Email- an Organization Aid for Small Businesses
Organize Email with Folders, Tasks, To-do Lists- Stay in Control
Sep 7, 2009
The email software on most small business computers comes loaded with tools to help keep the user organized. Rather than viewing email as a distraction from getting things done, use the tools and a bit of discipline to turn this enemy into a friend. The most common, although not the only, email on small business computers is Microsoft Outlook.
Outlook helps a business stay organized by offering folders, rules, to-do- lists, appointment reminders and much more. Routinely using these tools as part of an organizational strategy is effective and saves time.
Microsoft Outlook Business Organizational Helpers- Folders
Folders help keep related information together. Think about common categories of business information such as clients, suppliers, finances, products, and personnel for example. Each major category may have subcategories (or sub-folders) into which emails can be dropped. Usually two nested layers are sufficient for most topics, although there is no limit placed on how deeply a topic can be subdivided.
Email in folders can be searched by who sent them, keywords in the subject line or body of the email or other criteria relevant to the business. Using multiple search criteria can quickly help the user go through hundreds of haystacks to find the desired needle. For example one could search for suppliers who sent email in July regarding blue widgets to find the one desired email instead of scanning 50 emails in the supplier folder or 100's in the inbox.
New emails can be automatically moved to the correct folder without being opened or read using rules. A rule setups action conditions that move an email from a specific sender or with a specified subject into an appropriate folder setup by the user with a rule.
Microsoft Outlook Business Organizational Helpers- Lists and Appointments
Tasks or to-do lists have a start date, end date, and status. A tickler about the pending to-do’s can be placed on the user's main email page and sorted by when its due, importance, category or several other criteria. An alarm can be set to remind the user a few minutes before a task or appointment. Clicking the small flag icon next to an email in the inbox will set a flag to “on” and move a copy of that email onto the task list.
A task in the to-do list can be assigned to another employee with a quick selection of “assign task to someone else”. Selecting this brings up a send-to mail screen that forwards the email and the task to the employee.
The calendar or appointment feature, besides keeping a schedule of appointment times, can also send invitations to a meeting to anyone on your email distribution list with a couple mouse-clicks. Meeting invitees receive an email providing information about the meeting (from the sender’s calendar) and can confirm their planned attendance with one click. The scheduled meeting is then placed on their calendars and the sender receives a note of confirmation.
A wealth of time saving and organization suggestions are available from Microsoft Outlook 2007 help and from WinPlanet.
Getting started using the organization and time-saving tools of Outlook may seem over-whelming—there are so many tools and capabilities. Take it slowly, learn to use a new capability each week until there are many tools one is comfortable using routinely. After a short time, a small business owner will find that they have greater control over the flow of information and actions required to operate their business successfully.
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