{"id":853,"date":"2008-10-08T12:11:47","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T11:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=853"},"modified":"2008-10-13T16:25:16","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T15:25:16","slug":"making-e-mail-simpler-and-easier-to-handle-using-microsoft-outlook-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=853","title":{"rendered":"Making e-mail simpler and easier to handle: using Microsoft Outlook rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my earlier blog post<\/a>, I hinted that I had a few more tips’n’tricks that are helping me get on top (and stay on top) of my e-mail.<\/p>\n

This one is somewhat simpler than my “move to folder” tip.<\/p>\n

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be on a number of mailing lists and online subscriptions. It can be easy to mentally block these out, however even over a short space of time, more than a handful can build up. Rather than touching each one individually, I prefer to be able to group the offending e-mails together. <\/p>\n

To help me achieve, this I have a single rule that is capable of identifying where an e-mail comes from – mailing lists and subscriptions are usually pretty consistent with the From: and Subject: fields, so it’s easy to spot words or e-mail addresses that *always* appear in such e-mails. My rule then makes use of an action<\/strong> to set the priority<\/strong> of the e-mail to low<\/strong>. This way I can sort my inbox by priority, whereupon I can deal with the low priority items in one go.<\/p>\n

Creating a rule in Microsoft Outlook is fairly straightforward, so I won’t bore you with the precise steps involved. Your starting point is the Tools menu followed by the Rules and Alerts menu option.<\/p>\n

I have a Low Priority rule that sets all e-mail from Computer Weekly and Building Magazine have a priority of low. Sorry folks, I do read your e-mails, but I want to be able to file or delete them quickly too!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As such, this results in my inbox looking like this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As you can see, e-mails from the two parties mentioned in the rule are automatically marked as low priority. Sorting (by clicking on the ! in the header row), filing and deleting are now that bit easier.<\/p>\n

Other posts<\/strong>
\nGTD Action\/Deferred\/WaitingFor\/Someday folders in Microsoft Outlook – Show Item Count<\/a>
\nMaking e-mail simpler and easier to handle: using Microsoft Outlook rules<\/a>
\nElementary GTD using Microsoft Outlook \u201cmove to folder\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Outlook<\/a>, Outlook<\/a>, Rules<\/a>, Rules and Alerts<\/a>, low priority<\/a>, GTD<\/a>, Getting Things Done<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my earlier blog post, I hinted that I had a few more tips’n’tricks that are helping me get on top (and stay on top) of my e-mail. This one is somewhat simpler than my “move to folder” tip. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be on a number of mailing lists and online subscriptions. … Continue reading Making e-mail simpler and easier to handle: using Microsoft Outlook rules<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}