Use colors to Get Organized!

If you used colored flags in Outlook 2003, you ‘ll

find that Outlook 2010 improves on this concept by
allowing you to use names along with the colors.

If a message belongs in more than one category, that’s

okay. There’s no limit to categories that you assign to a
message.

Wondering who creates

The category names? You do! You create each

category name and choose the color that’s associated
with it, Then, you can assign that category to incoming
and existing messages One way to assign a color
category to a message is to right-click in the Categories
column and use the shortcut menu, as we’ve shown in
the picture.

Once you

ve assigned a category to a message, you can quickly scan your Inbox and find the
message just by looking for its colored tag.

Tip: Unless

you’re adapting an existing system that’s already working for you, it’s probably bes
to stick to just a few categories. Keeping the system simple will make it easier to
use.

The first time

you use one of the default categories, such as ppurple Category , you”ll be
prompted to give it a more specific name in the Rename Category dialog box.

To see

a list of categorise and their associated colors, click the Categorize button on the
Standard toolbar.

With colored

categoryes, you can assign meaningful text at the same time that you assign a
color. That’s good because, as we mention earlier, if you have messages in a
personal Forget what purple means, you can look at the category name as a
reminder. Another advantage is that colored categories can be applied to all
Outlook items, so you ca organize your contacts, calendar items. And tasks all in the
same way.

Note:

If you used colored flags In a previous outlook, only flags in your default mailbox
will be updated to the new color categories. If you have messages in a personal
Folders file (PST) or Archive folder that you would like to update to use colored
categories, you”ll need tyo update them manually.

Now, let’s suppose you’ve color cokeb all of your messages according to the
projects you’re working on or the clients you work with. How can you view them in
these groups? That’s easy: Click the Arranged By shortcut menu (under the Search
box ) and then Click Categories.
Outlook Rules

Rules help you manage e-mail by performing certain actions whenever you get or
send an e-mail that matches certain criterin. Generally, they either help organize
your messages or motify you when a set of condition has been met. For example,
rules can:

 Move messages from a particular recipient into a mew folder

 Use keywords to categorize messages based on their contents
 Apply visual flags to messages to make it easier to find them
 Notify you by paying a sound or popping-up a message when you receive an
important message
 Automatically color code (using a category ) certain ercipirnts emails
 You can set rules to run automatically or run fthem manually whenever
needeb.
 You can also add exceptions to rules so that it only applies to the right
messages.

Creating a rule

To create a rule, use the Rules icon, under the home tab. Either select “Create
Rule”,for a new rule or ‘Manage Rules & Alerts” for editing an old rule.