8. Check the box before “Where I am”

9. Right next to that text, select “on the CC line with other people”

(Don’t worry, it will also work if you’re the only one on the CC line.)

10. Press the OK button.

Now that we have told Outlook which mails have our interest, we just have to specify the font that we’d like to use for these mails.

11. Press the Font button and select the font, style and color that you’d like to use for all mails in which you are CC’d.

12. Press the OK button to close the Font dialog.

13. Press the OK button to close the Automatic Formatting dialog.

14. Select Tools | Organize from the main menu to hide the “Ways to Organize Inbox” window again.

Now that this is done, any mail on which you are CC’d will be easily recognized in your inbox. This makes it a little bit easier to sift through your incoming mails.

Enjoy!

My name is Taco Oosterkamp and I’m fascinated by using Outlook in the context of Getting Things Done, the system for time and stress management that was developed by David Allen.

On this blog I’d like to share tips and tricks about setting up Microsoft Outlook for maximum productivity. I will take inspiration from both the Each Day Empty eBook that I authored last year and the training courses that I develop and teach in the Netherlands.

Use the sign up box at the top-right corner to receive all published articles for free.

Enjoy! 
Taco Oosterkamp

(And yes, that’s my real name and it has nothing to do with burritos :-))